Shine vs Template Diary
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Shine
Wake up to inspiring Bible verses narrated with beautiful background music. Customize your daily devotion with different Bible versions, narrators, and themed verse packs. Share uplifting messages with loved ones and start your day with spiritual guidance.
- Professionally narrated Bible verses
- Choice of KJV or NIV versions
- Male or female narrator options
- Themed verse packs (Calm, Happy, etc.)
- Dark Mode
- Share verses with friends and family
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Wake up to professionally narrated Bible verses with beautiful background music. Start your day with Scripture, and share your morning verse with friends or family. Create multiple alarms with their own names, wake-up times, repeat days, snooze settings, and verse-pack choices. Repeating alarms stay enabled for future mornings, and the Alarms tab keeps your schedule in one place. Browse Sample, Calm, Inspired, Happy, Faithful, Motivated, and Strong in the Verse packs tab. Listen to verses, choose KJV or NIV and a male or female narrator, and enjoy Shine's familiar photography and gold design in light or dark mode. Each saved or enabled alarm chooses a recording from its selected available packs and keeps that recording for repeats. Save or re-enable an alarm to choose a recording again or apply narrator and Bible-version changes. This version uses Apple's AlarmKit and requires iOS 26 or later. Shine is free to download with a Sample pack containing verses from each of the Verse Packs. If you’d like to support Shine we have a variety of subscription options that unlock all verse packs - choose whichever price you find appropriate! Start every day with the wisdom and inspiration of God’s word! Subscriptions pricing and terms: Shine Bible Alarm offers auto-renewing yearly subscriptions for $9.99 / year, $19.99 / year, $29.99 / year and $39.99 / year, as well as a monthly subscription for $3.99 / month. All subscriptions provide unlimited access to all verse theme packs (all content) in the Shine Bible Alarm app for as long as you maintain an active subscription. Payment will be charged to the credit card connected to your iTunes account when you confirm the initial subscription purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current subscription period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period, and the cost of renewal will be identified. You can manage your subscriptions and turn auto-renewal off by going to your Account Settings after the purchase. Any unused portion of the free trial period will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription. You can read our terms and conditions here: https://www.shinealarm.com/shine-terms-and-conditions/index.html You can access our privacy policy here: https://www.shinealarm.com/privacy-policy/index.html
Template Diary
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◆ Simple design ◆ With a useful template feature! ◆ You can download and transfer your diary data! "I wanted to keep a daily diary, but I stopped after three days." Have you ever had such an experience? The template feature solves this problem! You can decide in advance what to write in your diary, so you rarely have to stop at the beginning. You can also download your diary data! In general diary apps, you cannot take the data out of the app, so when you stop using the app, you do not have the data at hand. Template Diary allows you to download diary data in csv and text format, so you can manage your important diary data by yourself.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Template Diary at none against Shine's 10. Template Diary also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 9 days) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 26.0). On price 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. Shine sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Template Diary asks for nothing beyond the download.
Shine ships an update every 9 days, Template Diary every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Shine | Template Diary |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (381 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 61.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 381 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | — |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 291 MB | 48 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yariv Adam | Hayato Sato |
Bugs and requests
Shine
Reported bugs
5 issues- Alarm sometimes doesn't go off
- Alarm keeps going off even when not supposed to
- Does not work when using snooze button
- Alarm doesn't ring when phone is on vibrate
- App won't make an alarm
Requested features
17 requests- Volume slowly increases (gradual wake-up)
- Alternate languages (English to Spanish)
- Set recurring alarms in advance
- Multiple alarms at once
- Volume adjustment while alarm is sounding
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- More entirety of scripture (not just one-liners)
- More options on waking up modes
- Several verses or passages
- No music, just spoken Bible verses
- Option to have whole chapters
- Connect to other Bible apps
- Weekly alarm setting
- Snooze without unlocking phone
- Modify gender of voice
- Modify background music
- Personally selected Bible verses
- Include specific Bible verses (Proverbs 26:13-15)
Template Diary
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Shine
- Monthly Support Subscription3 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Discount subscription7 Days trial$9.991 Year
- Recommended subscription7 Days trial$19.991 Year
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- Generous support subscription7 Days trial$29.991 Year
- Awesome Support Subscription7 Days trial$39.991 Year
- Inspired Pack$0.99
- Motivated Pack$0.99
- Happy Pack$0.99
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- Faithful Pack$0.99
- All Packs$3.99
Template Diary
No in-app purchases









