Head to head
Alarmy vs the iPhone Clock app
One of these came with your phone and costs nothing. The other exists because the free one is too easy to silence at six in the morning.
In short
If you get up when your alarm goes off, the Clock app is the honest answer and Alarmy is friction you don't need. If you dismiss alarms in your sleep and it has already cost you something, Alarmy's tasks are the only thing on this page that changes the outcome.
The Clock app is not trying to change your behaviour
Apple's alarm rings at the time you set it, on a phone you already own, with no account and no subscription. It has never once failed because a developer shipped a bad build, and it will still be sitting on your home screen in ten years. For a lot of people that is the entire specification.
What it can't do is notice anything. It doesn't watch your sleep, so it can't move your alarm into a lighter moment, and it doesn't care whether you stood up or rolled over. Snooze is one swipe away and always will be.
Alarmy sells one idea and does not apologise for it
Alarmy's whole identity is making you complete a task before the noise stops. Its range of dismissal tasks is the widest of any alarm app, which is the point: when one gets easy, there's another. It leans loud and gamified on purpose, because quiet alarms are the ones you beat.
There's a free tier, and that matters more than it sounds. You can find out inside a week whether tasks work on you. Plenty of people discover they can solve a maths problem half asleep and go straight back to bed.
Alarmy also runs on Android, so it is the one to pass on to a friend who is not on iPhone.
Almost everyone asking this has already slept through something
Nobody compares a paid alarm app against the free one out of curiosity. There was a train, an exam, a shift, a flight. So the useful question isn't which app is better, it's which half of the morning broke: the alarm being too easy to dismiss, or you being too deep asleep to hear it in the first place.
If it's the first, Alarmy is built for exactly that. If it's the second, a harder task at the wrong moment won't save you, because you have to be awake enough to do it.
There is a third shape this argument can take
Tock is an iPhone alarm built on AlarmKit, the same Apple framework the system alarm behaviour comes from, so it rings through silent mode and a Focus with the app closed. It asks one small task before it stops, and it tracks the night before, so it can ring a few minutes early while you're already in a lighter moment.
Tock has no free tier: a 3-day trial, then a subscription from $39.99 a year.
| What we compared | Alarmy | the iPhone Clock app |
|---|---|---|
| What it is built to fix | You dismissing the alarm (about the same) | You needing a time (about the same) |
| Cost | A free tier exists | Free, no account (stronger here) |
| Dismissal tasks | The widest range anywhere (stronger here) | Swipe, or hit snooze |
| Setting it up | Choose a task first | Type a time, done (stronger here) |
| Waking you at a lighter moment | Fixed time only (about the same) | Fixed time only (about the same) |
| How it feels | Loud and gamified (about the same) | Plain and quiet (about the same) |
| Still working in ten years | A third-party app | Ships with iOS (stronger here) |
| Recommending it to an Android friend | Works there too (stronger here) | Not available |
Which one to actually install
Pick Alarmy if
Get Alarmy if the alarm itself is the failure point. You've dismissed one in your sleep, it cost you something, and you want the most stubborn answer on the App Store. Start on the free tier and find out this week whether tasks actually work on you.
Pick the iPhone Clock app if
Stay with the Clock app if you get up when it rings and you're only here because someone told you their alarm app was better. Free, built in and never broken is a hard combination to beat.
Pick neither if
If you want the task without the shouting, Tock sits in the middle. It's an iPhone alarm on AlarmKit, so it rings on silent and through a Focus, it asks one small thing before it stops, and it watches the half hour before your alarm so it can catch you in a lighter moment. No free tier, though: a 3-day trial, then from $39.99 a year.
Questions people ask
Can the iPhone Clock app make me solve something before it stops?
No. Apple's alarm gives you a stop button and a snooze button, and that's the whole interaction. If you want a task in the way, it has to come from another app.
Is Alarmy's free tier enough on its own?
It's enough to answer the only question that matters, which is whether dismissal tasks get you upright. What sits behind the paywall changes over time, so check the current listing before you assume the free version is the whole product.
Does either one watch my sleep and ring earlier?
Neither. The Clock app doesn't track anything, and Alarmy's job starts when the alarm goes off rather than before it. Ringing early in a lighter moment needs an app that was tracking the night.
I am on Android. Does this comparison still work?
Half of it. Alarmy runs on Android too, but the iPhone Clock app doesn't exist there, so your real comparison is Alarmy against whatever clock app shipped with your phone.
Where Tock sits against each of them
These pages are written the same way as this one, which means they state what Alarmy and the iPhone Clock app each do better than we do.
Related matchups
Other pairings involving one of these two.
- Alarmy vs PillowThese two aren't really competing. Choose Alarmy if the problem is that you stay in bed. Choose Pillow if you own an Apple Watch and the problem is that you have no idea what your nights look like.
- Alarmy vs Sleep as AndroidOn an iPhone this is over before it starts: Sleep as Android is Android only, so Alarmy is your only option of the two. On Android, take Sleep as Android if you want depth, and Alarmy if you only want the alarm to be harder to beat.
- Alarmy vs Sleep CyclePick Alarmy if you sleep through alarms and need one you can't beat. Pick Sleep Cycle if you wake up on time but feel wrecked when you do, and you want a gentler window plus a record of the night.
- the iPhone Clock app vs Apple Health SleepThis isn't a choice. The Clock app is the alarm and Apple's Sleep schedule is the plan around it, and if you wear an Apple Watch to bed the Sleep side is the only one of the two that records anything at all.
- the iPhone Clock app vs Sleep as AndroidYour phone already decided this. Sleep as Android has no iOS version and Apple's Clock app has no Android version, so unless you're switching phones over an alarm clock, the answer is whichever one you can install.
Elsewhere on the site
A different corner of the same problem.
- BedtimesGoing to bed at 10:00pmWhere to put the alarm after a 10:00pm lights-out.
- Sleep by ageHow much sleep adults needThe American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that adults sleep 7 or more hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health. It is expressed as a minimum rather than a range because the evidence supports a lower bound far more firmly than it supports an ideal figure.
- NapsThe coffee napA coffee nap means drinking caffeine and then immediately napping for about 20 minutes. Caffeine takes roughly 20 to 30 minutes to have a noticeable effect, so it does not stop you falling asleep quickly, and you wake as it takes hold. The two effects add rather than cancel.
- Wake tonesAnnoying alarm soundsAn unbearable alarm tone works for roughly a week. After that you learn to silence it before you are properly conscious, and you are back where you started with a worse mood attached. The durable fix is not a harsher sound, it is making the alarm end somewhere your half-asleep self cannot reach.
- FeaturesStreaksTock counts a night toward your streak at 90% of your sleep goal, and it bridges one missed night per week automatically. Milestones sit at 3, 7, 14, 30, 60, 100, 180 and 365 nights, drawn as a moon rather than a flame.
- Sleep soundsFireplaceA fire is a soft broadband roar with sparse, sharp crackles laid on top, and those crackles are transients, precisely the kind of sudden sound a light sleeper surfaces for. It is one of the best wind-down sounds in the library and one of the weakest choices to leave running until morning.
If neither of them is quite the alarm you wanted
Tock is built on Apple AlarmKit, so it rings on silent and through a Focus, moves earlier when it finds a lighter moment, and keeps ringing until you solve something.