Head to head
Rise vs Sleep Cycle
Sleep debt or a chart of last night: those are the two ideas on the table, and they pull in opposite directions. One is about tomorrow. The other is about what already happened.
In short
If 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.
Sleep debt is a better handle than a nightly score for most people
Rise organises everything around how much sleep you owe and when your body clock says your energy will peak. That framing does something a nightly chart cannot: it survives a bad Tuesday. One rough night moves a running total slightly instead of handing you a red number to feel bad about.
It is also aimed at the day rather than the night. Knowing when your focus window lands is the kind of thing you can actually schedule around, which is more use than knowing how many minutes of deep sleep an algorithm thinks you had.
Rise deliberately does not chart your stages. That is a design decision, not a missing feature.
Sleep Cycle draws the night and then ends it
Sleep Cycle listens with the phone microphone, estimates the shape of the night, and rings inside a window near your set time so it can catch you in a lighter moment. If you want to see the night rather than a running balance, this is the one that shows it to you.
It has also been at this a very long time, which means a track record and, if you started years ago, a personal archive worth keeping.
Choose by what you will do with the information
Both apps produce something to look at, and neither is worth much if you do not act on it. Rise expects you to change your bedtime and plan your day. Sleep Cycle expects you to notice patterns and to let it move your alarm.
Be honest about which of those you will actually do. A person who ignores advice should not buy a coach, and a person who never opens a chart should not buy a tracker.
When the alarm is the piece you are missing
Rise is not the thing that wakes you, which trips people up. If the alarm is the part you care about, Tock is built the other way round: an AlarmKit alarm that rings on silent and through a Focus, watching the last thirty minutes before your set time so it can ring early in a lighter moment. Your set time is always the fallback.
It estimates rather than measures stages on phone-only nights and it is iPhone only. No free tier: a 3-day trial, then from $39.99 a year.
| What we compared | Rise | Sleep Cycle |
|---|---|---|
| The number it organises around | Sleep debt, carried forward (stronger here) | How last night went |
| Planning tomorrow | Energy peaks mapped out (stronger here) | Not its job |
| Drawing the shape of the night | Not what it charts | Estimated stages, nightly (stronger here) |
| Ending the night | Generally not your alarm | A smart alarm window (stronger here) |
| Guidance | A structured programme (stronger here) | A library of sleep aids |
| A long personal history | Built on your schedule | Years of nights, if you stayed (stronger here) |
| Android households | Yes, on both platforms (about the same) | Yes, on both platforms (about the same) |
Which one to actually install
Pick Rise if
Rise is for the person who wants to run their day better. Sleep debt and energy peaks are the numbers, and the coaching around them is more structured than a chat window.
Pick Sleep Cycle if
Sleep Cycle is for the person who wants the night on a chart and a smarter alarm at the end of it, with a long history to compare against if you stick with it.
Pick neither if
If you want the alarm to be the point, neither is built that way. Tock leads with the alarm, tracks the night from the phone to move the ring earlier, and asks you to solve something small before the sound stops.
Questions people ask
Does Rise show sleep stages?
No, and that is on purpose. Rise cares about how much sleep you owe and when your energy peaks rather than how the night broke down. If a stage chart is what you want, Sleep Cycle draws one.
Can Rise wake me up in the morning?
Rise is a coach rather than an alarm clock. Sleep Cycle is the one of the two built to wake you, with a window near your set time instead of an exact minute.
Which one is better for shift work?
Rise, generally. A running sleep-debt total and a body-clock model handle a moving schedule better than a nightly score that assumes you go to bed at roughly the same time.
Where Tock sits against each of them
These pages are written the same way as this one, which means they state what Rise and Sleep Cycle each do better than we do.
Related matchups
Other pairings involving one of these two.
- 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.
- Apple Health Sleep vs RiseApple 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 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.
- 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 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.
- AlternativesTock vs RiseChoose Rise if planning your day around energy peaks and a running sleep debt is what actually changes your behaviour. Choose Tock if you want the alarm itself to be smarter, the night recorded from the phone, and a coach that can talk about what it heard.
- RoundupsThe best alarm clock apps for iPhoneFor most iPhone owners the best alarm clock app is the one already installed. The Clock app is free, reliable and enough. Tock is the upgrade worth paying for once the Clock app stops working, which usually means you dismiss it without remembering or you wake up feeling wrecked every morning.
- Wake timesWaking up at 5:00amBedtimes by sleep cycle for a 5:00am alarm.
- BedtimesGoing to bed at 9:30pmWhere to put the alarm after a 9:30pm lights-out.
- Sleep by ageHow much sleep babies needThe American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends that infants aged 4 to 12 months sleep 12 to 16 hours per 24 hours, including naps, on a regular basis. Sleep at this age is spread across the day rather than consolidated into one block, and the total is what the recommendation is about.
- NapsThe 30 minute napA 30 minute nap frequently ends inside slow wave sleep, which produces the strongest sleep inertia of any nap length. That is the heavy, disoriented feeling that can take twenty minutes or more to clear, and it is why 20 minutes or a full 90 minute cycle are both better choices.
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.