Soul Journal vs MesoBuilder
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Soul Journal
This app helps you understand your emotional patterns through private mood tracking and journaling. Log your feelings, add notes and photos, and track your reading habits to gain personal insights. It offers on-device storage and no account is required.
- Mood tracking with five levels
- Journaling with notes and reflections
- Attach photo memories
- Save and track songs
- Book tracking and reading shelf
- Mood and reading analytics
- Home Screen widgets
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Soul Journal is a private mood tracker, journal, and focus companion that helps you understand how you feel and make space for what matters. Check in with your mood, capture meaningful moments, and turn focused time into reflection. With Focus Sessions, you can read, study, work, meditate, create, or choose a personal activity in a calm full-screen timer, then save how you feel when the session ends. Log your daily mood in seconds, add reflections, attach photo memories, save the song that matched your day, and track the books you are reading. As your entries grow, Soul Journal turns them into clear, personal insights with mood analytics, calendar history, reading habits, private photo memories, Home Screen widgets, featured memories, and on-device journal reflections. FOCUS WITH INTENTION - Start timed Focus Sessions for Reading, Studying, Working, Meditation, Creative Time, or your own custom activities - Use free 1, 5, 10, or 15-minute timers; Premium adds longer presets, custom durations, and open-ended sessions - Add an optional private intention, choose whether to keep the screen on, and personalize completion sounds and haptics - Pause, minimize, restore, or resume an active session without losing your progress - Follow timed progress from a Live Activity, with local completion notifications when needed - Connect Reading Focus to a book and update your reading progress when the session ends - Reflect on your mood after focusing and save the session together with your mood entry - Keep active Focus Session details stored temporarily on your device MOOD & JOURNAL - Track moods across five levels, from very sad to very happy - Choose your mood style with classic Emoji or Nova the Kitten - Add notes and reflections to every mood entry - Attach up to five photo memories and revisit the moments behind your day - Save songs connected to your mood, preview them with a beautiful CD-style player, and review your song history - Revisit past entries with Featured Moment and calendar-based history - Review recent mood summaries and day-level details READING - Add books you are reading and track progress by page number - View books in progress, completed reads, and your personal Reading Shelf - Build a daily reading habit with book streaks, progress tracking, and gentle motivation - Explore Reading Map to look back at reading habits over time - View completed-book milestones and a visual shelf of finished reads - Show or hide the Currently Reading card on Home INSIGHTS & WIDGETS - Explore Mood Map to look back at your check-ins over time - View mood analytics including mood distribution, dominant mood, most common moods, daily trends, best time window, and helpful statistics - Unlock private on-device journal insights to reflect on past entries - Use Home Screen widgets for quick check-ins, streaks, media, notes, and Reading Shelf updates PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your moods, notes, photos, songs, books, Focus Sessions, analytics, and journal insights stay on your device or in your iCloud account. Active Focus Sessions remain device-local. Your personal reflections are never used for tracking. - No account required - No ads - No third-party tracking Whether you are building a journaling habit, understanding emotional patterns, protecting time for focused activities, saving meaningful memories, tracking your reading life, or connecting moods with music and books, Soul Journal helps you reflect more consistently and privately. Some features require a Soul Journal Premium subscription. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://soul-journal-app.blogspot.com/2025/04/soul-journal-privacy-policy.html
MesoBuilder
This app helps lifters and coaches create structured training plans, log workouts, and track progress without spreadsheets. It offers intelligent progression suggestions and analysis of training blocks. Tools are available for both individual athletes and professional coaching workflows.
- Create multi-week training blocks
- Log sets, RIR, and notes
- Track volume and adherence
- Analyze mesocycle performance
- Intelligent progression suggestions
- Coach and lifter modes
- iCloud data storage
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MesoBuilder is the training app that shows its work. Build multi week mesocycles for hypertrophy and strength, log every set, and get weekly load and rep prescriptions you can actually check: tap any recommendation to see the exact numbers behind it. No black boxes, no spreadsheets. Your first mesocycle is completely free with the full engine. After it, logging, history, and trends stay free forever, and the engine becomes a subscription. ---- AN ENGINE THAT SHOWS ITS WORK • Weekly progression prescriptions computed from the weight, reps, and RIR (reps in reserve) you actually log • Prescription receipts: every recommendation comes with the arithmetic that produced it • Effort aware: log RIR per set so the engine knows how hard each week really was • Rough day protocol: flag an off day and the engine adapts the session without letting one bad day drag your numbers down • Machine stacks: swap a prescribed weight for what your machine actually has and the rep target recalculates to match ---- A MEMORY THAT SPANS BLOCKS • Start your next block with suggestions from your own training history. Tap Use suggestion for each set, or enter your own reps and weight • Compare completed mesocycles side by side • Track volume trends with sets per muscle group • Follow repeated lifts across training blocks to see long term progress • Check mid block trends without waiting for the block to end ---- FOR LIFTERS • Build multi week mesocycles from 55 ready made templates or from scratch • Log weight, reps, and RIR for every set, with notes for each exercise • Live workout timers and Home Screen widgets keep sessions on track • Sync training across your devices through your personal iCloud account when iCloud is available and enabled Engine prescriptions beyond your first mesocycle require an Individual or Coach subscription. Logging and history never do. ---- FOR COACHES Coach clients remotely without accounts or spreadsheets. Your client enters a 6 character code and you are linked. • Build and deliver multi week programs straight to each client's phone • See your clients' logged results, effort, and reported training days • Message your clients right in the app • Choose smart weekly suggestions or manually set the targets clients see • Clients can follow your programs and log their workouts for free • Coach includes everything in Individual, so your own training keeps the full engine Your first 2 clients are free with full features. A Coach subscription expands your roster. ---- DESIGNED FOR IPHONE AND IPAD On iPhone, MesoBuilder is the logbook in your pocket. On iPad and wider screens, use the extra space for workout logging, templates, history, and coaching. Manage your client roster and client details side by side. ---- PRIVACY FIRST Your personal training data is stored on your device, with iCloud sync available through your own account using Apple's CloudKit. The developer cannot read your private iCloud data. If you link with a coach or client, the programs, results, and messages you exchange are delivered through a MesoBuilder operated relay and deleted on a fixed retention schedule. Analytics are anonymous and privacy preserving. ---- BUILT BY A LIFTER MesoBuilder is independently built and maintained by a lifter who wanted a more honest way to plan training. Feedback is always welcome, and user input directly shapes updates. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://mesobuilder.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
Soul Journal and MesoBuilder are too close to call on the numbers: across 10 compared parameters — price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Soul Journal sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and MesoBuilder sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Soul Journal against 5.0 for MesoBuilder. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Soul Journal ships an update weekly, MesoBuilder every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 6, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Soul Journal | MesoBuilder |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 22 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Rahul Kumar | Devin Tassin |
Customer experience
Soul Journal
MesoBuilder
In-app purchases
Soul Journal
- Soul Journal Monthly$0.991 Month
- Soul Journal Premium Yearly$8.991 Year
MesoBuilder
- Individual - Monthly7 Days trial$3.991 Month
- Coach - Monthly7 Days trial$14.991 Month
- Individual - Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year
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- Coach - Annual7 Days trial$149.991 Year
Questions
Is Soul Journal free?
Is MesoBuilder free?
Which has better reviews, Soul Journal or MesoBuilder?
Do Soul Journal or MesoBuilder have ads?
Which is updated more often, Soul Journal or MesoBuilder?
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