Comparison

Penjo vs Oriora Study

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

Head to head
About

Penjo

This app allows you to handwrite notes, sketches, and plans directly onto your digital pages. It integrates with your calendar and reminders, offers extensive customization for your journals, and syncs across your Apple devices. Search your handwritten notes and photos with ease.

Highlights
  • Handwritten notes and sketches
  • Apple Calendar and Reminders integration
  • Customizable journal appearance
  • Handwriting search
  • iCloud sync across Apple devices
  • Photo editing and manipulation
  • PDF export
Features
Read full description

Penjo is a digital journal and planner you write by hand. In the morning, today's page shows your Apple Calendar events and reminders, and you plan around them with Apple Pencil or your finger. By evening, the same page is your diary, with notes, sketches and photos of the day, and iCloud keeps it on your iPad, iPhone and Mac. Later, search finds the words you wrote, even in your handwriting. In September 2026, the App Store featured Penjo in "Make the Most of Apple Pencil" in 173 countries. PLAN WITH YOUR CALENDAR • See your Apple Calendar events and Apple Reminders on the day page and in the week and month views, including Google and Exchange calendars. Add, edit and complete them without leaving Penjo. • Reminders you haven't finished from earlier days appear under Overdue on today's page. • On iPad and Mac, the day drawer keeps the day's plans beside your page as you move from day to day. • See your week at a glance, with each day's page and plans. The month page is a canvas too, for a habit tracker or a mood chart. MAKE IT YOURS • Give each journal its own look: 18 cover colors, 20 paper colors, and blank, lined, grid or dotted paper in different spacings. • Use Day Mode for a page every day, or List Mode for occasional notes, class notes, trips or scrapbooks. • Choose fonts and colors for your text, set up your own Apple Pencil tool palette, and pick light or dark. WRITE YOUR DAY • Every page starts blank on the paper you chose, and you decide what goes where. Add more pages to a day when you need them. • Penjo can straighten the lines you draw, and you can scribble over words to erase them. • Photos: remove the background, add a sticker effect or an instant photo frame, flip a photo or clip it to a shape, right on the page. Add text boxes, shapes and maps too. • Add moments from your day and gratitude prompts with Journaling Suggestions, and use Writing Tools and Image Playground on supported devices. SYNCED AND PRIVATE • iCloud keeps your journals in sync on iPad, iPhone, Mac and Apple Vision Pro. They stay in your own iCloud, and we never see what you write. • Lock the app or a single journal with Face ID, Touch ID or your device passcode. • Export a day, week or month as a PDF, or back up and transfer whole journals as .penjo files. LOOK BACK • Search also finds the text in your photos, with text recognition on your device. • On This Day shows what you wrote on the same date in earlier years. READY FOR THE NEWEST APPLE DEVICES • The Liquid Glass design on iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and later, in your journal's colors. • iPhone Duo: open it like a book, with the page on one side and the day's events and reminders on the other, or set it half open on a table and write on the flat half. Fold it shut and the journal closes. • Home Screen widgets, and Penjo in 22 languages. FREE AND UNLIMITED Penjo is free to start, with no account to create: 3 journals and 14 day pages in each. Penjo Unlimited adds Apple Calendar and Reminders, iCloud sync, unlimited journals and pages, app and journal locks, PDF export and .penjo backups, on all your devices. Choose a monthly or yearly subscription, or pay once with Lifetime. Family Sharing is available on the monthly plan. Questions? Every message gets a personal reply. support@penjoapp.com Privacy Policy: https://penjoapp.com/privacy-policy Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Oriora Study

Features
Read full description

Oriora Study turns your own material into study notes, layered explanations, and a week-by-week plan — then quizzes you on it. • Record the lecture — your device transcribes it as the class happens (no audio ever reaches Oriora), and Digest turns the transcript into notes. • Import a PDF — slides or a handout are read on your device; the file is never uploaded. • Photograph a textbook page or your handwritten notes. The page is read on your device, so the photo never leaves your phone. Add several pages to one material; they stay attached, and you can see them. • Digest turns your material into key concepts, a summary, and self-check questions. • Quiz me runs those questions as active recall — answer from memory, then reveal. No AI call, no cost. • Explain teaches one concept properly: an analogy, a precise definition, a worked example, and the mistake people usually make. Photograph the thing you don't understand if it's easier than typing it. • Plan builds the weeks between now and your deadline, with spaced review. • Highlight the concepts that matter, and tap "Go deeper" on any of them. • Talk to it instead of tapping: make notes, build a plan, log study time, search your library, back everything up — from the chat, or in a live call where you just say it and it does the work. It can keep a written plan or summary in a folder in your own GitHub or Google Drive, and go back later to find or tidy them. It teaches; it does not do your work. It will explain how to write a thesis statement, structure an argument, or fix an unclear paragraph you wrote — it will not write, rewrite or finish an essay, assignment or exam answer for you. You are always the author. When it tells you something it didn't get from your own material, it says so, and says it may be wrong. It never invents a citation. Your data stays yours — we don't retain it: data passes through Oriora for each AI action and isn't kept by us. You choose where it lives — this device, and optionally your own GitHub or Google Drive. AI runs on Oriora and is billed to your Oriora wallet.

Screenshots

Penjo4 screens
Oriora Study4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Oriora Study at 15.0 against Penjo's 17.0. 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. Penjo sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month and Oriora Study sells 8 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Penjo ships an update every 11 days, Oriora Study weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 12, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Penjo versus Oriora Study: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPenjoOriora Study
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (285 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews73.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings285 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 11 daysWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size27 MB16 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperZafer ARICANOrioralabs OU

Bugs and requests

Penjo

Reported bugs

13 issues
  • Cloud sync not working across devices despite paid subscription
  • App crashes when using photo effects
  • Calendar not syncing or displaying properly
  • Notebooks disappearing or becoming unopenable
  • Text boxes misaligning after app closure
Show 8 more
  • Bluetooth keyboard text appearing at bottom of screen
  • Restore purchases button non-functional
  • iCloud sync not automatic despite being enabled
  • Family sharing not working on secondary Apple IDs
  • Support page returning 404 errors
  • Forced app updates without user consent
  • Text selection tools unreliable on mobile devices
  • Photo shape cutting requires specific upload order

Requested features

24 requests
  • Dark mode or black background option
  • Screen lock/page lock to prevent accidental writing
  • Apple Pencil advanced features (highlighter, squeeze, double-tap)
  • Text formatting options (resize, color change for selected text)
  • More page layout templates and line spacing options
Show 19 more
  • Ability to convert handwriting to text
  • Stickers and decorative elements for journaling
  • Bullet point and to-do list functionality
  • Google Drive and Google Tasks integration
  • PDF annotation and file linking capabilities
  • Folder and subfolder organization system
  • Non-calendar-based notebook organization
  • Weekly and monthly view options
  • Automatic page creation at 50% capacity
  • Customizable default text preferences
  • Straight line drawing tool (like Procreate)
  • Voice memo support
  • Outlook calendar integration
  • Book-style page turning interface
  • Habit tracker and monthly review templates
  • Daily prompt suggestions for journaling
  • Emoji and motivational sticker packs
  • Page thumbnails and quick navigation
  • Hyperlinked navigation tabs

Oriora Study

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Penjo

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Subscription$2.991 Month
  • Yearly Subscription7 Days trial$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • Pro Lifetime$39.99
8 purchases

Oriora Study

One-time8
  • $20 Oriora Credit$23.90
  • $30 Oriora Credit$35.49
  • $50 Oriora Credit$58.90
Show 5 more
  • $80 Oriora Credit$94.90
  • $100 Oriora Credit$117.99
  • $150 Oriora Credit$176.99
  • $200 Oriora Credit$239.00
  • $250 Oriora Credit$294.99

Questions

Is Penjo free?
Penjo is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Oriora Study free?
Oriora Study is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Penjo or Oriora Study have ads?
Neither Penjo nor Oriora Study shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Penjo or Oriora Study?
Penjo ships an update every 11 days, and Oriora Study weekly. Most recently, Penjo was updated on November 12, 2026 and Oriora Study on October 31, 2026.

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