Alternatives

Every keep-in-touch app, and where Ciao! sits

Checked by hand in the US App Store, September 2026. Eight of them have a full comparison. Where I could not verify something I left it blank rather than guess.

The app What it is How it charges

Ciao!

Keep your friendships alive · 4 ratings, all five stars

A creature for every friend, and one swipe deck on Sunday. No account, ever.

One payment You are here

Fabriq

Stay in Touch · 164 ratings

Circles, prompts and a subscription. The biggest one in the category.

Subscription Compare →

CatchUp

Keep in Touch · 47 ratings

Reminders for anyone in your Contacts. Free, with no limit, paid for by tips.

Free Compare →

Catchup

Friendship Tracker · 80 ratings

A different app with almost the same name. Nothing new since December 2024, and its website is gone.

Free for 2, then paid Compare →

UpHabit

Personal CRM · Closed April 2026

Shut down on 9 April 2026. Its own note asks you to export your contacts.

Closed Compare →

Kinu

Remember Your People · 4 ratings

Birthdays, stories and voice notes, on the phone or in a browser. Ten people free.

Subscription or once Compare →

Gravity

Stay In Touch · No ratings yet

Closeness levels and warmth rings. A web app, with the phone apps in beta.

Subscription Compare →

UNdrift

Friendship Reminder · New in September 2026

No account, one payment, notes that come back. The closest thing to Ciao!.

One payment Compare →

Buddies

Friendship Tracker · Released April 2026

Each friend is a flower that grows when you show up and fades when you do not.

Subscription Compare →

Amato

Friendship Tracker CRM · 73 ratings

Well liked by the people who use it, and untouched since March 2024.

Subscription If it went quiet →

Garden

Stay in Touch · 50 ratings

Flower rings, plus invite links, so there is a social layer.

Free If it went quiet →

Reemi

Social Reminders · 1 rating

Free, and nothing new since March 2025. Google’s AI answer still recommends it.

Free If it went quiet →

Mesh

Contacts + CRM · 2.1 stars

Low rated at the moment. Reviewers mention bugs, price and permissions.

[CHECK] No page yet

Monica

Self hosted · Not on the App Store

Open source, and you run the server. Not in the App Store at all.

Free, if you host it No page yet

Price, tier and feature rows are read from the App Store listing, September 2026. Where a cell says [CHECK] I could not confirm it without installing and paying, so it stays blank. Nothing here is taken from another app’s reviews.

Coming from an app that went quiet?

Several apps on this list have not shipped anything in a year or more. If yours is one of them, here is what moving would mean, and what to copy out first.

Fabriq stopped working Catchup went quiet Amato went quiet Garden since 2020 Reemi never worked UpHabit closed

Three differences that actually matter

Not features. These are the three things that come up again and again in the App Store reviews of the other apps on this list.

No account

No email, no phone number, no verification code that never arrives. You open it and it works, on a plane, at once.

Pay once

$9.99, one time. A friendship reminder should not be a thing you rent. Nothing to cancel, nothing that renews.

No ceiling

Once you have paid, add everyone. No cap of fifty, no inner circle of five, no tier where the good reminders live.

Three friends free. Decide after that.

Get Ciao! on the App Store