Awake with the sun, asleep after dark
A green iguana is a diurnal animal through and through. In the wild it sleeps in trees at night and, as the sun rises, climbs to an exposed branch to bask. Because an iguana cannot make its own body heat, that morning bask is not leisure: it raises the body temperature enough for muscles to work and for the gut to digest the previous day's leaves. Only once warm does the iguana set off to feed and explore. Through the middle of the day it alternates, basking again after eating, retreating to shade when it gets too hot, and staying alert to movement around it, because in nature almost everything that eats iguanas hunts by day. As light fades, activity winds down, and the iguana picks a sleeping spot, often the same favored branch, and stays there through the night.
What that rhythm means for the enclosure at home
A pet iguana's lighting has to recreate that day honestly. Lights run on a timer giving a long, bright day and a genuinely dark night, with a basking area hot enough for real warming and cooler zones to retreat into. Ultraviolet light during those daytime hours is essential, not decoration, because it underpins calcium use and bone health in a growing iguana. Night needs the opposite discipline: no bright white light left on, and no regular disturbance. Owners who handle or feed late in the evening are working directly against the animal's clock, and a chronically disturbed iguana becomes stressed and defensive. If your household is lively late at night and quiet all day, be honest that your hours and this species' hours run in opposite directions.
Feeding and handling belong in the morning
Because digestion depends on warmth, the main leafy meal is best offered after the morning bask, giving the iguana a full warm day to process it. Food offered late in the evening can sit undigested overnight in a cool gut. Cleaning, enclosure work and any handling also fit better in the iguana's active hours, when it is warm, alert and able to respond normally. New keepers sometimes mistake a cold, still morning iguana for a calm one. An iguana that has not yet warmed up is simply slow, and picking it up in that state teaches it that being handled is something that happens when it cannot react, which builds distrust rather than tameness. Warm first, interact second is the order that works.
Checking this species matches your household
The practical question is whether a large, day-active lizard fits the life of your home. You will do your observing, feeding and cleaning in daylight or under the enclosure's lights, and you will mostly leave the animal alone after dark. Children who want an after-school pet can still enjoy an iguana in the late afternoon, while it is still warm and active, but not as an evening companion. If your free time is mainly after dark, a nocturnal gecko will give you far more animal for your attention. Talk through that mismatch honestly before any animal comes home. Then, for the comparison itself, put a follow-up question to KinsLe's Kimmy; she answers using the KinsLe Answers library.