Prayer Journal App vs Devotio
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Prayer Journal App
This app helps you cultivate a consistent and intentional prayer life. Organize prayer requests, set reminders, and reflect on answered prayers to deepen your spiritual journey.
- Organize prayer requests
- Set customizable reminders
- Track prayer streaks and consistency
- Add personal notes and reflections
- Archive answered prayers
- Backup and restore data locally
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Altar is a prayer journal for people who want to pray with intention — and remember what they prayed for. Write down what's on your heart, return to it, and watch a habit take shape. Every prayer you record stays with you, along with the days you brought it before God and the verses that carried you through. A HOME FOR YOUR PRAYERS Capture prayers as they come. Give each one a category — praise, confession, thanksgiving, intercession, healing, guidance and more — so your list stays clear instead of becoming a pile. Add a photo of the people you're praying for. MARK THE DAYS YOU PRAY One tap when you've prayed. Over time those taps draw a picture of your faithfulness: total days in prayer, your current streak, your longest streak, and the categories you return to most. SCRIPTURE, RIGHT WHERE YOU PRAY Four Bible translations are built in. Read, highlight in color anything that speaks to you, and keep every highlight in one place you can come back to. PIN VERSES TO YOUR PRAYERS Found a verse that belongs with something you're praying about? Pin it. It will be waiting on that prayer every time you open it. ROOM FOR THE WHOLE STORY A separate journal for the days words come easily and the days they don't. Dated, private, yours. NEVER LOSE IT Back up to iCloud or to a file you control, on a schedule you choose. Restore onto a new phone in a few taps. REMINDERS THAT FIT YOUR LIFE Set reminders for individual prayers so the things that matter don't slip past. Altar has no feed, no followers, and no one reading over your shoulder. Just you, your prayers, and the time you give them. SUBSCRIPTION Altar Premium is an auto-renewable subscription, with a lifetime option available as a one-time purchase. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://altar.creativeexpressionscollective.co/privacy.html
Devotio
This app offers a private and traditional Catholic prayer experience. Build custom prayer sessions, track intentions, and access various devotions like the Rosary and Stations of the Cross, all stored locally on your device.
- Customizable prayer sessions
- Intentions tracker
- The Rosary with all mysteries
- Stations of the Cross
- Surrender Novena
- Daily Mass readings
- Prayer journal
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Devotio is a free Catholic prayer app built as an apostolate, not than a product. No accounts. No cloud sync. No tracking. Your prayers stay on your device - private, as they should be. WHAT DEVOTIO INCLUDES Personal Oratory Build a prayer session shaped to your own intentions. Choose the quick path - one page, under a minute - or the full four-step preparation: your petitions, a virtue or theme, saints for intercession, and prayers from the treasury of the Church. Intentions Diptych Keep the names and causes you pray for close to hand. Inspired by the ancient Church practice of the Diptych - wax tablets on which names were written for prayer during the Liturgy. The Rosary All twenty mysteries, bead by bead. Joyful, Luminous, Sorrowful, and Glorious - with traditional day-by-day mapping. Quick Rosary for a single decade when time is short. Stations of the Cross All fourteen stations, with sacred art and your personal intentions carried through from the first. Surrender Novena Nine days of abandonment to Divine Providence attributed to Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo. Schedule daily prayers so each day's text arrives at the right time. Litanies and Chaplets The great litanies of the Church - including the Litany of Loreto and the Litany of the Saints - alongside traditional chaplets (coming in a later version). Daily Mass Readings Today's readings via Universalis, with regional liturgy recognition. Prayer Journal Every completed session logged automatically: the saints you prayed with, the mysteries, your intentions, date and time. Private. Never transmitted. Scheduler and Calendar Schedule any devotion. Set a time, receive a notification, deep-link directly into the prayer. Export to your phone's calendar. THE TRADITION 165 saints mapped to virtues, feast days, and themes. 1,140 Scripture passages across three translations. All major Catholic devotions - in three Catholic translations. Three translations throughout: modern English (Catholic Public Domain Version), traditional English (Douay-Rheims), and Latin (Clementine Vulgate). PRIVACY Devotio is architecturally incapable of seeing what you pray about. There are no user accounts, no servers to receive your data, and no tracking of any kind. Everything is stored locally on your device. You can export and delete your data at any time. FREE TO USE The app is free to use, and the heart of it - the prayers, the devotions, the Scripture, your intentions - will always remain so. Devotio is the vision of an independent Catholic who began with a simple desire for a faithful and private way to pray — and worked with an incredible Catholic software engineer (53bells), feature by feature, to bring that vision to life and share it with fellow believers.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Devotio at none against Prayer Journal App's 3. Devotio also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.0). Prayer Journal App's advantage is ratings volume (14 vs 2). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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
Both are free to download. Prayer Journal App sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Devotio asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Prayer Journal App against 5.0 for Devotio. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Prayer Journal App has 14 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
| Parameter | Prayer Journal App | Devotio |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (14 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 14 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 55 MB | 29 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Creative Expressions Collective LLC | DEVOTIO PRAYER LTD |
Customer experience
Prayer Journal App
Devotio
In-app purchases
Prayer Journal App
- Monthly Premium Access7 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Yearly Premium Access7 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Lifetime Premium Access$14.99
Devotio
No in-app purchases









