Get Locket if you want one thing done well: a live photo from your best friends on your home screen, up to 20 of them, for free. Get Pookie if you want a widget app that is actually built for two people, with a doodle and photo widget plus distance, countdown, mood and local time widgets, and a pet, games and quizzes behind them.
Locket is the app that made "a photo on your partner's home screen" a thing. It is huge, with over half a million App Store ratings, and a lot of couples found each other's faces on their phones through it before any couples app existed. So it comes up in every "best app for couples" thread, even though Locket itself has never claimed to be a couples app.
That is the whole comparison, really. Locket is a friends app that couples use. Pookie is a couples app with widgets in it. Below is what each does well, what people say in their 1 and 2 star reviews, and where the two actually overlap.
What Locket does well
The loop is perfect in its simplicity. Add the widget, take a photo, it appears on your friends' home screens the next time they unlock their phone. Friends are capped at 20, there is no follower count, reactions are not tallied, and the whole thing is designed so you post a bad photo of your lunch without thinking about it. That restraint is why it works.
On top of the basics: a Crush widget and a Best Friend widget that show photos from one specific person, reactions that rain emojis over a photo, a history of every locket sent, and a recap video stitched together at the end of each month. It is free, with a Locket Gold tier for extras. For a friend group, or for a couple who wants exactly one glanceable photo and nothing else, it is hard to beat, which is why it sits high in our long distance app ranking.
What people complain about in Locket reviews
- Android is the second-class version. The most consistent theme. Android users describe lag on flagship phones, missing filters, no music links or polls, no gallery saving, and photos that rotate sideways with no setting to fix it. Several say the same account on an iPhone has none of these problems.
- Photos that do not arrive or do not update. Pictures marked as sent that the other person never sees, the widget stuck on an old photo, uploads that take days, and update releases that broke sending until the next fix.
- Login and account trouble. Reinstalling and being asked to create a new username, phone number logins that stop working, verification codes rejected, friends lists that empty themselves, and support replying with automated instructions to delete the account in-app when the app will not open.
- Free features moving to Gold. Videos for free users were the sore point, along with paying to send photos from your camera roll. A smaller number object to the terms of service around photo rights and arbitration.
What Pookie does instead
Android. Pookie is on both stores with home screen and lock screen widgets on both, and one premium subscription covers both partners no matter which phone each of you has. That is the direct answer to Locket's most common complaint. We will not claim Pookie has never had a widget bug on any phone, because every widget app has, but there is no separate stripped-down Android build.
Updating. Pookie's widgets show your partner's latest doodle, mood, the pet, days together, distance, local time and countdowns, and doodles and moods update live. Widgets on any phone can still be frozen by aggressive battery settings, so if one sticks, that is the first thing to check, for Pookie or Locket.
Accounts. Pookie connects exactly two people, which removes most of the friend list and username problems at the root. Nothing to add, nothing to lose, no cap to hit.
What is free. Pookie's photo widget, doodle widget, memory vault, pet, plant, moods, dates, journal and check-ins are free, with no ads. The games, the shared whiteboard and the full 10,000+ question library are free as well. Premium is optional at $4.99 a month or $24.99 a year. Locket's core loop is free too, so on price they are close. The difference is what is behind the widget once you tap it.
Friends. Here Locket wins and Pookie has no answer. Pookie is for two people only. If you want your five closest friends on your home screen, keep Locket for that.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Pookie | Locket |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier includes | Pet, plant, games, whiteboard, quizzes, doodles, vault, moods, journal, map, widgets, check-ins | Photo lockets, reactions, widget, history, monthly recap |
| Premium price | $4.99/mo or $24.99/yr | Locket Gold (price varies by region) |
| One sub covers both | ✓ | Not listed |
| Ads | None | None listed |
| Real-time games | ✓ | - |
| Widgets (home + lock) | ✓ Both, on iPhone and Android | Home screen photo widget |
| Shared whiteboard / doodles | ✓ | - |
| Private photo vault | ✓ (passcode) | Locket history, no passcode |
| Daily questions | 10,000+ questions, plus daily check-ins | - |
| Messaging | Notes and doodles | Photo reactions |
| Shared calendar | Important dates | - |
| iPhone + Android | ✓ | ✓ (Android has fewer features) |
Pick Pookie if
- The widget was always for your partner, not the group chat, and you want more than a photo behind it.
- One of you is on Android and you are tired of the features not matching.
- You want distance, countdown, mood and local time widgets on the lock screen as well as the home screen.
- You want the thing you tap into to have a pet, quizzes and games. Our best couples apps ranking covers what else is out there.
Pick Locket if
- You want a photo from friends, plural, and a couples app would sit unused by everyone but the two of you.
- You like that it does one thing and never asks you to do anything else.
- You are both on iPhone, where the Android complaints do not apply.
- Free with no subscription decision to make is exactly the level of commitment you want from an app.
Pookie is free to download on iPhone and Android and used by 250,000+ couples. Download Pookie on the App Store or Google Play, add the doodle widget, and draw them something terrible.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Locket a couples app?
Not really. Locket is a live photo widget built for up to 20 close friends, with a Crush and Best Friend widget you can point at one person. Lots of couples use it that way and it works. But there is nothing in it made for two people specifically: no pet, no games, no questions, no private vault, no distance or countdown widget. Pookie is built only for couples and has all of those.
Is Locket free?
Yes. Taking and receiving photo lockets, reactions, the widget and the monthly recap are free. Locket Gold is the paid tier. Reviews from free users complain that videos moved behind the paywall and that on Android some features, like filters, music links and polls, are missing entirely.
Does Pookie have a photo widget like Locket?
Yes. Pookie has a shared photos widget plus widgets for your partner's latest doodle, their mood, your pet and plant, days together, your partner's local time, distance apart, your anniversary countdown, your streak and the daily horoscope. They work on the home screen and the lock screen on both iPhone and Android. The doodle widget is the closest thing to Locket's photo widget, except your partner draws it.
Why does the Locket widget stop updating?
Reviews describe photos marked as sent that never arrive, the widget showing an old photo, and pictures taking days to load. The Android version gets the most of these complaints. Phone battery settings that restrict background refresh can also freeze any widget, Pookie's included, so it is worth checking those before blaming the app.
Can you use Pookie and Locket together?
Yes. Keep Locket for the friend group, since Pookie only connects two people, and use Pookie for the couple side: the pet, doodles, games, quizzes, vault and widgets. If you only ever used Locket for your partner, Pookie's doodle and photo widgets replace it.
Want the wider picture? See how Pookie compares to every type of couples app, or read the full ranking of the best couples apps in 2026.