Comparison

Strflow vs Trace

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

Head to head
About

Strflow

This app offers a unique chat-style interface for taking notes, organizing them with tags, and setting reminders. It integrates seamlessly with iOS features and ensures your data is secure and exportable.

Highlights
  • Chat-style note-taking
  • Timeline organization
  • Tagging system
  • Todo lists and reminders
  • Quick capture from anywhere
  • Rich text editor
  • iCloud sync and backup
Features
Read full description

Strflow adopts a chat-style timeline format for incredibly simple and beautiful note-taking. Experience the simplicity of note-taking in a texting-yourself style. # Build Your Timeline As you jot down notes, a personal timeline naturally forms. With tags, you can also create timelines focused on specific topics. Tags can be attached or created from anywhere, and you can easily reorder them with drag & drop in the sidebar. # Todo & Reminders, Naturally in Your Timeline Strflow turns your checklists into a dedicated Todo timeline, so you can easily review tasks, check them off, and add new ones from a single view. You can also set notes for future dates and use them as reminders. Scheduled notes stay hidden until the right time, then gently surface with notifications—right when you need them. # Quick Notes Anywhere Sync quickly and capture notes from anywhere. Open the app and start typing instantly, access Strflow from the share sheet — no need to switch apps. # Native on iOS Strflow is designed natively for iOS, blending perfectly with its look and feel. It also integrates with system features like Apple Shortcuts and the share sheet—making it easy to fit into your workflow. # Your Data, 100% Yours Your data is stored safely on your device and in iCloud. When saved to iCloud, it’s encrypted with your iCloud Keychain. For those using iCloud’s Advanced Data Protection, enjoy the added security of end-to-end encryption. All data can also be exported as Markdown, so you can take it anywhere with no lock-in. # A Powerful Editor Strflow supports a wide range of rich-text editing features, including: • Link previews • Checklists • Note links • Inline formatting (bold, italic, etc.) • Block-level formatting (lists, code blocks, quote blocks, etc.) • Images --- Strflow lets you take unlimited notes for free. By joining Strflow Plus, you’ll unlock encrypted sync and backup via iCloud. Prices may vary by location. Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card via your App Store account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Once activated, subscriptions cannot be canceled. Manage your subscriptions in your App Store Account Settings after purchase. Any unused portion of a free trial period, if offered, will be forfeited upon purchasing a subscription. The lifetime option is a one-time, non-renewing purchase that grants permanent access to Strflow Plus features. --- For any questions or feedback, please feel free to contact us at support@strflow.app. We are eager to assist and connect with you! Privacy policy: https://strflow.app/privacy-policy Terms of use: https://strflow.app/terms

About

Trace

Features
Read full description

You'll Forget What You Read Today. Trace Won't. You read six articles, finished a podcast, and saved three more things to read later. By Friday, most of it is gone. The links scatter across browser history, three news apps, and a save list you never reopen. Trace fixes this with one idea: record the day, not the link. What you finished and what you still mean to get to, in one place. WHAT IT DOES Share anything to Trace as you go: articles, podcast episodes, songs, books. Trace collects them and turns each day into one clean, browsable entry, listed in the order you took them in, with the time on each. Tap a date and you see exactly what went into your head that day. The capture costs nothing to learn, because it rides the iOS share sheet you already use. WHY ONE ENTRY PER DAY MATTERS Most save-it-later tools work one item at a time. Pipe ten articles to Notion and you get ten separate pages to sort through later. Trace produces a single daily report that holds everything, every format in one stream, every title already wrapped as a clickable link to its source. That is the difference between a pile of clippings and a finished record. You stop assembling the day by hand, because the day arrives assembled. ONE LIST FOR EVERYTHING YOU MEAN TO GET TO Every news app has its own save button, and every save list is capped, buried, and walled off from the rest. Save a piece in one app, a video in another, a podcast in a third, and you have three lists to remember and the wrong app to open. Trace pulls them into one stream, each item a tap from its source. Share the things you want to come back to, and they wait in a single place instead of scattered across apps you forget you used. Everything Trace captures lives on your device. Nothing routes through a server. When you want the data elsewhere, you choose where it goes: • Notion: send the daily report straight into a database, such as your journal. • Obsidian: export to a vault folder. • Files: drop reports into any folder, including iCloud Drive. • Manual: export today as a PDF or your whole archive as a zip. No account. No subscription. No lock-in. The exits are clean, so your record is always yours to take. BUILT TO FEED A SECOND BRAIN The daily report is consistently structured: titles, sources, timestamps, and live links, the same shape every day. That makes it easy for you to read and easy for an AI agent to use. Ask the agent sitting on your Notion, "find the articles I read about the SpaceX IPO back in May," and it works from one well-formed record per day instead of parsing scattered pages or a save list it cannot filter by date. Trace does not try to be the agent. It makes the agent's job easier. FOR RESEARCH, IT WRITES THE BIBLIOGRAPHY Gathering sources by hand means copying a URL, copying the title, then stitching them together in your document, over and over. Trace hands you the formatted, linked list already built. When your reading for a project clusters across a few days, the report is a working bibliography you can lift straight into a draft. When it runs over weeks, the agent pulls the relevant subset out of your daily logs. Either way, the tedious step is gone. WHO IT'S FOR People who read a lot across formats, keep a structured journal in Notion or Obsidian, and want the day consolidated rather than the item saved. If that is you, nothing else does this cleanly. Trace records what you consumed, hands it off to the systems you already live in, and gets out of the way.

Screenshots

Strflow4 screens
Trace4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Trace at none against Strflow's 4. Strflow's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 2 months) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, ads and iOS requirement 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. Strflow sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month. Trace asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Strflow ships an update fortnightly, Trace every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 27, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Strflow versus Trace: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterStrflowTrace
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (51 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews97.1% of reviews—
Number of ratings51 — better—
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size73 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShingo EguchiMasayuki Ishido

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Strflow

Subscriptions2
  • Strflow Plus (Monthly)7 Days trial$1.491 Month
  • Strflow Plus (Annual)14 Days trial$14.991 Year
One-time2
  • Strflow Plus (Lifetime, Subscriber)$27.99
  • Strflow Plus (Lifetime)$37.99
None

Trace

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Strflow free?
Strflow is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Trace free?
Trace is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Strflow or Trace have ads?
Neither Strflow nor Trace shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Strflow or Trace?
Strflow ships an update fortnightly, and Trace every 2 months. Most recently, Strflow was updated on October 27, 2026 and Trace on October 24, 2026.

Other comparisons