The short version
Both apps refuse to let you dismiss the alarm until you have done something. The difference is what that something is, and what happens to your data while you do it. Alarmy asks you to prove you are awake: solve a sum, type a sentence, shake the phone, scan a barcode, take a matching photo. First Light asks you to do something worth doing anyway, push-ups, a walk, a page of your journal, and verifies the movement missions through the camera without recording anything. Alarmy is free to start, with ads, and runs on Android. First Light is a paid iPhone app with no ads, no accounts and no server.
Side by side
| First Light | Alarmy | |
|---|---|---|
| Platform | iPhone, iOS 26 and later | iPhone and Android |
| Price | One week free, then £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year. Everything included. | Free with ads and a subset of missions; premium subscription unlocks the rest. Check the App Store for current pricing. |
| What ends the alarm | Finishing a mission. Stop quiets it for ninety seconds and it returns five more times across ten minutes. | Completing a mission. Snooze, wake-up checks and mission difficulty are configurable. |
| Missions | Push-ups, squats, morning steps, yoga, handstand practice, journaling, reading ten pages, meditation, Bible reading, prayer, and custom missions. | Maths, typing, memory, shake, photo, QR or barcode, squats and steps. |
| What the mission is for | Starting the day with something you wanted to do anyway. | Proving you are awake enough to be trusted to stay up. |
| Exercise verification | Camera watches for movement during push-ups and squats; the countdown only runs while you move. Steps via the pedometer. | Squats and steps counted using the phone's motion sensors. |
| Habit stacking | After three mornings in a row it offers a second mission the moment you finish the first. Optional, saved once you say yes. | Not a feature; multiple missions can be chained on one alarm. |
| Progress | Streak that respects your schedule, level that never resets, best-set charts over weeks, ranks at 7, 30 and 66 mornings. | Sleep and wake-up statistics, morning feeling log. |
| Extras | None. It is an alarm. | Sleep sounds, bedtime routine, wake-up check, weather and news on dismissal. |
| Ads | None | In the free version |
| Data | No accounts, no server, no analytics. Mission photos stay on the phone. Camera frames are reduced to a brightness grid and discarded. | Account optional; see Alarmy's privacy policy for what is collected. |
| Rings through Silent mode | Yes, via Apple's AlarmKit | Yes |
Alarmy's feature set moves; the row for it is accurate to the best of our knowledge in September 2026 and we will correct anything they change. If you spot an error, tell us.
Where Alarmy is the better choice
- You are on Android. First Light is iPhone only, and will stay that way until Android can make the same reliability promise.
- You want it free. Alarmy's free tier is a real product. First Light has a trial, then a subscription, and no free tier.
- You want puzzles. If a maths problem at 6:30 is what gets you up, Alarmy has a decade of practice at it, with difficulty levels from trivial to genuinely hard.
- You want a bedtime app too. Sleep sounds, bedtime reminders and morning weather are Alarmy features. First Light stops at the alarm.
Where First Light is
- You want the wake-up to be the workout. First Light does not ask you to prove you are awake and then leave you to decide what to do about it. The mission is the first thing you wanted to do anyway, and thirty seconds of push-ups is a stronger end to sleep inertia than any sum.
- You care what the camera sees. During movement missions, each frame is shrunk to a coarse grid of brightness values, compared with the last, and discarded. Nothing is recorded or uploaded. There is no server to upload to.
- You want to build a routine, not just get up. Habit stacking offers the second mission at the moment you are most likely to say yes: right after finishing the first. It is how a push-up alarm becomes push-ups then meditation then a page of journaling, one carriage at a time.
- You would rather pay than be advertised to. One subscription, everything included, no upsells inside the app.
Switching
There is nothing to import. Set one alarm in First Light for tomorrow with a mission you will definitely clear, keep Alarmy installed for a week as a backstop if it makes you feel better, and see which one you are still using. The free week is there for exactly that.
Questions people ask
Is First Light a free Alarmy alternative?
No. First Light has a one-week free trial, then £5.99 a month or £39.99 a year, and no free tier. Alarmy has a free version with ads and some missions, and a premium subscription for the rest. If you want a free mission alarm, Alarmy's free tier is the honest recommendation.
Can First Light do maths or typing missions?
No, and that is on purpose. Maths, typing and memory games prove you are awake enough to solve a puzzle. First Light's missions are things worth doing anyway: push-ups, a walk, a page of your journal, ten minutes of meditation. Once it is done, you have already started the day, not just proved you could.
Does First Light have a photo mission like Alarmy?
Every timed mission starts with a photo of the thing you are about to do, your mat, your journal, your book, and then runs a timer you cannot skip. It is closer to Alarmy's photo mission plus a timer than to the photo mission alone.
Which one is more reliable at ringing?
Both ring through Silent mode. First Light is built on AlarmKit, Apple's alarm framework in iOS 26, the same system the built-in Clock uses, which is why it requires iOS 26. Alarmy has years of production history across iOS and Android. Neither can ring if you turn the phone off.
Does First Light work on Android?
No. It is iPhone only and requires iOS 26. Alarmy runs on both platforms.
What does First Light not have that Alarmy does?
Sleep sounds, a bedtime routine, wake-up checks, maths and typing missions, an Android app, and a free tier. First Light is a smaller, narrower product: an alarm, ten missions, habit stacking and progress, with everything stored on the phone.