Buddy List Messenger vs Quick Journal
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Buddy List Messenger
Easily send mass messages to your contacts. Friends can choose to receive your updates via text or push notifications. Share your ideas directly with the founders.
- Send mass messages
- Push notification subscriptions
- Text message subscriptions
- Direct founder feedback channel
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A green dot next to a name. That's the whole idea. Buddy List brings back the one thing instant messaging got right and every app since has thrown away: you could look at a list and see who was actually there. Not who posted three hours ago. Who's around, right now. WHO'S AROUND Open the app and you have your answer before the screen finishes settling. Green means they're here. Amber means they stepped away. Every state carries a shape as well as a colour, so it reads the same if you can't tell green from amber. AWAY MESSAGES, IN YOUR OWN HANDWRITING "brb, mom needs the phone." Set a status and it goes out to your buddies as a notification. Pick the font. Pick the colour. Six real typefaces, eight colours, and whatever you want to say in them. This is the part where the personality lives. FRIENDS AND FAMILY Group your people and collapse the ones you're not looking at. Each group shows how many are around out of how many there are. YOU CONTROL THE LIGHT Go invisible and you appear offline to everyone. Hide your presence and you stop seeing theirs — it works both ways, always, and no screen in the app can get around it. Auto-away marks you away after 24 hours. We're also deliberately imprecise. "A few minutes ago," never a timestamp. Nobody needs to know you looked. WHAT'S NOT IN HERE No feed. No algorithm. No recommended accounts, no follower counts, no strangers, no ads. There is nothing to scroll and nothing to catch up on. You add the people you actually talk to, and that's the whole app. Buddy List needs a phone number to find your friends, and a notification permission to tell you when they're around. That's it.
Quick Journal
This app offers a straightforward journaling experience with extensive customization options. Personalize themes, fonts, icons, and layouts to create your ideal digital notebook. Widgets and draft saving features enhance usability for daily reflection.
- Customizable themes and fonts
- App icon and layout personalization
- Home screen widgets
- Save entries as drafts
- Copy and share entries
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Quick Journal is the simplest way to keep a journal. You can customize your journal's theme, fonts, app icon, layout, and even where the composer button is placed. To help you write or keep track of your entries, the app features widgets you can put on your home screen. You can copy or share your entries. You can always come back to an entry later by saving it as a draft, just swipe down and the entry will be saved. Hope you enjoy! EULA https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Quick Journal at Free against Buddy List Messenger's $5.99. Quick Journal also leads on device support (3 vs 1). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence 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
Quick Journal is free to download; Buddy List Messenger costs $5.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for Buddy List Messenger against 4.7 for Quick Journal. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 35 and 24 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 92% of Buddy List Messenger's written reviews are positive against 86% of Quick Journal's.
Buddy List Messenger ships an update weekly, Quick Journal every 9 days. Both last shipped on October 15, 2026.
| Parameter | Buddy List Messenger | Quick Journal |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $5.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (35 ratings) | 4.7 (24 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 92.3% of reviews — better | 86.4% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 35 — better | 24 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 9 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 17.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Spark Limited Liability Company | Charlie Deets |
Customer experience
Buddy List Messenger
Quick Journal
In-app purchases
Buddy List Messenger
No in-app purchases
Quick Journal
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Buddy List Messenger free?
Is Quick Journal free?
Which has better reviews, Buddy List Messenger or Quick Journal?
Do Buddy List Messenger or Quick Journal have ads?
Which is updated more often, Buddy List Messenger or Quick Journal?
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