Basic Journal vs Notepad
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.
Notepad
Capture your thoughts and organize your life with this intuitive note-taking application. It offers secure storage with a passcode and iCloud synchronization, allowing you to manage daily tasks and personal diaries efficiently. Easily categorize, color-code, and add images to your notes for better arrangement and sharing.
- User-friendly design
- iCloud sync
- App passcode protection
- Note categorization
- Share notes (text/PDF)
- Add images to notes
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This is an easy-to-use note taking app that offer wide rage of features with iCloud sync and app passcode. It is easy to manage your daily stuff and your personal diary with date wise and name wise format. Key Features - Beautiful and user friendly design - Simple way of note taking - iCloud sync and app passcode - Category to note separation - Share note with text and pdf format - Support note color to easy arrangement - Auto delete note to delete notes - Add image with your notes Keep your words safe with passcode and save it with colourful notes. Download and have fun. Keep in touch to receive all new updates. Thank you!!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Notepad at 5.0 against Basic Journal's 3.3. Basic Journal's advantage is update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 11 months) and ratings volume (4 vs 1). 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 Notepad sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Notepad holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.3. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 1 respectively.
Basic Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, Notepad every 11 months. The most recent releases landed on June 5, 2026 and June 10, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Basic Journal | Notepad |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (4 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 4 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 11 months |
| Ads | Yes | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 14 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | James Hudson | Piyushkumar Bhut |
Customer experience
Basic Journal
Notepad
In-app purchases
Basic Journal
- Remove Ads$0.99
Notepad
- Notepad++ Premium$1.99









