Basic Journal vs Daily Notes Planner 2
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Basic Journal
A fast and simple journal app designed for busy individuals to quickly jot down notes on daily activities. It offers an elegant, chronological display of entries with easy editing and export options.
- Quick note-taking
- Chronological note display
- Summary and detail views
- Edit and delete notes easily
- Recently edited notes highlighted
- iCloud syncing
- Text export option
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Waste less time fiddling with your phone, and spend more time learning, working, or training! If you are an active or busy person, you need to take notes quickly, easily, on whatever device you have with you. This app is a fast and simple journal/diary for your daily activities. This app is ideal for fitness enthusiasts, gym users, dancers who need to make notes on choreography, or anyone who needs fast and simple note-taking. Why this app? Other note-taking apps are complicated and difficult to navigate, and your notes are quickly buried. They are just not practical for quickly noting down or recalling corrections and notes during a class, lecture or workshop. This app keeps all your notes on display in a large, friendly format, in chronological order. • Elegant and simple layout of notes by date. • Summary view for a quick overview. • Detail view to browse all notes at once. • Edit or delete notes quickly from any screen. • Recently edited notes are highlighted. Data storage: • Your notes are synced across all your iOS devices. It doesn't matter if you delete the app or lose your device; your notes are stored with Apple's iCloud (subject to iCloud availability, and it being enabled on your device). • Text export option: you can get all your notes out of the software any time you want, to keep your own backups, share, or use elsewhere. NOTES Accidents happen, so it is recommended that you make regular backups with the export function. You are responsible for maintaining your own backups in case of data loss. It may take a while to sync your existing notes when you first install the app on an extra device: be patient! Make sure iCloud is enabled on your device to use the syncing feature.
Daily Notes Planner 2
This app offers a straightforward way to jot down plain-text notes for specific dates, acting as a simple calendar organizer. It allows for easy referencing and searching of notes, with iCloud syncing across devices. Additional note formats like folders and weekly schedules are also available.
- Plain-text notes by date
- Calendar highlighting for dated notes
- Chronological note search
- iCloud syncing across devices
- One Page Note
- Folder Notes
- Weekly Schedule Notes
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Download Daily Notes Planner for Mac in the Mac App Store and start syncing your notes between your iPhone and MacBook! As a much simpler calendar app than the built-in iCalendar app, Daily Notes Planner allows you to type in plain-text-notes for every date (no complicated hourly scheduling or reminders here). Because notes are organized by date, you will know exactly where to look for when you reference them later. Tap on the date in the calendar to go into that date and record or reference notes. The dates with notes are highlighted in the calendar. Tapping onto the search bar will immediately list all of your notes chronologically with today's note right in front of you and with older notes above and newer notes below it. Search term will be highlighted as you search. Use iCloud to sync your notes between multiple devices (iPhone, iPad, Mac, MacBook ...) and apps (Daily Notes Planner 1 & 2). All you need to do is to SAVE your notes in a device/app and LOAD them in another device/app in the app's iCloud page (under "Extras"). Reference today's notes in the not editable textview below the calendar without worrying that you would accidentally change it from frequent referencing. If you have a lengthy today's notes, you can minimize the calendar to a weekly mode by scrolling on it. Check out another app by the same developer called "Close Ties - Honest Messaging" that allows you to message each other in real time under each date in the calendar (also supports typing indicator and read receipts). IN "EXTRAS" PAGE In addition to organizing your notes by dates, use three additional notes formats to completely satisfy all of your note taking needs: "One Page Note", "Folder Notes", and "Weekly Schedule". Daily Notes Planner app can store all of your life's notes. "One Page Note" has just one page of note. If you need to jot something and don't want to save it permanently, this is a good place to put it. "Folder Notes" organizes your notes with folders and files. Create folders and note files inside them. Search folders and files with search bars. You can change color of texts in your notes dynamically easily: simply tap onto a color on top of the keyboard and type - the blinker color indicates the current color. Also, you can long press any file or folder row to change its name. Also you can press "edit" button in the bottom to delete or rearrange rows. "Weekly Schedule Notes" allows you to draw a nice, colorful chart of your schedule, classes, or weekly appointments. Tap onto an item to type in notes for it. Change color of texts dynamically here too. Today's widgets & iOS 14 home widgets Ask Siri to add notes to a date. "Add note using Daily Notes/Daily Notes 2/Daily Notes Planner app. When Siri asks what to call your note or which one to edit, say a date like "this/last Monday/Tuesday/etc" or "July 1st (year is optional)" or "next week/month". Ask Siri to search notes in any time range. When prompted "what time?", you can specify any date range. A hidden tip: you can do a quick swipe gesture to move left and right of the days anywhere on the detail page from the calendar view (also tap or slide the the dates on the top). Also you can long press "Password & Touch ID On/Off" in the Settings to change your password. App only uses internet connection when you press SAVE or LOAD in the iCloud page to sync data. Other than that it doesn't use the internet at all. All holidays calculations rely on sophisticated astronomical models and other calculations, all done very efficiently within the app. Supports Apple's Handoff feature to help you to sync your notes via iCloud among multiple devices. Whenever you save your notes to iCloud in one device, all other nearby devices would prompt you to load your latest notes from iCloud either in app switcher / multitasking screen (iOS) or in the dock (Mac). If you have any questions, feedbacks, or concerns about the app, send me an Email at inhoDeveloper@gmail.com.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Daily Notes Planner 2 at 4.6 against Basic Journal's 3.3. Daily Notes Planner 2 also leads on ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (322 vs 4). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Basic Journal sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Daily Notes Planner 2 sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Daily Notes Planner 2 holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Daily Notes Planner 2 has 322 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 40% of Basic Journal's written reviews are positive against 54% of Daily Notes Planner 2's.
Basic Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, Daily Notes Planner 2 fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on June 5, 2026 and August 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Basic Journal | Daily Notes Planner 2 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (4 ratings) | 4.6 (322 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | 53.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 322 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 | 11.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | James Hudson | Truth Honest Messaging, Inc. |
Customer experience
Basic Journal
Daily Notes Planner 2
Bugs and requests
Basic Journal
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Daily Notes Planner 2
Reported bugs
6 issues- App crashing when inserting text
- Sync between devices is inconsistent
- Data won't load to MacBook
- Crashes when trying to load from iCloud
- Weekly schedule cannot update and sync properly
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- Keyboard covers typing area, cannot scroll
Requested features
10 requests- Import/export functionality for V2
- Text highlighting/bold/underline
- Upload photos to notes
- Change calendar settings (weekends on right)
- Document scanning in notes
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- Add bulleted lists
- Warning message before saving to cloud
- Colored text option
- Print notes
- Landscape view on iPhone
In-app purchases
Basic Journal
- Remove Ads$0.99
Daily Notes Planner 2
- Premium Version$4.99
Questions
Is Basic Journal free?
Is Daily Notes Planner 2 free?
Which has better reviews, Basic Journal or Daily Notes Planner 2?
Do Basic Journal or Daily Notes Planner 2 have ads?
Which is updated more often, Basic Journal or Daily Notes Planner 2?
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