Before diving in: none of these apps are "wrong" choices. They're built for different priorities — some lean into community, some are laser-focused on one use case, some trade privacy for cloud sync. The right one depends on what you're actually optimizing for.
The apps
An Apple Design Award winner and one of the most polished habit-tracking apps available. It works as a checklist of up to a handful of habits per streak, with a clean, native iOS feel and deep integration with Health and Reminders. It's less a dedicated "day counter" and more a broader habit-checklist app, and it's a paid download rather than free.
Purpose-built for sobriety tracking, with milestone badges, daily motivational content, and an active in-app community where users can share progress and support each other. That community layer is the main draw for people who want peer support built in, though it also means creating an account and engaging with a social feature set that not everyone wants attached to something this personal. It offers a free tier with a paid subscription for extra features.
Another recovery-focused streak counter, known for supporting multiple simultaneous counters (useful if you're tracking more than one thing you're quitting) and a clean, calm interface with milestone tracking. It's more narrowly scoped toward recovery use cases than a general-purpose counter, with optional community and coaching features available as part of a paid tier.
Our own app, and the one built to do both directions at once: count up for streaks you're building, or count down to a target date, in the same app, side by side. It covers milestone tiers (bronze through purple, at day 3 up to a full year), custom emoji and notes per counter, and Home Screen and Lock Screen widgets. There's no account, no cloud sync, no community feed, and no third-party analytics — your counters live on your device only. It's free, with no subscription.
What actually matters when choosing one
Once you get past the marketing copy, the decision usually comes down to a short list of real trade-offs:
- Niche or general-purpose? A sobriety-specific app can offer clinically-minded content and a curated substance list; a general-purpose counter works for that and for anything else you want to track, but won't have recovery-specific extras.
- Community or privacy? Social features and shared milestones are motivating for some people, and something they'd rather avoid for others — especially for anything sensitive. Cloud sync also means your data lives on a server somewhere, not just on your phone.
- Do you need a widget? Seeing your count on the Home or Lock Screen without opening the app is one of the more genuinely useful features across this category — not every app offers it.
- Is it actually free? Some apps are free to download but gate core features — like more than one or two counters, or milestone history — behind a subscription. Worth checking before you get attached to a tool.
Try LOCKEDIN Day Counter
Free to download. Track streaks, crush countdowns, and stay locked in — fully private, zero setup.
The bottom line
If you want a dedicated recovery app with community support and curated content, I Am Sober or Nomo are worth trying. If you want a broad habit checklist with deep iOS integration, Streaks is excellent at that. If you'd rather have one simple, private, free app that handles both streaks and countdowns for anything you're tracking — no account, no feed, no data leaving your phone — that's what LOCKEDIN Day Counter is built for.