HabitFlame
Why people track habits with friends
Most habits are dropped quietly. Nobody notices the skipped run or the book left on the nightstand, so skipping costs nothing. A friend changes that. Knowing that someone you like will notice is a small, steady pull, and it is the reason study groups, running clubs and gym buddies exist.
HabitFlame keeps that pull small and private. There is no public profile, no feed of strangers and no ranking against people you have never met. You pair with the friends you pick, one invite link at a time, and with Premium you decide for each of them which habits they are part of.
Pairing with several friends
Open the Partners tab and send an invite link, show a QR code, or pick someone from your contacts. When your friend opens the link with HabitFlame installed, the app shows your invite and they tap Accept. If they do not have the app yet, the invite page links to the App Store and shows the invite code, which they enter in the Partners tab after installing. No usernames, no passwords and no account sign-up on either side.
Then do the same for the next friend. You can pair with several people, and each friend is a separate pairing with its own page in the Partners tab, so the friend you run with and the friend you read with never get mixed up.
What you share on the free version
Pairing, reactions and nudges are free on both sides of every pairing. On the free version, you and each friend see a combined weekly count of what the two of you completed, updated when the app is opened.
When a friend goes quiet, send a nudge. It arrives as a notification on their phone. Free accounts get 3 nudges a month in total, shared across all the friends you pair with, and nudges to the same friend are spaced at least half a day apart.
What Premium adds
Premium is a one-time purchase of $9.99, not a subscription. With Premium on your side, each shared habit you complete in the app for today reaches your friends the moment you do it, along with a milestone alert when a streak lands exactly on a milestone and, when you start the app in the evening, a warning if a daily streak is at risk. Your friends do not need Premium to receive them, and they can react to each one with a flame.
Premium also removes the monthly limit on nudges, so a friend who wants to check in every evening can, and it adds unlimited habits, habit stacking and smart insights. The partner widget puts a friend's day on your home screen, and it fills in from the updates a friend with Premium sends.
Premium works on the side of the person whose completions are sent. If you buy it, every friend you pair with receives your updates without paying. If only one of you has Premium, that person's completions made in the app for today arrive instantly and the other's show only in the combined weekly count. With Family Sharing, one purchase also unlocks Premium for the people in your Apple family.
Choosing what each friend is part of, with Premium
With Premium, you choose for each friend paired by invite link which of your habits they hear about. A new friend starts with all of your habits shared; with Premium, edit that friend in the Partners tab, turn off Share All Habits and pick the ones you want. Share everything with your closest friend and only the one habit you keep missing with a colleague, and change it whenever you like.
On the free version there is nothing to choose: your friends see the combined weekly count. Habits you do not share are never named or shown to your friends; their completions only add to the weekly count. There is no location sharing and no message history, and HabitFlame does not need an account: your habits are stored on your device and in your own iCloud. What pairing itself stores is set out in the privacy policy.
Habits people keep with friends
- A morning walk or run with the friend you train with, each of you on your own route.
- Reading before bed, logged as a duration, with a friend who is reading too.
- Water, logged as a count of glasses, for the friend who always forgets.
- A daily language lesson with a friend learning the same language.
- A weekly target, such as three gym visits a week, for a friend whose week is never the same twice.
- A focus session with the built-in Pomodoro timer, for friends who study or work from home.
Keeping it friendly
Agree on a few things before you start: which habits you hold each other to, whether a nudge is welcome any evening or only when a streak is at risk, and what counts as done. A clear habit, such as reading for 25 minutes, is easy for a friend to hold you to. A vague one, such as eating better, is not.
Start small. One or two shared habits with one or two friends is plenty for the first few weeks. Once those streaks have a few weeks behind them, add the next habit or the next friend. React to the wins as well as the misses: a flame on a finished run says more than a nudge on a skipped one.
If you are comparing apps for this, the HabitFlame and HabitShare comparison sets out where the two differ, and the accountability partner guide goes deeper on pairing with one person.
Free and Premium
| Free | Premium | |
|---|---|---|
| Friends to pair with | Several | Several |
| Choose habits per friend | Not included | Included |
| Pairing, reactions and nudges | Included | Included |
| Partner nudges | 3 a month in total | No monthly limit |
| Real-time partner updates | No | Yes |
| What each friend gets from you | A combined weekly count | Each shared completion made in the app for today, as it happens |
| Habits | 5 | Unlimited |
| Price | Free | $9.99 once |
Premium is a single purchase, not a subscription. Buy it once and it stays unlocked.
Questions about tracking habits with friends
- Can I track habits with more than one friend?
- Yes. You can pair with several people, and with Premium choose which habits each of them can follow.
- Do my friends need to pay?
- No. Pairing, reactions and nudges are free on both sides of every pairing. Real-time partner updates depend on Premium on the side of the person whose completions are sent, so if you buy it, your friends get each shared habit you complete in the app for today without paying.
- What happens to the habits I do not share?
- They stay private. Habits you do not share are never named or shown to your friends; their completions only add to the weekly count.
- Is there a group view for several friends?
- No. Each friend is a separate pairing with its own page in the Partners tab, its own weekly count and its own shared habits. There is no group feed and no ranking.
- Do my friends need an iPhone?
- Each friend needs an Apple device with the app installed. HabitFlame is built for iPhone and iPad.