Comparison

Expense vs Daylio Journal

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Expense

Effortlessly monitor your finances with this intuitive spending tracker. Visualize your expenses with a clean line chart and gain insights into your spending habits. Customize categories and export your data for detailed analysis.

Highlights
  • Intuitive expense tracking
  • Beautiful line chart visualization
  • Monthly spending overview
  • Customizable categories
  • Export data to CSV
  • Local data storage
Features
Read full description

Expense makes tracking money easy and intuitive. • Simple and beautiful line chart • Fast expense tracking, enter amount and select a category, that’s it • Track where your money is going in monthly view • Export to CSV for further processing • Customize categories in settings • All of your data are stored locally and are not available to us

About

Daylio Journal

This app helps you track your moods and activities to improve self-care and mental well-being. It offers a simple way to journal, set goals, and understand your habits through insightful statistics, all while prioritizing your privacy.

Highlights
  • Mood tracking with customizable icons
  • Activity logging
  • Goal setting and habit building
  • Detailed statistics and charts
  • Private journaling without typing
  • Data backup and export options
  • PIN lock for privacy
Features
Read full description

Self-Care Bullet Journal with Goals - Mood Diary & Happiness Tracker Daylio enables you to keep a private journal without having to type a single line. Try this beautifully designed & stunningly simple micro-diary app right now for FREE! ** WHAT IS DAYLIO ** Daylio is a very versatile app, and you can turn it in whatever you need to track. Your fitness goal pal. Your mental health coach. Your food log. Your gratitude diary. Mood tracker. Exercise, meditate, eat, and be grateful. Take care of your mental, emotional, and physical health. Good self-care is a key to improved mood and reduced anxiety. This is the time for your wellbeing, self-improvement, and self-care. Use Daylio as your daily bullet journal. We build it on three principles: 1.) Reach happiness and self-improvement by being mindful of your days. 2.) Validate your hunches. How does your new hobby influence your life? 3.) Form a new habit in an obstacle-free environment—no learning curve. Daylio is super simple to use, create your first entry in two steps. For anxiety and stress relief, make sure to include activities that help you to cope with negativity. Everybody can use a mood boost! You can measure their impact on your mood in stats. ** HOW DOES IT WORK ** Pick your mood and add activities you have been doing during the day. You can also add notes and keep an old school diary. Daylio is collecting recorded moods and activities in the statistics and calendar. This format will help you to understand your habits better. Keep track of your activities and create patterns to become more productive! You can review all entries in the statistics on charts or the calendar and share them with your friends. To make it even better, Daylio allows you: - Make reflection a daily habit - Discover what makes you happy - Use a big database of beautiful icons for your personalized activities - Mix and match your own moods using funny emojis - Explore exciting statistics about your life on weekly, monthly or yearly charts - Deep dive into advanced statistics for every mood, activity or group - Customize color themes - Enjoy nights with dark mode - See your whole year in 'Year in Pixels' - Create daily, weekly or monthly goals and motivate yourself - Build habits and collect achievements - Share statistics with your friends - Safely back up and restore your entries via your private Google Drive - Set reminders and never forget to create a memory - Turn on PIN lock and keep your diary safe - Export PDF and CSV documents to share or print your entries ** PRIVACY AND SECURITY ** We are a top private journal since we do not store or collect your data. At Daylio, we believe in transparency and honesty. Your data is stored locally on your phone. You can optionally schedule backups to your private cloud storage or take your backup file with you anywhere. Data are entirely under your control at all times. Data stored in the app's private directories are not accessible by any other apps or processes. Your backups are transferred to the iCloud Drive via the secure (encrypted) channels. Journaling has never been easier! --- Read our full Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy: Terms of Use: https://daylio.net/faq/terms-of-use/ Privacy Policy: https://daylio.net/faq/privacy-policy/

Screenshots

Expense3 screens
Daylio Journal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Expense at none against Daylio Journal's 7. Daylio Journal's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 6 months) and ratings volume (62K vs 112). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Daylio Journal sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Expense asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Expense against 4.8 for Daylio Journal. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Daylio Journal has 62K ratings behind it against 112, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 97% of Expense's written reviews are positive against 91% of Daylio Journal's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Expense ships an update every 6 months, Daylio Journal weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Expense versus Daylio Journal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterExpenseDaylio Journal
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (112 ratings)4.8 (62K ratings) — better
Positive reviews97.1% of reviews — better91.3% of reviews
Number of ratings11262K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 monthsWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
Best chart rank—#169 — better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB250 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShan CaoRelaxio s.r.o.

Customer experience

Expense

All ratings112 ratings
Positive96.4%
Neutral2.7%
Negative0.9%
Written reviews69 reviews
Positive97.1%
Neutral2.9%
Negative0.0%

Daylio Journal

All ratings62,283 ratings
Positive95.5%
Neutral2.9%
Negative1.6%
Written reviews2,427 reviews
Positive91.3%
Neutral3.2%
Negative5.4%

User reviews

Expense

From 112 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Extremely simple and easy to use
  • 🚀 Fast and efficient expense tracking
  • ✨ Clean and minimalistic interface
  • 🆓 Free to use with no ads
  • 💡 Intuitive GUI

Room to improve

  • 💡 Lacks search functionality
  • 💡 No recurring expense option
  • 💡 Limited category icon selection
  • 💡 No subcategories
  • 💡 Currency display can be odd

Daylio Journal

From 62K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Easy to use
  • 👍 Customizable moods and activities
  • 📊 Helpful statistics and analytics
  • 🗓️ Consistent daily logging
  • 💡 Motivating goal-setting features

Room to improve

  • 🔒 Backup feature locked behind premium
  • 🔍 Limited mood/activity options in free version
  • 📱 No Apple Watch app
  • 🧠 Difficulty tracking mood changes throughout the day

Bugs and requests

Expense

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Currency display issues
  • No visible way to delete entries (user reported)

Requested features

28 requests
  • Search functionality
  • Increased list of category icons
  • Ability to use Emojis as category icons
  • Set a recurring expense
  • Add a 'memo' or text field for notes
Show 23 more
  • Search function
  • New icons for categories
  • Option to add a 'sim' if money and it to tell me how much is left (per diem)
  • Read from/write to the app with Shortcuts
  • Annual summary feature
  • Online help or FAQ in settings
  • Exporting to select week or month
  • Better category icons
  • Subcategories
  • Currency format tweaks
  • Total cost row/cell for exporting
  • Home screen widget
  • Currency symbol (auto-set)
  • Password protection
  • Custom image option for categories
  • Organize by week or bi-weekly
  • Year-end summary
  • Filter process for month/year outlook within the app
  • Configure file export layout
  • Auto-backup via iCloud
  • Add button closer to screen edges
  • iPad & Mac version
  • iCloud sync

Daylio Journal

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • Occasional app freezing and notification issues
  • Difficulty restoring data after device change

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add ability to log voice recordings
  • Implement color-coding for activity groups
  • Allow syncing across multiple devices
  • Provide more detailed mood/emotion tracking options
  • Add option to schedule future activities

In-app purchases

None

Expense

No in-app purchases

7 purchases

Daylio Journal

Subscriptions6
  • Daylio Premium$4.991 Month
  • Daylio Premium7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Daylio Premium7 Days trial$17.991 Year
Show 3 more
  • Daylio Premium$17.991 Year
  • Daylio Premium$23.991 Year
  • Daylio Premium7 Days trial$35.991 Year
One-time1
  • PREMIUM$59.99

Questions

Is Expense free?
Expense is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Daylio Journal free?
Daylio Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Expense or Daylio Journal?
Daylio Journal is rated higher. Expense averages 4.8 out of 5 from 112 ratings, while Daylio Journal averages 4.8 from 62K ratings.
Do Expense or Daylio Journal have ads?
Neither Expense nor Daylio Journal shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Expense or Daylio Journal?
Expense ships an update every 6 months, and Daylio Journal weekly. Most recently, Expense was updated on October 21, 2026 and Daylio Journal on October 31, 2026.

Other comparisons