# Penned vs Mood Board

The clearest difference is price: Mood Board at Free against Penned's $4.99. Mood Board also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months). Penned's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and iOS requirement (16.6 vs 18.0). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Mood Board is free to download; Penned costs $4.99 up front. Mood Board sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Penned asks for nothing beyond the download.

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Penned against 4.5 for Mood Board. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 87 and 101 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 50% of Penned's written reviews are positive against 55% of Mood Board's.

Penned ships an update every 2 months, Mood Board fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 10, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | Penned | Mood Board |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | $4.99 | **Free** |
| Rating | **[4.6 (87 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/penned-private-notes/id1480653765/reviews)** | [4.5 (101 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mood-board-creativit/id1661256251/reviews) |
| Number of ratings | 87 | **101** |
| Positive reviews | 50.0% of reviews | **54.5% of reviews** |
| In-app purchases | **No** | Yes |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | **Fortnightly** |
| Monetization | Paid | **Freemium** |
| Size | 1 MB | 81 MB |
| Requires iOS | **16.6** | 18.0 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | **iPhone, iPad, Mac** |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | [Edwing H Santos Mena](https://appshunter.io/developer/1851857999) | [DesignTech SIA](https://appshunter.io/developer/1540325368) |

## What reviewers say

### Penned

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/penned-private-notes/id1480653765)

A minimalist handwriting app designed for privacy, keeping all your notes securely on your device. It features natural writing with Apple Pencil, on-device AI text recognition, and smart tagging for easy searching. Export your notes as PDFs in a clean, distraction-free interface.

**Highlights:** Natural Apple Pencil writing, On-device AI text recognition, 100% private, no cloud, Export beautiful PDFs, Smart tagging and search, Distraction-free interface

**Features:** macOS Compatibility, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases:** none


### Mood Board

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/mood-board-creativit/id1661256251)

Organize and store all your creative project ideas and inspiration in one place.  This app allows you to add various content types, sort, filter, and sync across your Apple devices.  Upgrade for unlimited workspaces, folders, and tags.

**Highlights:** Unlimited items and workspaces, Organize with folders and tags, Multiple content types (text, image, file, etc.), iCloud sync across Apple devices, Sort, filter, and duplicate items, Dark mode and native design, Widgets and app shortcuts

**Features:** Family Sharing, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases (3)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Monthly | $2.99 | per month |
| Yearly | $9.99 | per year |
| Premium Lifetime | $19.99 | one-time |

**What reviewers like**

- 👍 Well-designed and functional
- 👍 Great for organizing notes, links, images
- 👍 Integrates well with iOS, iPadOS, MacOS
- 👍 Simple and aesthetically pleasing interface
- 👍 Useful for teachers' lesson plans

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 Sync issues between devices
- 🐛 No undo/recover button, accidental deletion risk
- 🐛 App freezes when loading files
- 🐛 Images compressed, not original size
- 🐛 Videos not supported

**Reported bugs**

- Share to Creativit finicky, locks up
- Accidentally deleted entire workspace, no recovery
- App freezes when loading any file from Mac
- Sync doesn't work, bug preventing file sync
- Link previews not showing after iOS 18 update

**Requested features**

- Support multi-picture and video addition
- Add adaptive or waterfall display for folders
- More control over item presentation (image adjustment, scaling)
- Undo or recover button
- Warning before deleting items/workspaces


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Penned free?

Penned costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.

### Is Mood Board free?

Mood Board is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Which has better reviews, Penned or Mood Board?

Penned is rated higher. Penned averages 4.6 out of 5 from 87 ratings, while Mood Board averages 4.5 from 101 ratings.

### Do Penned or Mood Board have ads?

Neither Penned nor Mood Board shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, Penned or Mood Board?

Penned ships an update every 2 months, and Mood Board fortnightly. Most recently, Penned was updated on October 10, 2026 and Mood Board on October 15, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*