Most alarm comparisons are about degree. This one is about kind. Erly and Mornio are trying to change different things, and if you pick the wrong one you will find yourself resenting features you never wanted.
Two different theories of waking up
Erly's theory: waking early is a habit, and habits respond to momentum. So it gives you missions, streaks, history, a daily check-in and locked deadlines, and asks you to care about not breaking the run. Its App Store subtitle is “Alarm To Stop Snoozing,” and it is filed under Health & Fitness rather than Lifestyle, which tells you how it sees itself.
Mornio's theory: the alarm fails at a specific moment, and that moment should be engineered away. So the alarm cannot be dismissed from bed, and a few minutes after you dismiss it, something checks that you stayed up. There is no streak, no score and no history of your discipline, only a record of what happened each morning.
Neither theory is wrong. They suit different people, and plenty of people are honestly better served by Erly.
Side by side
| Mornio | Erly | |
|---|---|---|
| Developer | Mornio | Glacier Labs LLC |
| Minimum iOS | 26.1 | 17.6 |
| Other platforms | iPhone only | Also macOS 14.6+ and visionOS |
| App size | 6.9 MB | 232.8 MB |
| Category | Lifestyle | Health & Fitness |
| Age rating | 4+ | 13+ |
| How you dismiss it | Scan your registered QR code or barcode | Complete a mission |
| Follow-up after dismissal | Stay-awake check, then protection restarts | Daily accountability check-in |
| Streaks and gamification | None | Streaks, history, gamified progress |
| Backup alarm | Yes | Not stated on listing |
| Account required | No, none at all | Not stated on listing |
| Data used to track you | None declared | Identifiers, Usage Data |
| Price | Free tier; Pro $7.99/mo or $29.99/yr | Free with in-app purchases |
We are not publishing an Erly rating count. Apple's listing and third-party trackers disagreed materially when we checked, and we would rather print nothing than print a number we cannot stand behind.
Where Erly is better
Habit-building, reach and momentum
- Streaks genuinely work for some people. If you will not break a 40-day run, that is a powerful lever, and Mornio deliberately does not pull it. This is a real feature gap, not a philosophical win for us.
- It is aimed at changing your wake time, not just surviving tomorrow. Mornio protects a morning. Erly is trying to move your baseline.
- Wider reach. iOS 17.6 and later, plus macOS 14.6 and visionOS. Mornio is iPhone only on iOS 26.1.
- Accountability structure: daily check-ins and locked deadlines give the day a shape that a single alarm does not.
Where Mornio is better
Privacy, restraint and the specific failure
- No account and no tracking. Erly's privacy label declares Identifiers and Usage Data used to track you. Mornio declares nothing in that section and has no sign-up at all.
- No gamification. For some people a streak is not motivation but pressure, and a broken streak becomes a reason to give up entirely. If that is you, Mornio's lack of scoring is the feature.
- The follow-up is immediate, not daily. Mornio's stay-awake check fires minutes after you dismiss the alarm and restarts protection if you ignore it. A daily check-in works on a different timescale and will not catch you climbing back into bed at 6:35.
- Location-anchored dismissal. Scanning a specific registered code requires being physically elsewhere in your home.
- 6.9 MB against 232.8 MB, and no onboarding questionnaire standing between you and your first alarm.
A note on paywalls
A recurring theme in Erly's public App Store reviews is frustration at hitting a subscription wall after a long setup flow. We mention it because it comes up repeatedly and it is the kind of thing worth knowing in advance, not because it makes Erly a bad app. Many highly rated apps use that pattern.
For transparency about our own: Mornio's free tier covers one protected alarm, and new users get three Protected Mornings with the full Pro experience, no card required. After that the stay-awake check needs Pro at $7.99 monthly or $29.99 yearly.