Grid Diary vs Thinky
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Grid Diary
This app offers a guided journaling experience to foster personal development and mindfulness. It helps users build positive habits, manage stress, and enhance various aspects of their lives through customizable prompts and unique layouts.
- Prompted journaling with custom questions
- Unique grid and mandala layouts
- Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly planning
- Supports various journaling methods
- Mindfulness and self-care focus
- Stress and anxiety alleviation techniques
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Introducing Grid Diary: More than just a journaling app, it's your comprehensive personal development system. Embark on a personal growth journey that covers all aspects: • Embrace mindfulness & self-love • Establish morning & evening routines • Enhance personal health & wellbeing • Develop self-care habits • Alleviate stress and anxiety through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy • Acquire new skills • Boost productivity • Strengthen relationships • Ignite creativity ...and so much more. At Grid Diary, we understand that personal development is a holistic endeavor, not a singular pursuit. Grid Diary empowers you to create a diary system that goes beyond simple daily entries. By utilizing features such as custom prompts, tags, and categories, you can build a personalized framework for cultivating happiness and developing positive habits such as proactivity, optimism, and gratitude. Use Grid Diary to unlock the true power of keeping a diary and start your journey towards a happier, healthier you. # Feature Highlights • Prompted Journaling: Guided Self-Reflections Avoid writer's block with our question library or customize your own prompts for deeper self-reflection. • Unique Grid Format: Elegant and Comprehensive Organize all that matters to you on a single page with our customizable grid layout, fostering a holistic personal development system. • Mandala Layout: Journal like a Mind Map Our 9-grid Mandala-inspired layout, featuring a fixed center, emulates the artful representation of life's organization and connection to the cosmos. Journaling becomes intuitive and mirrors the way our minds work. • Day/Week/Month/Year Dimensions: Create Your Own Rituals Establish rituals that anchor you in time, crafting a framework for planning, acting, and reviewing on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. • Compatibility with Various Journaling Methods Whether you prefer morning diaries, success diaries, manifestation journals, or bullet journals, Grid Diary's flexibility accommodates your preferred approach. Discover the transformative power of Grid Diary and unlock your full potential today! # Don't Just Take Our Word for It "New Apps We Love" - Apple "If you've wanted to journal but don't know where to start, meet Grid Diary. Swappable prompts in a lovely, flexible grid format invite you to record and reflect on life's happenings - from noting your habits and goals to sharing affirmation and gratitude." - Google "Grid Diary is a good option for journal writers pressed for time or inspiration." - The New York Times --- As a dedicated three-person team, we believe that privacy is paramount for a journaling app. With no venture capital or advertisers backing Grid Diary, our long-term development relies solely on our members' paid subscriptions. We never sell your data to third parties for profit. # Note about Health App integration: After you have authorized access to health data, you can insert information such as steps or activity energy into your diary. Additionally, you can save your journaling time as mediation minutes to Health app. Grid Diary won't use your health data for other purposes. Privacy Policy https://griddiaryapp.com/support/privacy Terms of Service https://griddiaryapp.com/support/terms
Thinky
This app offers a secure and simple way to journal your thoughts and feelings. It automatically classifies your mood, provides writing prompts, and allows for cloud backup. Track your emotional patterns with visual graphs and set reminders to build a consistent journaling habit.
- Automatic mood classification
- End-to-end encryption
- Writing prompts
- Cloud backup and sync
- Photo attachments
- Daily reminders
- Visual mood graph
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Say hello to effortless journaling with Thinky, the beautifully simple and secure free journal. Take the guess work out of your thoughts and feelings as automatic mood classification tracks life’s ups and downs, leaving you time to focus on what really matters. Start the habit of a lifetime with Thinky, with your wellbeing at heart. More Thinky features: - Safely tuck your thoughts away with our state-of-the-art end-to-end encryption, keeping your private feelings just that: private. - Not sure where to start? Thinky’s writing prompts will help you focus on your wellbeing and remove that blank-page fear. - Create your free account to securely backup and sync your entries to the cloud - Add a splash of colour to your timeline and bring your posts to life with a photo, perfect for those times when words aren't enough. - Complete your post in a few seconds thanks to our simple, no-fuss interface, perfect for journaling on-the-go. - Never miss an entry: build the habit of daily journaling with reminders and streaks to incentivise you to keep up your practice. - Take the guess work out of your emotions and let Thinky’s automatic mood classification do all the hard work for you. - With each post, grow your bespoke visual mood graph and see how your mood ebbs and flows over time. - Take a moment for reflection, and ask Thinky to remind you of special posts at a future date. - Search your entries quickly and easily and see if you can spot patterns in your thoughts. - See in the dark with Dark Mode, perfect for late night journaling. - Keep your journal private with the Face ID lock. Now is the time to focus on you: download Thinky, your intuitive mindfulness companion.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Thinky at free with in-app purchases against Grid Diary's subscription. Thinky also leads on review sentiment (84% vs 48%) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 26.0). Grid Diary's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (963 vs 95). On price, rating, update cadence and in-app purchases 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. Grid Diary sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Thinky sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Grid Diary against 4.7 for Thinky. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Grid Diary has 963 ratings behind it against 95, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 48% of Grid Diary's written reviews are positive against 84% of Thinky's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 20, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Grid Diary | Thinky |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (963 ratings) | 4.7 (95 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 48.3% of reviews | 84.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 963 — better | 95 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Subscription | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 80 MB | 49 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sumi Interactive | Thinky Ltd |
Customer experience
Grid Diary
Thinky
User reviews
Grid Diary
From 963 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🌟 Excellent journaling app
- 📚 Customizable templates and prompts
- 🧠 Helps with self-reflection and mental health
- 🗓️ Organized grid layout
- 🔍 Useful search and timeline features
Room to improve
- 🐛 Sync issues and data loss
- 💰 Expensive subscription model
- 🔒 Lack of account deletion or data export options
- 🤔 Confusing onboarding and upgrade process
- 🕰️ Slow loading times and app freezes
Thinky
From 95 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Simple and easy to use
- ✨ Visually appealing design
- 🧠 Helps with self-reflection
- 🔒 Passcode protection available
- 💡 Tracks moods effectively
Room to improve
- 📝 Strict word limit (250 characters)
- 🤔 Difficulty navigating to past dates
- 📱 No iPad specific version
- 🔔 Reminders not always working
- ❓ Privacy key issues preventing login
Bugs and requests
Grid Diary
Reported bugs
4 issues- Entries disappearing or not syncing properly
- Password reset functionality not working
- Subscription issues and inability to access premium features
- Compatibility problems with newer iOS versions
Requested features
6 requests- Add Apple Pencil support
- Improve sync reliability across devices
- Provide more customization options for layouts and fonts
- Integrate with other productivity apps and calendars
- Implement a one-time purchase option
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- Allow randomized daily prompts
Thinky
Reported bugs
3 issues- App crashes when navigating to past dates
- Privacy key not working for login
- Wind down and bedtime alerts not working
Requested features
14 requests- Increase word limit
- Ability to export entries
- Tagging entries for search
- Add a return button for new lines
- Bullet points feature
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- Edit past entries
- Add more features and color customization
- Ability to add entries to specific dates
- iPad version
- Pin separate from phone for access
- Dark mode
- Advanced analytics
- Change daily entry order (asc/desc)
- Previews for entries
In-app purchases
Grid Diary
- Monthly3 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Monthly3 Months trial$4.991 Month
- Annual7 Days trial$29.991 Year
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- Annual6 Months trial$29.991 Year
Thinky
- Coffee-sized tip$0.99
- Sandwich-sized tip$2.99
- Pizza-sized tip$4.99
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- A very generous tip$9.99









