Backyard Dreambook vs Sembrae
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Backyard Dreambook
Explore inspiring ideas and content for your ultimate backyard. Save favorite images to personal collections and share them. Request project estimates, start financing, or schedule meetings with designers directly from the app.
- Inspirational backyard images
- Feature stories and articles
- Save and share favorite photos
- Request project estimates
- Finance process initiation
- Schedule designer meetings
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Discover all the inspiration and content you need to bring your Ultimate Backyard to life! Download the app, then swipe, click, and scroll through a wealth of Feature Stories, What’s Hot articles and tons of high-res pool, spa, landscape and backyard feature images to ignite the imagination. Save your most-loved photos into Dreambooks to share with friends and family. When it’s go time, request a project estimate, begin the finance process, or set up a meeting with one of our world-class designers. Do it all from the palm of your hand and with a simple click.
Sembrae
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Sembrae helps you keep what you hear. Most of what moves you on a Sunday is gone by Tuesday. You meant to write down the verse, look up the passage he read twice, ask someone what they made of it. Sembrae is built for that gap, the week between hearing something true and doing anything about it. Record a sermon, a teaching, or a group session, and get back the heart of it: the moments that landed, the themes running underneath, and the Scripture it rested on. Then go further, a study guide, a devotional a day at a time, a companion that shows the passages behind every answer, and the verses themselves, learned by heart. RECORD WHAT YOU HEAR Start recording when the message begins, then put your phone down. When something lands a line, a verse, a question you don't want to lose, mark it with one tap. The moment is waiting for you afterwards, in place, with the words around it. GET SOMETHING BACK Any message you keep can become more than a recording: • A study guide you could actually run on a Wednesday night • Next steps, a handful of concrete things to do with what you heard • A devotional that releases a day at a time, Scripture, a reflection, a prayer, something to act on • A short summary you can share with someone who wasn't there Scripture references are tappable throughout, in the Bible version you choose. LEARN IT BY HEART Start with a pack, Psalm 23, the Romans Road, the Beatitudes, verses for grief, verses for an anxious mind, or learn a verse straight from your journal. A session is about a minute a day: read it, fill in the gaps, work from first letters, then say it cold. Verses come back on their own schedule, so what you learned stays learned. Make a pack of your own and give your group a code to learn it with you. ASK, AND SEE WHERE IT CAME FROM The companion answers in plain language, grounded in the messages you've kept and in Scripture, and cites the passages it drew from. No answer arrives without its sources. ADD WHAT YOU DIDN'T RECORD Weren't in the room? Paste a link to a sermon video and Sembrae reads it for you, the title, the speaker, the message, and it lands in your library beside the ones you captured yourself. A PLACE TO TALK IT OVER Bring your small group in with one code. Ask the question you didn't want to ask out loud on Sunday, and keep the conversation next to the messages it's about. Groups are invite-only, and you can report a message or block someone. YOUR DAY, NOT A FEED Today opens on one passage: the day's Scripture, something to sit with, the next step you left unfinished, where you are in your devotional. Reminders are gentle and reversible, and nothing private ever shows on your lock screen. ALSO INSIDE • A journal that keeps your notes with the message that prompted them • Christian podcasts and radio, for the drive there and back • Churches you follow, so you hear when they publish • A Verse of the Day widget for your home screen ABOUT THE TRANSCRIPT Sembrae captures the heart of a message, the moments, the themes, the lines that mattered, not a word-for-word record. We'd rather tell you that here than let it surprise you later. What you get back is enough to study from, and honest about what it is. YOUR AUDIO, AND WHAT HAPPENS TO IT Recordings are transcribed by Apple's speech service and then deleted. Sembrae never receives or keeps your audio, only the text you choose to submit ever reaches us. PRIVACY Your journal is private. Your groups see only what you post to them. Nothing you record is shared until you decide to share it. Export everything you've saved, or delete your account and all of it with it, whenever you want — from inside the app, without asking anyone. BUILT TO BE USABLE Every screen honors your text size, all the way up. Dynamic Type, VoiceOver, and full keyboard access are part of how the app is built, not a setting we got to late. Sembrae is built by a nonprofit, for people who want Sunday to still be with them on Wednesday.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Sembrae at every 2 days against Backyard Dreambook's every 7 months. Backyard Dreambook's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Backyard Dreambook ships an update every 7 months, Sembrae every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Backyard Dreambook | Sembrae |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (10 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 35 MB | 17 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Joan Smith Enterprises Inc | Joseph Torres |
In-app purchases
Backyard Dreambook
No in-app purchases
Sembrae
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Backyard Dreambook free?
Is Sembrae free?
Do Backyard Dreambook or Sembrae have ads?
Which is updated more often, Backyard Dreambook or Sembrae?
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