Basic Journal vs Note!
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.
Note!
This app offers a minimalist approach to note-taking, focusing on speed and simplicity. It allows for quick plain text entries, organized by modification date, with options for text resizing and passcode protection for privacy.
- Quick plain text notes
- Sorted by latest modified
- Pinch to zoom text size
- Set passcode to lock notes
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Nothing more, nothing less. Designed to be as minimal as possible for quick plain text notes. + Sorted by latest modified + Pinch to zoom/change text size + Set a passcode to lock your notes
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Note! at 4.7 against Basic Journal's 3.3. Note! also leads on ratings volume (1K vs 4) and review sentiment (61% vs 40%). Basic Journal's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 13 months) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.0). On price, ads, 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 Note! sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Note! holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Note! has 1K 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 61% of Note!'s.
Basic Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, Note! every 13 months. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Basic Journal | Note! |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (4 ratings) | 4.7 (1K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | 61.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 4 | 1K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 13 months |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| 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 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | James Hudson | RIEU Limited |
Customer experience
Basic Journal
Note!
Bugs and requests
Basic Journal
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Note!
Reported bugs
3 issues- Ads disrupt note-taking experience
- Inability to delete old notes
- Lack of printing functionality
Requested features
4 requests- Add iCloud sync and backup
- Implement a paid, ad-free version
- Allow for note organization and sorting
- Improve text formatting and editing capabilities
In-app purchases
Basic Journal
- Remove Ads$0.99
Note!
- Remove Ads$3.99








