eScribo vs SFD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
eScribo
A clean and powerful writing tool designed for aspiring authors. It offers a distraction-free environment with features like focus mode and typewriting mode, allowing you to concentrate on your story. Export your work in PDF or ePub formats.
- iCloud Sync
- Unlimited books and chapters
- Focus Mode
- Typewriting Mode
- PDF export
- ePub export
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Let the writer inside you out with this simple and powerful writing tool. eScribo is a powerful tool for all those people who love to write. With a clean, beautiful and simple design you will have a real portable writing studio at your fingertips. Everything you need to focus on what matters, your story. IMPORTANT: an iCloud account is required. eScribo bets on a future in the cloud. That is why eScribo require iCloud enabled and storage available. Main Features • iCloud Sync. • Create unlimited books, with the option to add Introduction and/or prologue independently. • Complete range of colors for your books. • Focus Mode. • Typewriting Mode. • Unlimited chapters, with character count, paragraphs, lines, words, writing time and reading time. • Preview of the book with all its chapters. • PDF export. • ePub export. • And much more to come. Thanks you for use eScribo and stay tuned for new updates! **Public Books is on the way — a new way to share your writing and get feedback from others.**
SFD
This app helps you overcome writer's block by forcing you to write a first draft without the ability to edit or reread. It uses timed bursts and nudges to keep you moving forward, allowing you to flag sections for later revision.
- Forward-only writing
- Timed writing bursts
- Cursor nudges for stalls
- Flagging sections for revision
- Plain text export
- Offline functionality
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Writing apps help with the easy half — outlines, fonts, folders, word-count trophies. The hard half is producing a bad first version of something, and that's all SFD does. SFD is forward-only. You write in a burst, the earlier lines dim and scroll away, and you can't go back to fix them. You can't edit a draft into existence, so SFD won't let you try until it's out. How it works: — A go is a timed burst. You write. You don't reread. — Stall for a few seconds and you get a shove — a nudge that gets blunter the longer you stare at the cursor. — Hit a line you hate? Drop a later and keep moving. Your flags become a punch-list for when you revise. — A finished part is a chunk. A stack of chunks is the Pile — your whole first draft. — When it's done, send it out as plain text, to wherever you actually revise. Drafting is free. Every go, every later, every export — no account, no trial clock, no nagging. THE BIG MONTH is free too: 50,000 words of a novel's first draft between November 1 and 30. SFD shows your words today and how many a day finishes it, lights up a November calendar on every day you write, marks 10,000, 25,000 and 50,000, and gives you a BIG MONTH 2026 stamp and finisher card you can only earn that November. One thing costs money: SFD Habit Tracking, a 99-cent one-time unlock for the habit layer — the streak map and year wall, the month goal, the quiet reminder, stamps, share cards, and the home-screen widget, which carries THE BIG MONTH in November. The scoreboard, not the game. If you bought SFD back when the app itself cost money, the habit layer is yours automatically. What SFD won't do: format, outline, sync, collaborate, or write the draft for you. You write the bad version. A chunk has to get written; inside that, anything goes. Your words stay yours. Every chunk is a plain-text file on your device. No proprietary format, no servers. SFD makes no network calls at all — it can't lose your words and it can't trap them. Get the first draft out. You can make it good later, somewhere with a real keyboard.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: SFD at 100% against eScribo's 0%. SFD also leads on price (Free vs $3.99) and rating (5.0 vs 2.7). eScribo's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and chart position (#91 vs unranked). On update cadence, ads, monetization model 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
SFD is free to download; eScribo costs $3.99 up front. SFD sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. eScribo asks for nothing beyond the download.
SFD holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 2.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 1 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 0% of eScribo's written reviews are positive against 100% of SFD's.
eScribo ships an update every 5 days, SFD every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | eScribo | SFD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 2.7 (3 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days — better | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #91 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 1 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Oskar Pacheco | Daniel James Kinney-Spears |
Customer experience
eScribo
SFD
In-app purchases
eScribo
No in-app purchases
SFD
- SFD Habit Tracking$0.99









