Head to head
Alarmy vs Sleep Cycle
Gentle and brutal are both strategies for the same problem, and which one works on you depends entirely on which part of your morning goes wrong.
In short
Pick 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.
Sleep Cycle looks for a better moment, Alarmy does not care what moment it is
Sleep Cycle is the original phone-microphone sleep tracker, and its smart alarm rings inside a window rather than on the dot. The bet is that a few minutes either side of your alarm can be the difference between getting up and being dragged up.
Alarmy makes the opposite bet. The moment is irrelevant, because the failure it's designed around isn't waking badly, it's not waking at all.
Friction is the only thing that works on some people
If you've ever turned an alarm off with no memory of doing it, you already know that a kinder alarm is a worse alarm. Alarmy's range of dismissal tasks is the widest of any app, which matters because tasks get easy: when you've beaten one half asleep, there's another waiting.
The free tier means you can find out inside a week which camp you're in, and that's cheaper than reading another comparison.
Years of nightly history is the one thing you cannot go back and collect
Sleep Cycle has been around long enough that people who started with it have years of nights to compare themselves against. That archive is the real switching cost, and it's the reason long-time users stay put even when something newer shows up.
It's also a long-established name, which sounds trivial until you're explaining your sleep app to a partner or a doctor.
Both apps run on iPhone and Android, so neither one locks a mixed household out.
Work out which failure is yours before you pay for either
Late for things means Alarmy. Tired at things means Sleep Cycle. If you're both, start with the one that has consequences attached, because a rough morning you turned up to still beats a good night you slept through.
| What we compared | Alarmy | Sleep Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| The core idea | Friction until you're up (about the same) | A gentler window (about the same) |
| When it rings | The minute you set | Somewhere inside a window (stronger here) |
| If you sleep through alarms | Built for exactly that (stronger here) | Gentler by design |
| Range of dismissal tasks | The widest anywhere (stronger here) | Not what it sells |
| Tracking the night | Not the main event | Microphone, every night (stronger here) |
| Years of your own history | Alarms, not archives | Deep, if you started early (stronger here) |
| Help getting to sleep | Wake tones | A large library (stronger here) |
| Sharing the habit at home | iPhone and Android (about the same) | iPhone and Android (about the same) |
Which one to actually install
Pick Alarmy if
Alarmy wins when the alarm is the point of failure. You need the task, the noise and the refusal to stop, and you need those more than you need a chart. The free tier lets you test that this week.
Pick Sleep Cycle if
Sleep Cycle wins when you already get up on time and want the morning to hurt less. The window gives it a chance to ring at a kinder moment, the sleep aid library helps with the falling asleep half, and if you stay for years the history becomes the reason you never leave.
Questions people ask
Can Sleep Cycle make me solve something to turn it off?
That isn't its shape. Its smart alarm is about when it rings rather than how hard it is to stop. If you need a task in the way, Alarmy is the one built for it.
Are Sleep Cycle's sleep stages measured?
No. Anything worked out from a phone microphone on a nightstand is an estimate of the shape of your night, not a measurement of your body. Measured stages need something you wear.
Does Alarmy track my sleep as well?
The night before the alarm isn't what it sells. Its identity is the dismissal task. If the night matters to you, Sleep Cycle is the column to read.
Can I use both?
You can, and the pairing isn't unreasonable: Sleep Cycle for the night, Alarmy for the morning. Two apps running all night and two things to keep paying attention to is the usual reason people drop back to one.
Where Tock sits against each of them
These pages are written the same way as this one, which means they state what Alarmy and Sleep Cycle each do better than we do.
Related matchups
Other pairings involving one of these two.
- Alarmy vs the iPhone Clock appIf 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.
- 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.
- Apple Health Sleep vs Sleep CycleIf you wear an Apple Watch to bed, Apple's built-in tracking is more accurate and costs nothing, so Sleep Cycle has to win on the alarm and the sound library instead. If you don't own a Watch, Sleep Cycle is the only one of the two that records anything.
- AutoSleep vs Sleep CycleIf you already wear an Apple Watch to bed, AutoSleep reads a night that Sleep Cycle can only estimate from the room. If you don't own a Watch and don't want one, Sleep Cycle is the only one of the two that works, and it's your alarm as well.
- Calm vs Sleep CycleIf the problem is lying awake with a busy head, Calm. If the problem is groggy mornings and having no idea what your nights look like, Sleep Cycle. Most people searching this have already decided which; they just have not said it out loud.
- Pillow vs Sleep CycleIf you wear an Apple Watch to bed, Pillow gives you measured stage data and starts itself. If you do not own a Watch, or half the house is on Android, Sleep Cycle is the sensible pick.
- Rise vs Sleep CycleIf you want to plan a day around your energy and stop spiralling over one bad night, Rise. If you want the night itself drawn out and an alarm that finds a lighter moment, Sleep Cycle.
Elsewhere on the site
A different corner of the same problem.
- 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 10 minute napA 10 minute nap lifts alertness without taking you into slow wave sleep, so you wake up clear rather than groggy. It is the safest nap to take close to work or driving, and it does nothing for memory consolidation, which needs considerably longer.
- Wake tonesCustom alarm soundTock comes with 18 wake tones, and if none of them suit you it takes your own audio as the alarm instead. Whatever you choose still gets scheduled through Apple's AlarmKit, so the silent switch, an active Focus and a fully closed app have no bearing on whether it rings.
- FeaturesSleep trackingSleep tracking in Tock runs on the phone alone. The microphone and the accelerometer stay awake all night, Apple SoundAnalysis labels sounds like snoring, coughing and sleep talking on device, and the clips are saved so you can play them back in the morning.
- Sleep soundsPianoSlow piano gives your attention somewhere pleasant to go while you are letting go of the day, which is why it works so well as a wind-down. Every note also begins with a hammer hitting a string, and those sudden starts are exactly what keeps a light sleeper coming back up, so Tock fades it out rather than running it to your alarm.
- Tock for youNight owlsYou are wide awake at 1am and useless at 7am, and every piece of advice you have ever read starts with going to bed earlier, which you have done, repeatedly, while staring at the ceiling.
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.