Who wrote this: The first entry below — Kalend — is ours. It leads because it is free outright with no habit cap, which is the thing people leaving Streaks are usually looking for. On the other three tests in this post the apps below it win in places, and each entry says where. Kalend carries the same "watch out" as everything else, including the fact that it has not shipped yet. No affiliate links: we earn nothing whichever app you choose.
Almost every "Streaks alternative" list has the same flaw. It recommends cross-platform apps to an audience that is, by definition, entirely on iPhone — and it quietly skips the two features Streaks people actually rely on every day. Not the charts. The wrist and the Home Screen.
If you use Streaks properly you barely open it. You tick things off from the Watch while the kettle boils, and glance at a widget the rest of the time. An app without both is not an alternative, whatever its charts look like. So every app here is scored on four things.
1. Is there a real Apple Watch app? Not a complication that deep-links to the phone — watchOS listed in App Store compatibility. Two apps here fail that outright, and a third fails it in practice.
2. Are there Home Screen widgets? Ideally interactive ones, so a tick does not mean launching the app.
3. What does the free tier cap? Usually three habits — low enough that you hit it in week one, which is exactly when the upgrade sheet appears.
4. Does sync need a vendor account? Two years of entries covering drinking, medication and therapy is a sensitive file. Syncing through your own iCloud is not the same as a copy on a company server behind a login.
At a glance
| App | Apple Watch app | Home Screen widgets | Free habit cap | Sync without an account |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kalend (ours) | Yes | Yes | No cap | Yes — your own iCloud |
| Awesome Habits | Yes — watchOS 10+ | Yes, interactive | Not documented | Yes — your own iCloud |
| Habitify | Yes — watchOS 10.6+ | Yes, the widest set here | 3 habits | No — Habitify account |
| Do Habits | Yes — watchOS 9+ | Yes | 3 habits | Not documented |
| Strides | Yes — watchOS 8+ | Not documented | 3 trackers | No — sync is paid |
| Productive | Yes — watchOS 7+ | Not documented | Capped, size unstated | Not documented |
| HabitKit | No | Yes, the best-looking | Not documented | No sync — device only |
| Way of Life | No | Yes | 3 habits | No working iCloud sync |
The apps in detail
Kalend
Ours- Best for
- People who want habits to sit next to their to-dos, calendar and journal in one app, and who want sync that never touches a vendor's server.
- Highlights
- Four tabs in one app: To-Do, Calendar, Habits and Journal, rather than a habit tracker bolted onto nothing
- Apple Watch app, Home Screen widgets, a Control Center control and Siri/Shortcuts App Intents — the full Apple-ecosystem set Streaks users expect
- Habit schedules cover daily, weekdays, N per week and every N days, with streaks that forgive an unscheduled day, a month history grid and a 365-day record strip
- Sync runs through your own iCloud: no Kalend account, no server of ours, no analytics
- No habit cap, because there is no paid tier to upsell you to
- Pricing
- Free — no subscription, no in-app purchases, no ads, no paid tier and no upsell
- Watch out
- It is brand new and has no track record — as of 6 August 2026 it is in App Store review, not yet approved, so nobody has been able to download it or review it. The habit statistics are deliberately simple next to Streaks' charts, there is no Apple Health integration, no Android or web version, and no team or collaboration features. Disclosure: we make it.
Awesome Habits
- Best for
- The closest thing to a like-for-like Streaks replacement that costs nothing to start — it clears all four tests without asking you to sign up for anything.
- Highlights
- App Store compatibility lists iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision and Apple Watch (watchOS 10.0 or later) — a real Watch app, not just a phone app with a complication
- Interactive Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy widgets, plus Apple Watch complications and a Smart Stack widget
- Syncs through your own iCloud — the developer's site states plainly that there is no need to create an account
- Works with Apple Health and can pull in metrics like sleep, steps, active energy and workouts automatically
- Well rated for a small app: roughly 920 ratings at 4.8
- Pricing
- Free with a paid tier; Premium sold as a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-off lifetime unlock
- Watch out
- Neither the App Store listing nor the developer's own site says what the free tier actually withholds — there is a Premium subscription, so something is gated, but you cannot find out what until you have installed it and started building habits. It is also a small operation, so support depends on one developer staying interested.
Habitify
- Best for
- Someone who genuinely does use more than one platform and will accept an account in exchange for the broadest widget and Watch support in this list.
- Highlights
- App Store compatibility lists iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Vision and Apple Watch (watchOS 10.6 or later)
- The widest widget set of anything here — small, medium and large, single-habit, multi-habit and weekly-grid views, interactive on iOS 17+ and on the Lock Screen
- The vendor's own pricing page states the free plan is limited to "3 habits", and notably includes cross-platform sync at no cost
- Apple Health integration and API/automation support on the paid tier
- Heavily maintained and widely used: version 43.0.0 shipped 23 July 2026, with around 7,000 ratings at 4.6
- Pricing
- Free tier capped at three habits; Premium is a yearly subscription or a one-off lifetime unlock, with separate Plus and Family tiers
- Watch out
- Sync runs through a Habitify account on Habitify's servers, not your iCloud — there is a web app and Android client, which is only possible with a vendor-held copy of your data. That is the opposite of what most Streaks refugees want. Three habits is also a tight free cap, and it is the single most common complaint in its App Store reviews.
Do Habits: Get It Done
- Best for
- Tracking habits you do several times a day rather than once — and for anyone who wants streak protection built in for holidays and sick days.
- Highlights
- Apple Watch listed in App Store compatibility (watchOS 9.0 or later), plus Home Screen widgets and HealthKit integration
- Handles goals set daily, weekly, monthly or yearly, and lets a single goal be completed multiple times a day — unusual in this category
- Skip Days and Vacation Mode deliberately protect a streak during a planned break
- Free version allows up to three habits; Premium removes the cap
- The most actively shipped app in this roundup — version 4.2.0 landed within the last week
- Pricing
- Free with a paid tier; a one-off premium upgrade, a lifetime membership and separate subscription bundles run alongside each other
- Watch out
- The weakest ratings in this list (around 4.0 from roughly 17,000 ratings) and a confusing pile of overlapping purchase options — a one-off upgrade, a lifetime membership and monthly/yearly bundles all sold at once, which makes it genuinely hard to work out what you need to buy. It also renamed itself from "Done", so older reviews and roundups refer to a different name.
Strides
- Best for
- Goal-setters who want to track a number — weight, savings, kilometres — rather than only tick a box, and who are happy paying to unlock it.
- Highlights
- Apple Watch listed in App Store compatibility (watchOS 8.0 or later), alongside iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Vision
- Four distinct tracker types — daily habits, numeric targets, running averages and multi-step projects — where most rivals only do yes/no ticks
- The most established app here by a wide margin: roughly 19,000 ratings at 4.8
- Still shipping: version 19.12 released 26 July 2026
- Pricing
- Free tier capped at three trackers; Strides Plus is a subscription with a one-off lifetime option
- Watch out
- Sync between devices is a paid feature. On the free tier your data lives on one device, which means the free version cannot feed the Apple Watch app that the listing advertises — the exact combination this post is testing for. Three trackers free is also tight, and the paid ladder runs an unusually wide spread of price points.
Productive
- Best for
- People who want structure handed to them — guided programmes, challenges and prompts — rather than a blank grid to fill in themselves.
- Highlights
- Apple Watch listed in App Store compatibility (watchOS 7.0 or later)
- By far the largest audience in this roundup — roughly 91,000 ratings at 4.6
- Ships guided Programs and Challenges with daily tips and reflection check-ins, which no other app in this list attempts
- Premium's headline feature is an unlimited number of habits, so the free tier is capped
- Pricing
- Free with a paid tier; Premium sold across several overlapping subscription lengths, including a weekly bundle
- Watch out
- The most aggressive monetisation here: Premium is sold at many overlapping price points at once, including a weekly bundle, which is a pattern associated with subscription churn rather than confidence in the product. It is also the least-recently-updated app in this list — the current version dates from March 2026 — and neither its App Store listing nor its own website documents Home Screen widget support or what the free habit cap actually is. Verify both in the app before relying on them.
HabitKit
- Best for
- Anyone who wants the nicest-looking Home Screen widget in the category and does not care about the wrist.
- Highlights
- Tile-based grid charts — the contribution-graph look — which make the Home Screen widget the best-looking of anything here
- Its App Store description states that data stays on your device: "No sign-in. No servers. No cloud."
- Best-rated app in this roundup at 4.9 from roughly 2,300 ratings
- Version 1.15.2 shipped 1 June 2026
- Pricing
- Free with a paid tier; HabitKit Pro as a monthly or yearly subscription or a one-off lifetime unlock
- Watch out
- There is no Apple Watch app at all — the App Store compatibility list covers iPhone, iPod touch, Mac and Apple Vision, and stops there. For an audience that left Streaks specifically for the wrist, that is disqualifying on its own. The local-only storage also cuts both ways: private, but it means no straightforward sync to a second device, and the description's no-cloud claim sits awkwardly beside a paid Pro tier, so check what Pro actually adds before buying.
Way of Life
- Best for
- Long-term users who want trend lines and charts on a single iPhone, and nothing more complicated than that.
- Highlights
- Charts with trend lines, chains for streaks, customisable tags and per-habit notes — a more analytical view than most free trackers offer
- Widgets returned with the iOS 17 update, plus Siri and Shortcuts support
- One of the oldest habit trackers on the App Store, and the best-rated of the established apps here at 4.8 from roughly 5,200 ratings
- Free tier covers three habits; Premium lifts the limit
- Pricing
- Free tier capped at three habits; a Premium unlock sold at several price points
- Watch out
- It fails both of this post's headline tests. There is no Apple Watch app — the compatibility list runs iPhone, iPod touch, Mac and Apple Vision only — and it has no working iCloud sync, with the developer publicly describing sync and iPad support as still being rewritten. Reviewers report trying to sync across devices and finding it simply does not. The current version dates from April 2026.
What is still missing
Run the four tests across the list and the category thins out fast. Two apps have no Watch app at all. One sells sync as an upgrade, which quietly disqualifies its free tier from the Watch app its own listing advertises. Two more do not document their widgets anywhere you can read before installing, and one of those does not state its free cap either. The free tier and the Watch app get sold to you separately — the listing says watchOS, the pricing page says three habits, and nobody puts those two facts in one sentence.
What is left is short: Awesome Habits, Kalend and Habitify. Habitify is the most capable of the three and the least likely to suit someone leaving Streaks, because its sync depends on holding your record on its servers. That is the price of the Android app and the web client, and a fair trade if you use them.
Kalend is our attempt at the boring version: habits with a Watch app, widgets and iCloud sync, no account, no cap and no paid tier, sitting next to your to-dos, calendar and journal. The honest counterweight is that it has not shipped — it went into App Store review on 6 August 2026 and is not approved yet, so there are no reviews and no track record to check. Its statistics are deliberately plain and it does not read Apple Health, so if Streaks was silently ticking off your workouts, Awesome Habits is the better swap.
Common questions
What is the best free alternative to the Streaks app?
Awesome Habits is the closest like-for-like swap: a real Watch app, interactive widgets, iCloud sync with no account, Apple Health. Kalend is the only one here with no habit cap, because it has no paid tier — the trade is plainer statistics and no Health integration.
Which free habit trackers have a real Apple Watch app?
Five of the eight list watchOS in App Store compatibility: Awesome Habits, Habitify, Do Habits, Strides and Productive. Kalend has a Watch app as well, but it is still in App Store review, so there is no listing to check yet. HabitKit and Way of Life have none. Strides is a special case — sync is a paid feature, so its free tier cannot usefully feed the Watch.
Is there a habit tracker that syncs with iCloud without creating an account?
Awesome Habits and Kalend both sync through your own iCloud with no vendor sign-up. HabitKit stays on the device and states it uses no servers — private, but no sync. Habitify requires an account, and Way of Life has no working iCloud sync at present.
Why do so many free habit trackers cap you at three habits?
Three is low enough that most people hit it in week one, which is when the upgrade prompt lands. Habitify, Do Habits, Strides and Way of Life all use it. It is a pricing decision, not a technical limit — a fourth checkbox costs nobody anything.
Can I move my Streaks history into another app?
None of the apps here advertises a Streaks importer, so plan on starting from zero and keeping Streaks installed if the history matters. Check what a new app can export before you build up two years of data in it.
Which free habit tracker has the best Home Screen widget?
HabitKit, on looks — its contribution-graph tiles are the nicest thing in the category. Habitify has the widest range: small, medium and large, in single-habit, multi-habit and weekly-grid layouts. Awesome Habits covers Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy.
Do any of these free habit trackers work with Apple Health?
Awesome Habits pulls in sleep, steps, active energy and workouts automatically, Do Habits has HealthKit integration, and Habitify offers it on the paid tier. Kalend has none — a genuine gap if you relied on Streaks ticking off workouts for you.
Is Streaks still worth paying for?
If its statistics and Health automation are what you actually use, yes — it is a one-off purchase against a category that mostly bills monthly. This post is for people who want the Watch app and widgets without paying, not for people trying to prove Streaks is bad.