Comparison

MoodWell vs Hourly Journal

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

Head to head
About

MoodWell

Track your daily moods and understand how activities and weather impact your mental well-being. This private journal helps you identify patterns and gain insights into what makes you feel your best.

Highlights
  • Private mood logging
  • Activity and weather correlation
  • Customizable moods and activities
  • Photo and note attachments
  • Daily, weekly, monthly, yearly charts
  • Data export (CSV/JSON)
  • iCloud Sync
Features
Read full description

MoodWell mood tracker enables you to keep a private journal of how different activities and changes in weather effect your mental health. Use this super-simple to use diary to know which activities make you feel your absolute best and which ones might be negatively impacting you. We recommend logging your mood at least once but preferably 2-3 times a day. You should at least log any drastic changes in your mood and factors which make you feel that way. Choose from a list of color coded moods and attach optional positive or negative emotions you might be feeling. Add activities on what you have been up to. Describe the weather if you like. You can also add photos and notes to the logs. MoodWell uses the recorded moods, activities and weather data to present interesting statistics on your mental health. The graphs and calendar show how your mood changes over a period of time. After logging a few times, you will get valuable insights like - which weekdays do you usually feel your best, which ones are the worst, which months of the year are your best and worst, which activities you do more often when you feel good and which ones make you feel not too good. Are you usually in a worse mood when it's cold and gloomy outside? Are you more energetic when it's sunny? The color coded Year in Pixels chart shows you how you have felt on every single day throughout the year similar to an old school diary. These insights will help you understand your mental health better. You can also use the search function to look for specific items - hastags can be used to make the search super powerful. For example: #n will search for all logs with notes #p will search for all logs with photos #awful will search for all logs with awful mood #exercise will search for all days when you worked out #sunny will search for all days when it was sunny MoodWell comes with: - No ads, No subscriptions and No analytics - data stays on your device privately - biometric (TouchID or FaceID) authentication to make your app private so only you can unlock it - ability to create custom activities, emotions, weather tags and rename and remove existing ones (PRO feature) - attach photos - attach notes - daily, weekly, monthly and yearly charts - reminders to never forgot to log - exporting to both CSV and JSON. You can either do this from the settings page (scroll to the bottom > Export Data) or from the bottom graphs drawer's Save button. - save the graphs as a photo directly from the app - iCloud Sync: automatically syncs your mood logs, photos, notes, custom emotions/activities/weather/icons and reminders across all your devices which are signed in to the same iCloud account. - Light and Dark mode. Settings for "Use system dark mode setting" and "Dark mode". - Custom tint colour theme for the app! Variety of colour choices! - custom icons for weather. Icons must be PNG format and preferably 100x100 resolution. - customize the greetings and reminder notification greeting based on time - morning, afternoon, evening and night greetings. - a new background everyday to keep the app looking fresh - 10 Free and fully featured logs after which we hope you will buy a one-time small in app purchase to support future updates development and unlock unlimited logs I offer an ad free, subscription free, tracker and analytics free and simple app for the absolute best experience for my users. If you are finding my app useful, please leave me a positive rating on the app store as that helps get the word out to others! If you have any feedback or feature requests, please email Pran at: pran@pranapps.com Happy journaling!

About

Hourly Journal

Track how you spend your time with a beautifully designed and simple hourly journal. Log your hours, add tags and reactions, and gain insights into your daily, weekly, or monthly activities through intuitive analytics. Improve your lifestyle by becoming more mindful of your day.

Highlights
  • Log hours and activities
  • Add tags and emoji reactions
  • Daily, weekly, monthly analytics
  • Hourly reminders
  • Intuitive calendar for revisiting past entries
  • Free cloud sync
Features
Read full description

See where your time goes and understand how every part of your day feels. Hourly Journal turns quick check-ins into a clear picture of your time, activities, emotions and energy. Capture meaningful moments throughout the day without writing long diary entries. JOURNAL YOUR DAY, YOUR WAY Record quick notes in 15-minute intervals, add activity tags and express how each moment felt with reactions. Keep journaling even when you’re offline and return to your entries whenever you need them. UNDERSTAND YOUR TIME AND MOOD Connect what you do with how you feel. Review your top activities and emotions across the day, week or month to discover patterns in your routines, productivity and wellbeing. BUILD A CONSISTENT JOURNALING HABIT Build streaks, earn badges and turn short reflections into a lasting habit. Hourly Journal makes it easier to pause, check in and become more intentional with your time. START WITH POWERFUL FREE FEATURES • Offline journaling • 15-minute entries • Up to 3 custom tags • Daily, weekly and monthly insights • Top tags and emotions • Streaks and badges GO DEEPER WITH PREMIUM • Set exact start and end times • Track energy and positive or negative experiences • Personalize tags with icons and sentiment markers • Create up to 3 workspaces • Protect individual workspaces with a passcode • Explore granular Deep Reports • Compare activities and discover peak hours • Customize sleep and wake patterns • Search entries using advanced filters • Export selected entries with custom filters • Enjoy the complete dark mode experience Whether you want to improve your work-life balance, understand your emotions or simply remember how your days unfolded, Hourly Journal helps you turn every hour into useful insight. Start journaling one moment at a time. PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTION Hourly Journal is free to use, with optional Premium features available through: • Monthly auto-renewable subscription • Yearly auto-renewable subscription • One-time Lifetime purchase Monthly and yearly subscriptions include a 7-day free trial. Pricing is displayed in the app before you confirm your purchase. Payment will be charged to your Apple Account when the purchase is confirmed. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current billing period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours before the current period ends. You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time through your Apple Account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://hourlyjournal.com/privacy-policy

Screenshots

MoodWell4 screens
Hourly Journal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: MoodWell at every 5 days against Hourly Journal's every 3 months. MoodWell also leads on ratings volume (253 vs 8) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 15.0.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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. MoodWell sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Hourly Journal sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for MoodWell against 4.9 for Hourly Journal. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MoodWell has 253 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 85% of MoodWell's written reviews are positive against 78% of Hourly Journal's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

MoodWell ships an update every 5 days, Hourly Journal every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
MoodWell versus Hourly Journal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterMoodWellHourly Journal
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (253 ratings)4.9 (8 ratings) — better
Positive reviews85.1% of reviews — better77.8% of reviews
Number of ratings253 — better8
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS10.0 — better15.0.0
Further details — not scored
Size31 MB49 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperPranoy Chowdhuryonesimple.life

Customer experience

MoodWell

All ratings253 ratings
Positive94.5%
Neutral3.6%
Negative2.0%
Written reviews67 reviews
Positive85.1%
Neutral9.0%
Negative6.0%

Hourly Journal

All ratings8 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive77.8%
Neutral11.1%
Negative11.1%

Bugs and requests

MoodWell

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Crashes when editing past posts
  • Crashes when trying to change emotions or selected pictures
  • Crashes when adding activities
  • Notifications seldom work
  • Cannot make new logs after update
Show 2 more
  • Cannot buy after update
  • App crashes constantly when adding emotions, weather etc. (older version)

Requested features

11 requests
  • Frequency of emotions tracking
  • Customizable rating scales
  • Alphabetize emotions and activities toggle
  • Add weather factors to emotions
  • Ability to see frequency of emotions
Show 6 more
  • Add custom categories (e.g., Health)
  • iCloud sync to iPad version
  • Watch app integration
  • Ability to change names of moods
  • Categorize custom emotions
  • Medication tracker

Hourly Journal

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

MoodWell

One-time1
  • MoodWell Premium$12.99
3 purchases

Hourly Journal

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Plan$0.991 Month
  • Yearly Plan$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Lifetime Plan$27.99

Questions

Is MoodWell free?
MoodWell is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Hourly Journal free?
Hourly Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, MoodWell or Hourly Journal?
Hourly Journal is rated higher. MoodWell averages 4.8 out of 5 from 253 ratings, while Hourly Journal averages 4.9 from 8 ratings.
Do MoodWell or Hourly Journal have ads?
Neither MoodWell nor Hourly Journal shows ads.
Which is updated more often, MoodWell or Hourly Journal?
MoodWell ships an update every 5 days, and Hourly Journal every 3 months. Most recently, MoodWell was updated on October 24, 2026 and Hourly Journal on October 25, 2026.

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