Alarm Clock Review, Pricing & Features

Alarm Clock is a free, open-source GNOME/Linux applet for scheduling alarms and timers from your system tray. See features, setup, and how it compares.

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Last updated
July 19, 2026
Open Source

What Is Alarm Clock

Alarm Clock is a small, open-source Linux desktop application that adds alarm and timer functionality to the system tray via an AppIndicator, the icon area used by GNOME, Unity, and similar panel-based desktop environments.

It is a community project, not a commercial company: the code lives in the alarm-clock-applet organization on GitHub, is licensed under GPL-2.0, and is written mostly in C using GTK 3 and CMake.

The applet is aimed at Linux users who want a lightweight, always-accessible way to set wake-up alarms, recurring reminders, or countdown timers without opening a full calendar or productivity app.

Key Features

Alarm Clock distinguishes between two alarm types: Clocks, which trigger at a fixed time and can repeat on selected weekdays, and Timers, which count down from a set duration for one-off reminders.

Notifications can play a built-in sound, a custom audio file, or launch the user's preferred media player, and both alarms and timers support snoozing directly from the panel icon's right-click menu.

Because it runs as a lightweight AppIndicator process, it stays out of the way until an alarm fires, and requires no account, login, or internet connection to function.

Pricing

Alarm Clock is completely free and open source under the GPL-2.0 license. There are no paid tiers, subscriptions, or in-app purchases of any kind.

Users can install it from source, from a distribution's package repository where available, or via a Launchpad PPA, and are free to inspect, modify, or redistribute the code under the terms of the GPL.

Key Features

Pros & Cons

Pros

  • Completely free and open source, with no ads, accounts, or subscriptions
  • Lightweight and runs quietly in the system tray until needed
  • Supports both repeating alarms and countdown timers in one applet
  • Actively maintained again as of 2023 with GTK 3 support
  • Simple, distraction-free interface focused purely on alarms

Cons

  • Requires an AppIndicator-compatible desktop environment, so it does not work out of the box everywhere
  • No mobile app, cloud sync, or cross-device alarm support
  • Development pace is driven by volunteer maintainers, so updates can be infrequent
  • Limited documentation compared to commercial alarm or productivity apps
  • No built-in support features like live chat or ticketed help, only GitHub issues

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Alarm Clock free to use?

Yes. Alarm Clock is completely free and open source under the GPL-2.0 license, with no paid tiers or subscriptions.

What desktop environments does Alarm Clock support?

It is built for Linux desktops that support an AppIndicator, such as GNOME (with the AppIndicator extension), Unity, and similar panel-based environments.

Who maintains Alarm Clock?

It is a community-maintained open-source project hosted on GitHub under the alarm-clock-applet organization; maintainer tatokis took over active development in January 2023.

Does Alarm Clock require an internet connection or account?

No. It runs entirely locally on your Linux desktop and does not require sign-up, login, or an internet connection.

Can I set recurring alarms?

Yes, Alarm Clock supports Clock-type alarms that can repeat on specific days of the week, in addition to one-off countdown Timers.

What are the system requirements?

It requires GTK 3.22.30 or newer, along with GLib, GIO, libnotify, GStreamer, and Ayatana AppIndicator libraries; the minimum supported Ubuntu version is 18.04.

Where can I get support or report bugs?

Support and bug reports are handled through the project's GitHub issue tracker at github.com/alarm-clock-applet/alarm-clock.

Is Alarm Clock related to any commercial product?

No. It has no parent company and is not affiliated with any commercial alarm clock brand or SaaS product.

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