Tree Notebook vs BookWrite
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Tree Notebook
Organize personal information with a hierarchical notes manager. Structure data into a tree-like hierarchy of folders and notes, with options for public and encrypted private sections. Features include powerful search, customizable item appearance, and event reminders.
- Tree-like hierarchical organization
- Public and encrypted private data sections
- Attachments (images, files)
- Multiple data views (tree, list, favorites, history)
- Powerful search capabilities
- Customizable item appearance
- Event reminders and calendar
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Tree Notebook is a hierarchical notes manager designed for keeping personal information. Tree Notebook runs on an iOS device (iPhone or iPad). Besides, there is a counterpart for OS Windows which can be synchronized with up to three iOS devices via a local Wi-Fi network. No access to Internet is needed for synchronizing. The data in Tree Notebook is divided in two parts: the public part accessible without password and the encrypted private part which requires password for opening. The data in every part is arranged as a tree-like multilevel hierarchy of folders and notes. Any folder can include notes and other folders, and so fourth. Any item (a note or a folder) can include text of any size. The items can keep attachments like images or other files. The app can represent data in several ways: as a tree, as a list of items (folders and notes) on the current level, as a list of manually selected items ("Favorites"), or the items visited recently ("History"). The contents of an individual item can be viewed or edited. Tree Notebook includes powerful search facilities: simplified or conditional global search, local search inside an item text. The items can be sorted by several criteria: alphabetically, by creation or modification time, and in manually defined order. The item titles can be attributed using a variety of font types, colored flags, graphic icons. Any item can have an Event attribute and serve as an alarm clock or reminder. A calendar feature is available to help managing events. The app is free to use both on iOS devices and desktop PC.
BookWrite
This app transforms your writing experience by allowing you to craft books with customizable aesthetics, from cover design to page style. It offers tools for organizing stories, drawing, illustrating, and exporting your work in various formats. It also includes features to help you maintain writing habits and ensure your work remains private.
- Customizable book aesthetics (cover, pages, pen)
- Locked diary with Face ID/passcode
- Drawing and illustration tools
- Story organization (plot board, story bible)
- Export to PDF, EPUB, TXT, audiobook
- Writing goal tracking and prompts
- Privacy-focused with no ads or tracking
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Step through the door of an old bookshop and write. Open ScribeMe and you're standing at the door of a bookshop. Push it open, step inside, and your library is waiting on the shelf - every book you've written, standing spine-out, in whatever order you like. MAKE A BOOK, NOT A DOCUMENT Choose how a book feels before you write a word: hardcover, leather, cloth or paperback; the colour of the boards; cream, white or parchment pages; and the pen in your hand - fountain pen, ballpoint, pencil or marker, each with its own ink and weight of line. Pick a typeface with real character. Every cover gets its own grain, so no two books on your shelf look alike. Tall, square and wide picture-book shapes are all here. A DIARY THAT LOCKS Any book can be locked with Face ID or your passcode - a private diary that stays private. Night pages give you dark paper and light ink for writing after bedtime. WRITE, DRAW, ILLUSTRATE Real styling: bold, italics, centred lines, scene breaks. Draw straight onto the page with Apple Pencil or a fingertip, and add photo illustrations wherever you like. Draw your own cover, too. ORGANIZE A REAL STORY Chapters with a contents sheet. A plot board that lays your pages out at a glance. A story bible that interviews your characters and remembers your places. Story templates - three acts, hero's journey, fairy tale, mystery - that scaffold the chapters for you. Find and replace, and search across the whole shelf. TAKE IT OFF THE DEVICE Export a typeset PDF with cover, dedication, contents and illustration plates. Print a fold-at-home booklet. Make an EPUB ebook, a plain-text file, or an audiobook read aloud. Back up your whole library to a single file and carry it to another device. KEEP GOING Daily goals, streaks, milestones and writing sprints. A home-screen widget with your shelf and your streak. An evening writing prompt if you want one. Read a finished book with a real page curl, or have it read to you. YOURS, AND PRIVATE No account, no sign-up, no ads, no tracking, no subscriptions, and nothing is ever collected. Your books live on your device. Turn on iCloud sync (beta) and they sync through your own private iCloud - still nobody else's. Automatic version snapshots mean nothing you write is ever really lost. Everything in ScribeMe is included, free. It always will be. Made for iPhone and iPad.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: BookWrite at 5.0 against Tree Notebook's 4.4. BookWrite also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 25 months). Tree Notebook's advantage is ratings volume (5 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 18.1). 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
BookWrite holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Tree Notebook has 5 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
Tree Notebook ships an update every 25 months, BookWrite every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 30, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Tree Notebook | BookWrite |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.4 (5 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | 5 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 25 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 18.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 12 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Lena Pankratova | Richard Wheatley |
Customer experience
Tree Notebook
BookWrite
In-app purchases
Tree Notebook
No in-app purchases
BookWrite
No in-app purchases









