Comparison

QualNote vs Her Trails

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

Head to head
About

QualNote

This digital research tool aids social science and humanities students and researchers in fieldwork. It offers features for data collection, including mobile mapping, interviews, and participant observation, with integrated consent management for ethical research.

Highlights
  • Project folders with real-time collaboration
  • Mobile mapping with geotagged photos and audio
  • Interview recording with timestamped questions
  • Participant observation with geotagged notes and audio
  • Integrated consent management with digital signatures
  • Photo elicitation for interviews
Features
Read full description

QualNotes is a digital research tool tailored for the social sciences and humanities researchers and students, particularly useful for human geographers and design thinkers. It is designed to assist in fieldwork, providing a range of functionalities to facilitate data collection. The app lets users organize their data collection efforts in project folders that offer real-time collaboration capability. This makes it particularly adequate to teach for example mobile walking methods during a class enabling the student not only to listen to the explanations of the teacher but to follow how they build a digital walking map in real time. Within a project folder, there are three ways to collect data: Mobile Mapping ("Maps"), Interviews and Focus Groups ("Interviews"), and Participant Observation & Autoethnography ("Participant Observation"). These tools cater to a variety of data collection needs that are the foundation of publishing qualitative research papers as well as conducting design thinking fieldwork. The Mobile Mapping feature provides a practical solution for capturing geographical data such as geotagged photos, notes, and audio notes. The Interviews tool simplifies the organization, recording, and playback of an interview because the questions can be timestamped during the recording. The app also includes a feature called (‘Interview Guide’) that enables the collaborative preparation of a list of interview questions (the interview guide) that can be reused by many interviewers. The Participant Observation tool offers the capability to record geotagged and timestamped notes, photos, and audio notes. Additional features of QualNotes include Photo Elicitation during an interview. This allows researchers to use photographs to stimulate discussion or reflection during the recording of an interview or focus group exercise. QualNotes has application uses in social sciences and humanities, but also across practitioners and design thinkers who map physical Journey Maps with the purpose of improving the UX in a physical space and those conducting interviews for research purposes. The Integrated Consent Management for Ethics is another key feature of QualNotes. This tool (available inside each project folder) simplifies the process of obtaining and managing consent from research participants. It allows researchers to collect consent from participants digitally with a finger sign on the screen. This reduces paperwork and it is comparatively safer than carrying documents during the field trip because of encryption and password protections. Only the admin user of a project can download the collected consent forms. Data privacy is a cornerstone of QualNotes. The secure storage of these consents is a priority. QualNotes ensures that all consents are stored securely with multiple safeguards, protecting the privacy of participants and maintaining the integrity of the research data. This commitment to data privacy and the facilitation of ethical research practices.

About

Her Trails

Read full description

Inside the Her Trails app, you can: Access all of your videos in one easy to use app Receive push notifications with the latest news and updates Access to all of your videos without having to remember your password Save your favorite posts so you can quickly find them later END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

QualNote4 screens
Her Trails3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: QualNote at 13.0 against Her Trails's 16.6. On price, update cadence, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

QualNote ships an update every 9 days, Her Trails fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
QualNote versus Her Trails: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterQualNoteHer Trails
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 9 days — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.0 — better16.6
Further details — not scored
Size70 MB44 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperQualNotes ABHer Trails Pty Ltd

In-app purchases

None

QualNote

No in-app purchases

None

Her Trails

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is QualNote free?
QualNote is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Her Trails free?
Her Trails is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do QualNote or Her Trails have ads?
Neither QualNote nor Her Trails shows ads.
Which is updated more often, QualNote or Her Trails?
QualNote ships an update every 9 days, and Her Trails fortnightly. Most recently, QualNote was updated on October 14, 2026 and Her Trails on September 27, 2026.

Other comparisons