Comparison

UpNote vs Secret Diary

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

UpNote

This app provides a clean and beautiful interface for writing and organizing notes, journals, and to-do lists. It offers rich formatting options, an intuitive organization system, and instant syncing across devices, with offline capabilities. Premium features include enhanced security and export options.

Highlights
  • Rich text editor with formatting tools
  • Intuitive organizing system (notebooks, pins, links)
  • Secure note locking with Touch/Face ID
  • Instant cross-device syncing and offline access
  • Markdown support and export
  • Task management and to-do lists
Features
Read full description

UpNote is a clean and beautiful app for writing and organizing. It's easy to use with rich features and delightful experience. UpNote is designed to help you take notes easily and stay focused on what matters most. UpNote has beautiful fonts and elegant themes that you can adjust to make your writing experience most comfortable and pleasant. UpNote is an ideal place to keep your diary and journal. It has a powerful lock feature so that you can rest assured that your notes stay private and secure. You can also use Touch ID or Face ID to securely unlock your notes. UpNote’s intuitive organizing system will keep your note space neat and light. There are many ways to organize your notes: putting them into notebooks, pinning your notes to the top of the note list, bookmarking them for quick reference or linking to other notes. You can also close any notebooks to focus on only most important one. UpNote’s rich editor makes it perfect for planning and managing your tasks. Simply write down your to-do list and have them synced to all your devices. UpNote offers highlight, text colors, table, nested list, code and many other important formatting tools so that you could easily format your notes. UpNote syncs notes instantly on all devices. It also works reliably offline, so you could take note anytime, anywhere. If you are a markdown user, UpNote is great for you too. It has intuitive shortcuts based on markdown, which makes it more fun to write notes. You can also export your notes to Markdown or PDF. Try UpNote now and you will fall in love with it! ---- Upgrade to Premium to get full power of UpNote: - Lock your notes and notebooks - Insert table and attachments - Write unlimited number of notes - Elegant themes and notebook covers - Export to text PDF, HTML and Markdown ---- Price may vary by location. Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your iTunes account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You will not be able to cancel the subscription once activated. Manage your subscriptions in Account Settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial peri​od will be forfeited when the user purchases a subscription. ---- If you have any question or feedback, we would love to hear it. Send an email to support@getupnote.com, and we would love to get in touch with you! ---- Privacy policy: https://getupnote.com/privacy.html Terms of use: https://getupnote.com/terms.html

About

Secret Diary

Securely record your daily life and protect your privacy with this easy-to-use digital journal. Customize entries with beautiful fonts and quickly find past notes using content search. It offers password protection for exclusive access.

Highlights
  • Password protection
  • Secure diary entries
  • Customizable fonts
  • Content search
  • User-friendly interface
  • Privacy protection
Features
Read full description

Secret Diary is a private journal for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Write personal notes, daily reflections, travel memories, study logs, or work journals in a calm SwiftUI interface designed for long-term writing. Your diary stays local on your device. Secret Diary does not upload your diary text or password to external servers. A local password lock helps protect private writing, and the data management tools let you export readable JSON backups when you want to keep your own copy. Free features: 1. Fast daily writing: create and edit diary entries (up to 30 entries; upgrade to Pro to unlock unlimited). 2. Local search: find entries by keyword, date, weekday, Markdown text, and Pinyin initials. 3. On This Day: rediscover entries written on the same date in previous years. 4. Writing reminders: receive local notifications at the time you choose. 5. Reminder styles: choose discreet, gentle, concise, or encouraging reminder copy. 6. Writing statistics: review diary count, word count, recent activity, and streaks. 7. Typography options: customize reading and writing fonts across diary content. 8. Keyboard shortcuts: use faster workflows on iPad and Mac. 9. Data control: export, import, merge, and delete local diary data with clear safeguards. Pro features: 1. Unlimited diaries: lift the 30-entry limit to write and save as many entries as you want. 2. Markdown preview: view rendered headings, lists, links, images, and formatting. Secret Diary is built for people who want a private, offline-first place to write and revisit their own memories. --- Subscription Information: Subscription payments will be charged to your iTunes account upon confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renewal is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current subscription period. --- Privacy Policy: https://secretdiary.gewill.org/en/privacy Terms Of Use: https://secretdiary.gewill.org/en/terms Contact: 531sunlight@gmail.com

Screenshots

UpNote4 screens
Secret Diary4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: UpNote at weekly against Secret Diary's every 3 months. UpNote also leads on ratings volume (1.1K vs 1). Secret Diary's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.7). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. UpNote sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Secret Diary sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Secret Diary holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: UpNote has 1.1K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

UpNote ships an update weekly, Secret Diary every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
UpNote versus Secret Diary: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterUpNoteSecret Diary
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.1K ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—70.0% of reviews
Number of ratings1.1K — better1
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS15.615 — better
Further details — not scored
Size81 MB66 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperUpNote Company Limited伟 葛

Customer experience

UpNote

All ratings1,067 ratings
Positive92.5%
Neutral2.8%
Negative4.7%

Secret Diary

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews10 reviews
Positive70.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative30.0%

Bugs and requests

UpNote

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Black screen issues
  • Lost notes and data
  • Incompatibility with newer iOS versions
  • Google sign-in not working

Requested features

8 requests
  • Reminders and calendar integration
  • More customization options (fonts, colors, etc.)
  • Improved drawing/handwriting support
  • PDF annotation and embedding
  • Optical character recognition (OCR)
Show 3 more
  • Ability to reorder bullets and lists
  • Improved table editing and formatting
  • Apple Watch app

Secret Diary

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

8 purchases

UpNote

Subscriptions1
  • Premium monthly subscription$1.991 Month
One-time7
  • Life-time Upgrade$19.99
  • Life-time Upgrade to Premium$19.99
  • Life-time Upgrade$24.99
Show 4 more
  • Life-time Upgrade to Premium$24.99
  • Life-time Upgrade$29.99
  • Life-time upgrade to Premium$34.99
  • Life-time upgrade to Premium$39.99
1 purchases

Secret Diary

One-time1
  • Lifetime Premium$2.99

Questions

Is UpNote free?
UpNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Secret Diary free?
Secret Diary is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, UpNote or Secret Diary?
Secret Diary is rated higher. UpNote averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.1K ratings, while Secret Diary averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do UpNote or Secret Diary have ads?
Neither UpNote nor Secret Diary shows ads.
Which is updated more often, UpNote or Secret Diary?
UpNote ships an update weekly, and Secret Diary every 3 months. Most recently, UpNote was updated on October 13, 2026 and Secret Diary on October 7, 2026.

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