Head to head
Apple Health Sleep vs Rise
A stage chart and an energy schedule answer different questions, and only one of them tells you when to put the hard meeting.
In short
Apple is the better record and Rise is the better plan. If you keep opening your stage chart and still don't know what to change, Rise is the one built to answer that.
Apple's Sleep data is a record of a night, not advice about a day
With a Watch, Apple gives you measured stages and hours in bed, for free, in the place every other app reads from. As a record it's hard to beat and impossible to argue with.
It has no opinion about what you should do next. That's not a failing, it's the scope Apple chose.
Rise left the stage chart out on purpose
Rise is a sleep-debt and body-clock coach. It doesn't chart your stages, and that's a decision rather than a gap: its argument is that how much sleep you owe and when your energy peaks will change your behaviour, and a stage chart usually won't.
Whether you agree with that is the entire decision on this page. Plenty of people have looked at deep sleep percentages for years and changed nothing.
Sleep debt is easier to act on than a score
One number, going up or down, with an obvious lever attached to it. That's a different kind of feedback from a bar chart of last night, and for a lot of people it's the first version that ever produced a behaviour change.
The energy timing is aimed at the same place: not at reviewing the night, but at where you'll actually feel it, somewhere around three in the afternoon.
Rise runs on iPhone and Android and works from your history rather than requiring a wearable.
Who is really choosing between these two
People with plenty of data and no plan. If the Watch has been logging faithfully for a year and your mornings are exactly as bad as they were, more measurement isn't the missing piece.
If you don't have the data yet, start with Apple's, because it's free and it's already running.
| What we compared | Apple Health Sleep | Rise |
|---|---|---|
| The organising idea | Hours in bed, stages (about the same) | Sleep debt and energy (about the same) |
| Stage charts | Yes, with a Watch (stronger here) | Left out by design |
| Planning the day ahead | Not its job | Energy peaks, hour by hour (stronger here) |
| Needs a wearable | For stages, yes | No, works from history (stronger here) |
| Coaching | None offered | Structured, not a chat window (stronger here) |
| Android in the house | Apple devices only | iPhone and Android (stronger here) |
| Quieting the phone at night | Sleep Focus, built in (stronger here) | Not what it does |
| Where the numbers come from | The system of record (stronger here) | Your history and schedule |
Which one to actually install
Pick Apple Health Sleep if
Apple's Sleep data is the right answer if you want the facts of the night with nothing to manage. Free, measured stages with a Watch, and readable by everything else you install.
Pick Rise if
Rise is the one to try if charts have stopped helping. Sleep debt gives you a single number to act on, and the energy timing aims at the shape of your day rather than the shape of your night.
Questions people ask
Why does Rise not show sleep stages?
Because it decided not to. Its case is that sleep debt and energy timing change what you do, and a stage chart usually doesn't. Agreeing or disagreeing with that is the whole choice.
Does Rise need an Apple Watch?
No. It works from your history and your schedule, which is part of why people who don't want to wear anything to bed end up with it.
Can Rise wake me up?
Waking you generally isn't what Rise is for. Your alarm stays wherever it already lives.
Do I have to stop using Apple Health?
No. Apple Health carries on being the system of record on your phone whatever else you install, and most people run both without thinking about it.
Where Tock sits against each of them
These pages are written the same way as this one, which means they state what Apple Health Sleep and Rise each do better than we do.
Related matchups
Other pairings involving one of these two.
- 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.
- Apple Health Sleep vs AutoSleepIf you wear your Apple Watch to bed and want to know how long you slept, Apple's own tracking is free and already doing it. AutoSleep is for the person who wants that night pulled apart into far more detail than Apple would ever ship.
- Apple Health Sleep vs PillowApple's built-in tracking is enough if you want hours and stages and nothing more. Pillow is for the Watch wearer who finds Apple's presentation too thin and wants the night detected and shaped for them without pressing anything.
- 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 RiseAutoSleep is for the Apple Watch owner who wants the night in detail. Rise is for the person who has seen enough charts and wants to know why the afternoon keeps falling apart.
- 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.
- Rise vs SleepScoreIf you will genuinely change your bedtime because an app asked you to, Rise is the more useful of the two. If you want the night measured properly without wearing anything, SleepScore.
Elsewhere on the site
A different corner of the same problem.
- FeaturesApple HealthTock reads Apple Health for sleep, heart rate, resting heart rate, HRV, blood oxygen, respiratory rate and wrist temperature, and shows them on the night they belong to. It can also write its own nights back into Health, but that setting defaults to off.
- Sleep soundsStreamA small stream is mostly mid and high frequency water noise with very little below a couple of hundred hertz, so it sounds alive and close but has almost nothing to fight a passing truck with. It suits a quiet bedroom where you want an alternative to silence, not a room you are trying to defend.
- Tock for youHeavy sleepersYou have slept through alarms you definitely heard, and turned some of them off without ever waking up. The problem is not your hearing. The part of you that swipes an alarm away is awake several minutes before the part of you that makes decisions.
- AlternativesTock vs Sleep as AndroidSleep as Android is Android only, so an iPhone owner cannot have it at any price. Tock is the nearest thing on iOS in spirit: sleep tracking from the phone, a smart wake window, snore detection and a task before the alarm stops. It is not as deep, and it does not talk to your smart bulbs.
- RoundupsThe best free alarm apps for iPhoneThe best free alarm app for iPhone is the Clock app that came with it. It is free forever, it rings through silent mode and a Focus, and it has never failed. Alarmy is the best free option if you need an alarm that is hard to turn off. Tock is not free and is listed last for that reason.
- Wake timesWaking up at 4:30amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 4:30am alarm.
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.