Nara Baby vs Little Steps
Checked August 2026
Who is writing this. I am a nurse, and a dad, and I built Little Steps, so I have a side in this. Every figure about the other app comes from their own App Store listing or their own site, checked in August 2026. Every page here carries a section on what they do better, because on several of these they do. If a number goes stale, write to me and I will correct it.
Nara Baby is free. Not free with a paywall two taps in: free, with no in app purchases listed at all. 23,000 ratings at 4.9 stars, native on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Vision, and it covers pregnancy and postpartum for the parent as well as the baby, which nothing else on these pages does.
If your budget for a baby tracker is zero, and plenty of budgets are zero right now, go and get Nara. It is a good app made by people who are trying.
Two things kept me from using it, and both are worth ten minutes before you decide.
Free is not the same as private
Nara’s App Store privacy label declares a Data Used to Track You section carrying Usage Data. That is the specific heading Apple uses for data that follows you across other companies’ apps and websites. Their label also lists Advertising Data under App Functionality.
Little Steps has no Data Used to Track You section, because there is no analytics library in the app, no advertising library, and no crash reporter. It carries the code for the App Store purchase and Apple’s local notifications. That is all of it.
This is not an accusation. Somebody pays for a free app that 23,000 people rate, and this is one of the ordinary ways that happens. It is still the trade you are making, and the price tag is the one place it does not show. Both labels are on both listings and take ten seconds to read.
Getting other people logging
Nara shares across caregivers and devices, so this is not a thing they lack. The difference is what a caregiver has to do to join in.
Little Steps runs in a browser: the whole app, at a web address, same account, same data. Anyone you want logging opens a link on whatever they already own. Nobody has to install an app, make an Apple account and learn a new interface before they can write down four ounces at two, which is the difference between a day that is recorded and a day with a hole in the middle of it.
The other side of it: Nara is native on iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. Little Steps is an iPhone app plus a browser. On an iPad you get the browser version, which lays out properly on a big screen and is a pleasure to use, but it is a web page and Nara’s is a real iPad app. If you want a Watch app, we do not have one.
The part that does not fit in a table
If Nara is free and good, why pay us anything at all? This is most of my answer.
Tracking a newborn is relentless. You do it exhausted, in the dark, one handed, for months on end. I could not make it shorter, so I made it kinder.
That is what happens when you save a feed. The little round picture on the button grows into the video, some confetti drifts down in whatever colour theme you picked, and it is gone in three seconds. Every one of the nine categories has its own creature and its own clip: a deer for sleep, a hedgehog for diapers, an otter for pumping, a beaver for growth. Custom events get to pick from ten more.
Look at those two clips again. The night one is not the day one with a filter over it. It is the same bear painted a second time, by moonlight, with fireflies. There are two of everything, all the way through, because the app you use at 2am should not be the daytime app with the brightness turned down.
There is a bear in the feeding timer, too. Start a feed and after a moment a cub rises up from behind the timer card, has a look around, and ducks back down. It does nothing. It is not a feature. My wife found it at four in the morning on about day nine and it is the only thing about any of these apps that has ever made her laugh at that hour.
Judge this one yourself, in thirty seconds
Do not take my word for it. Open all four App Store listings and swipe through the screenshots. It costs you half a minute and you will know immediately which one you want to be holding in a dark room at 3am. Some parents want an instrument and would find all of this twee. That is a reasonable thing to want, and those parents should buy one of the other apps on this page.
What $4.99 is actually for
Most of Little Steps is free too, and the free tier is not a trial. Nine categories, unlimited entries, growth percentiles on the WHO and CDC charts, night mode, multiple children, and your data out as a file whenever you want it. You can use it forever without paying.
The unlock buys the parts that took longest to build: Sleep Trail, the insights and the printable report your pediatrician can actually read, reminders, and Lock Screen timers. Sharing a little one with another caregiver is not one of them. That one is free.
Free, forever
- All nine categories, logged as often as you like
- Growth percentiles on the WHO and CDC charts, birth to 36 months
- In app timers for feeds, pumping and sleep, shared with your caregivers
- Night mode, themes, units, and as many little ones as you have
- Five custom events of your own
- Inviting other caregivers to a little one, on as many devices as you like
- Your data out as a file whenever you want it
Pro, $4.99 once
- Sleep Trail, the rhythm read back from your own baby's sleeps
- Live timers on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island
- Insights, and a printable report for the pediatrician
- Reminders per activity
- Jumping straight to any day in your history
- Custom events without a limit
| Little Steps | Nara Baby | |
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | Free, then $4.99 once. There is no subscription. |
|
| Where it runs | iPhone, plus any browser on any device | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple Vision |
| In a browser | Yes. The full app runs at a web address, same account, same data, nothing to install. | Not something they advertise. |
| Ratings | A handful so far. Little Steps is new, and a new app has the ratings of a new app. | 4.9 stars from about 23,000 ratings. |
| Cross app tracking | No Data Used to Track You section. The app ships a purchases library and Apple's local notifications and nothing else: no analytics, no advertising, no crash reporter. | Their label declares a Data Used to Track You section carrying Usage Data, and lists Advertising Data under App Functionality. Free, in this case, is not the same as private. |
What Nara Baby does better than us
- Genuinely free, with nothing behind a paywall, and 23,000 ratings at 4.9 saying it works
- Runs natively almost everywhere Apple makes a screen, including iPad and Watch
- Covers pregnancy and postpartum for the parent, not only the baby, which no other app here does
- Native on iPad, where Little Steps only has its browser version
So which one
Pick Nara Baby if
Money is genuinely tight, or you want pregnancy and postpartum tracking for yourself alongside the baby, or you want native apps on iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. It is free, it is well made, and 23,000 people rate it 4.9.
Pick Little Steps if
You would rather pay $4.99 once than be the product, you need a caregiver logging from a browser without installing anything, or you want a sleep prediction built only from your own baby that says nothing when it is unsure.
One last thing, and I mean it. If $4.99 is not realistic right now, email me and I will turn Pro on for you. No explanation needed. Nobody should be choosing a worse tool for their newborn over five dollars.
Try it for a week before you decide.
The free tier is not a trial, and it does not expire. Log a few days, see whether the app gets out of your way at 3am, and buy the unlock only if you want the parts that need it.
Inviting a caregiver is free. They sign in as themselves and can work from the browser on a laptop or an iPad, with nothing to install.
Ratings, platforms and privacy labels above were taken from Nara Baby’s App Store listing in August 2026. If they change their label, this page should change with it.