Comparison

Told vs Shaka!

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

Head to head
About

Told

Create private, visually rich journals to capture everyday life with loved ones. Invite others to contribute entries, organize memories by custom covers, and receive reminders to maintain consistency. It's designed for shared memory-keeping, not social validation.

Highlights
  • Create private shared journals
  • Invite others to contribute entries
  • Add up to 10 photos/videos per entry
  • Customizable journal covers and titles
  • Reminders for consistent journaling
  • Visual feed of all journal entries
  • Commenting on entries
Read full description

Told: Shared Journals for Your Real Life Told is a beautifully visual, shared journaling app that helps you capture everyday life with the people who matter most. Create a private Space for your family, your kids, your book club—the sky's the limit—and fill it with journals, short videos, and prompts you answer together. Told is easy to use, visually rich, and built for memory-keeping together. Spaces: a home for your people A Space is where a group of people keep memories together. Each Space holds its own journals, Bits, and Prompt Packs, and only its members can see inside. You can: Invite people with a link or directly, and choose their role See who's in the Space and manage members anytime Transfer ownership when life changes Swipe between the Space's activity and its journals Keep a personal Space that's just yours Create a journal for anything Start a journal with a title, description, and custom cover image. Use it for a child's milestones, your family updates, a shared trip, or your personal reflections. Each journal can have: A cover photo Custom title and description Reminders to prompt you to post Members who can view or add entries Journals live inside a Space, and you can move one to another Space with all its entries intact. Bits: short videos for your Space Record a quick video from either camera and everyone in the Space sees it right away. A glowing ring at the top of your feed shows when there's something new to watch, so you can catch up in seconds. Bits are temporary, made for the small moments that don't need to last forever. Prompt Packs: never stare at a blank page Browse Prompt Packs from the Search tab and add one to a Space. Start with the fall collection: Cozy Season Bucketlist, Spooky Halloween Bucketlist, and The Harvest Table. Answer a prompt and it becomes an entry titled by the question, so you can see how everyone answered the same one. Your answers also collect on a Prompts page on your profile. Add entries in seconds Each entry can include: Photos or videos An optional title and caption Just text, just photos, or both A date Entries can be posted to one or more journals at once. No need to worry about the timing—Told pulls the actual photo date so your memories stay in order. Tap any entry to open it in full, with a full-screen viewer for photos and videos. Your home feed See everything from all your Spaces in one place: a two-column visual feed that updates with each new post, with your Spaces lined up along the top for quick access. Your journals at a glance Open any Space to see its journals in a clean grid, each with its cover image, title, entry count, and last update. Tap a journal to open a visual timeline of all its posts in chronological order, with the title, description, member and entry counts, and a streak counter showing how many days in a row it's been updated. Thoughtful features for consistency Reminders help you make journaling a habit Streaks keep you motivated Comments and reactions let you respond to friends' entries Notifications keep you up to date on comments, reactions, invites, and new Bits Share a single entry with a public link, and revoke it whenever you like Media date auto-fill keeps your timeline accurate without extra work Told is not about followers or likes. It's not for everyone—it's for your people. Build your own small social space where you can remember, reflect, and share real life as it happens.

About

Shaka!

Features
Read full description

‘Shaka! share your notes’ is a shared journal for you and your closest people. Create/Join a group, write a note, and let it stay — forever. Once posted, a note can't be deleted or edited. It's yours, and it's real. No second thoughts, no takebacks. Just honest writing, captured in the moment. Your group members can highlight lines that resonate and leave comments in the margins. Over time, your shared journal becomes a living conversation — layered with reactions, memories, and inside jokes that only your group understands. How it works: Start or join a group. Write a note whenever something's on your mind. Your group reads it, highlights the parts that stand out, and drops comments. That's it. No feeds, no likes, no noise. Why notes are permanent: We made a deliberate choice. When you can't delete or edit, you write differently. More honestly. The result is a journal that actually means something when you look back on it months or years later. Built to be minimal. No clutter. No distractions. Just writing, reading, and the people who matter.

Screenshots

Told4 screens
Shaka!4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Shaka! at daily against Told's every 3 weeks. Shaka! also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

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

Told ships an update every 3 weeks, Shaka! daily. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Told versus Shaka!: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterToldShaka!
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (11 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings11 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size83 MB5 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperTold LLCDaeun Lee

In-app purchases

None

Told

No in-app purchases

None

Shaka!

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Told free?
Told is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Shaka! free?
Shaka! is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Told or Shaka! have ads?
Neither Told nor Shaka! shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Told or Shaka!?
Told ships an update every 3 weeks, and Shaka! daily. Most recently, Told was updated on October 13, 2026 and Shaka! on October 4, 2026.

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