Comparison

Fairway Journal vs Journal 18

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

Head to head
About

Fairway Journal

Track your golf rounds, visualize your playing history on an interactive map, and collect digital representations of courses played. Compare your performance with friends and global leaderboards, and create wishlists of dream courses.

Highlights
  • Digital ball collection for played courses
  • Interactive map of played courses
  • Bucket list and top-10 course features
  • Global and friends leaderboards
  • Effortless round entry and trend charts
  • Course import and creation
  • Tournament trophy tracking
Features
Read full description

Fairway Journal Your personal golf collection, all in one place. Golf is more than a score. It’s the courses you’ve played, the rounds you remember, and the collection you build over time. Collect. Track. Relive. • Collect Digital Golf Balls Every course you play becomes a golf ball in your personal digital collection. • Build Your Course Gallery Turn every played round into a growing gallery of places, memories, and milestones. • Interactive Map See where you’ve played and discover new courses around you. • Rounds & Performance Track scores, follow trends, and understand your game. • Friends & Leaderboards Compare your stats and share your journey with others. • Bucket List & Favorites Plan your next rounds and highlight your best experiences. • Photos & Memories Capture every moment with photos and notes. Designed for golfers who want to remember more than just a score. Fairway Journal helps you build your personal digital golf story. Terms of Use (Apple Standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Journal 18

Transform your handwritten golf scorecards into detailed performance insights. This app uses AI to read your game data from photos or manual entry, revealing trends and areas for improvement. Track your rounds, drives, and approaches to lower your score.

Highlights
  • Digitize handwritten scorecards with AI
  • Track round history and scoring trends
  • Analyze drive patterns and approach proximity
  • Identify biggest opportunities for stroke reduction
  • Manual entry option for scores and stats
  • Compare performance to handicap benchmarks
Features
Read full description

You already keep the record. Journal18 reads it. Photograph your handwritten journal and Journal18 turns it into stats, trends, and a clear read on your game. Your journal stays on paper. Your insights live here. HOW IT WORKS 1. Snap a photo of your performance log, drives, and approaches pages after your round. 2. Journal18 reads the scores and stats with AI, then shows you everything it found. You review and confirm anything uncertain before it counts. 3. Every confirmed round builds your history, your trends, and your benchmarks. Prefer to type it in? Manual entry works too, hole by hole or as a quick summary. No photo required. WHAT YOU WILL SEE Round history. Every round saved with scores, stats, and notes, ready to revisit. Scoring trends. Watch your scoring move across rounds instead of guessing from memory. Drive patterns. Fairways hit, miss directions, and a landing board that shows where your tee shots actually finish. Approach proximity. How close you hit it from each distance range, and where the strokes are hiding. Benchmarks. See how your numbers compare to handicap benchmarks, so improvement has a target instead of a feeling. Your biggest opportunity. Journal18 calls out the one area costing you the most strokes, in plain words. BUILT FOR GOLFERS WHO WRITE IT DOWN Journal18 is made for players who keep a paper journal and want more from it. The app is calm and quick. No ads. No selling your data. Just your game, organized. FREE AND PREMIUM Creating an account is free, and your first round is included with core logging so you can see how it feels. Journal18 Premium unlocks the full experience: unlimited rounds, complete insights and trends, drive and approach trackers, and editing of completed rounds. PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTIONS Journal18 Premium is available as an auto-renewable subscription: - Premium Annual: $72 USD per year - Premium Monthly: $7 USD per month Prices may vary by region and are shown in the App Store before you subscribe. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Your subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel your subscription anytime in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.journal18.com/pages/app-terms Privacy Policy: https://www.journal18.com/pages/app-privacy Questions or feedback? We read everything: info@journal18.com

Screenshots

Fairway Journal4 screens
Journal 184 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Fairway Journal at 94% against Journal 18's 0%. Fairway Journal also leads on ads (none vs shown). Journal 18's advantage is rating (3.6 vs 3.0) and in-app purchases (none vs 8). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and monetization model 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. Fairway Journal sells 8 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Journal 18 asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Journal 18 holds the better App Store score, 3.6 against 3.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 5 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 94% of Fairway Journal's written reviews are positive against 0% of Journal 18's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Fairway Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, Journal 18 weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 21, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Fairway Journal versus Journal 18: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFairway JournalJournal 18
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.0 (2 ratings)3.6 (5 ratings) — better
Positive reviews94.1% of reviews — better0.0% of reviews
Number of ratings25 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksWeekly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPod
Requires iOS18.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size130 MB59 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperLucas RappTravis Zappia

Customer experience

Fairway Journal

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews17 reviews
Positive94.1%
Neutral0.0%
Negative5.9%

Journal 18

All ratings5 ratings
Positive60.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative40.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive0.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative100.0%

In-app purchases

8 purchases

Fairway Journal

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Subscription$1.991 Month
  • Yearly Subscription$9.991 Year
One-time6
  • Championship 2026 – Aronimink$0.99
  • Rydercup 2025 Team Europe$0.99
  • Rydercup 2025 Team USA$0.99
Show 3 more
  • Golfball US Open 2025$0.99
  • 2. Major 2025 – Ball$0.99
  • Pro Version$19.99
None

Journal 18

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fairway Journal free?
Fairway Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Journal 18 free?
Journal 18 is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Fairway Journal or Journal 18?
Journal 18 is rated higher. Fairway Journal averages 3.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while Journal 18 averages 3.6 from 5 ratings.
Do Fairway Journal or Journal 18 have ads?
Journal 18 shows ads; Fairway Journal does not.
Which is updated more often, Fairway Journal or Journal 18?
Fairway Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, and Journal 18 weekly. Most recently, Fairway Journal was updated on October 21, 2026 and Journal 18 on October 31, 2026.

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