IWL vs CogniLog
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
IWL
This app is a distraction-free Markdown editor with intelligent writing tools. It offers features like style analysis, goal tracking, and AI-powered editing to help users improve their prose and understand their writing style.
- Distraction-free writing environment
- Style analysis against famous authors
- Writing goal tracking and progress monitoring
- NLP-based word count and statistics
- Readability scores and estimated reading time
- AI-powered editing for grammar and rephrasing
- Word frequency and keyword analysis
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IWL is a beautiful Markdown text editor designed to help you write with focus, powered by a suite of intelligent tools that elevate your writing to a professional level. Whether you’re a novelist, journalist, academic, or creator, IWL gives you more than just a blank page. It gives you insight. It’s the only writing app that helps you understand your writing. # Why Writers Love IWL - Distraction-free by design: A clean, fast editor that lets you think on the page. - Toolbox, not clutter: Open only the tools you need, when you need them. - Smarter than your average text editor: Many tools are powered by natural language models for deep, accurate insights. - Markdown native: No weird formats. Just clean text that goes anywhere. - Offline-friendly: tools work without internet. Your words stay yours. # Writer's Toolbox ## Style Analyzer Find your voice—and who it sounds like. The iconic "I Write Like" style analyzer uses a custom English linguistic fingerprinting model to compare your writing with that of famous authors. It provides a lens into your style, tone, and rhythm. Perfect for learning and sharpening your voice. ## Track Your Writing Goals Set targets and watch your progress. Stay motivated by setting custom word or character goals for your project. IWL tracks your progress in real-time and celebrates with you when you hit your target. Whether you're aiming for a 500-word blog post or a 50,000-word novel, you'll always know exactly how close you are to completion. ## NLP-based Word Count More than just a number. Unlike basic byte-based counters in most text editors, IWL uses a natural language processing (NLP) model to parse text and give you accurate word, sentence, and character stats. Perfect for authors, copywriters, and students who need precision. ## Readability Know how it feels to read. Instantly get readability scores—with estimated reading time and reading level. ## Edit with AI An intelligent editing partner, built right in. Rewrite, rephrase, correct grammar, and polish your prose with our smart AI editor. No chatting—just click and improve. Choose from top AI models from leading developers. (Requires an API key.) ## Word Frequency Find patterns you didn’t know were there. See which words dominate your writing—or which ones you’re underusing. Filter by common or rare words. ## Keywords IWL displays the most semantically important words in your document. Great for SEO, summaries, or finding the hidden themes in your drafts. ## Sentence Rank Spotlight your strongest lines. Using vector analysis, IWL ranks your sentences by informational weight—so you can find the most important lines fast. Ideal for editing, summarizing, or structuring arguments. ## Outline IWL auto-generates outlines from your headings and structure, giving you instant navigation and a birds-eye view of your doc. ## Links Every link, one view. See all your hyperlinks extracted from the document in a single glance. Useful for checking sources, citations, or cleaning up drafts. ## Comments All your side notes in one place. Inline TODOs, comments, and side notes are automatically detected and displayed. Stay organized while staying in the flow. ## Dictionary Know exactly what you mean. Look up word definitions, synonyms, and usage without breaking your writing flow. It’s fast, built-in, and never intrusive. It also shows pictures. ## Read Aloud - Let your writing speak. IWL’s text-to-speech helps you catch awkward phrases and polish your rhythm by hearing your text performed aloud. Choose from a variety of voices. ## Export Beautiful output in every format. Export to PDF, styled HTML, or Word documents with zero formatting headaches. ## Markdown Preview No more guessing what your Markdown will look like. IWL renders your document with elegant typography and layout—automatically. It’s fast, accurate, and great for checking blog posts, docs, and articles.
CogniLog
This app helps you document your work, capturing decisions and reasoning. It allows an AI assistant to read your log and answer questions about your past activities. Entries are plain text with Markdown support, and a visual almanac helps you navigate your history.
- AI-powered work log analysis
- Plain text entries with Markdown
- Visual almanac for historical navigation
- Project-based channels and #tags
- Cross-device sync via iCloud
- Import from other note-taking apps
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CogniLog is a work log you can read at any distance. In the Almanac view, step back to the year to see which weeks went to which projects, open a week to skim a few lines from each entry, then tap one to read the whole thing. You write the way you normally would, and CogniLog works out the short versions for each view. If you work with AI agents, they can read and write to the same log, so you and your agents work from the same record. On a Mac, an assistant like Claude, or a coding agent like Claude Code or Codex, connects to CogniLog's built-in MCP server. It can look up your past work, answer questions about it, and log what it did and why. Those entries sync to your iPhone, right next to yours. It fits any kind of work. People use it for code, client projects, research, writing and school. On iPhone Write an entry in the app, from a Lock Screen or Home Screen widget, from the share sheet, or with Siri and Shortcuts. Entries are plain text with light Markdown that formats as you type. Add a #tag and the entry is tagged. Channels keep separate projects apart. You can ask for things back, too. Say "What did I log today in CogniLog" and Siri lists your entries. In Shortcuts you can pull up entries by day, week, channel or tag, search the whole log, or hand a week of entries to Apple Intelligence for a summary. (Summaries need a device that supports Apple Intelligence.) The Almanac view shows your log by week, month and year. Tap a day to see what happened, then open any entry. On iPhone Duo, CogniLog uses both sides of the fold, with your log on one side and your filters or the editor on the other. On Mac CogniLog for Mac uses the same log, synced through your iCloud, and it can do more: • The Almanac view fits a whole year on one screen. Hover over a day for a summary of what happened. • Import from apps like Apple Notes, Day One, Obsidian and Bear, or from a folder of Markdown files, and export everything back out as Markdown whenever you want. • The built-in MCP server lets your AI assistants read your log and write to it. • Log from the menu bar or from Spotlight without switching away from what you're doing. If you have a Mac, get CogniLog there too. Your iPhone and your Mac write to the same log. Privacy Your entries stay on your devices and in your own iCloud. The app sends anonymous usage counts that never include anything you write and aren't linked to you. About CogniLog is made by Rivet & Rune. Questions, bugs and ideas go to support@rivetrune.com, and each one gets read.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: CogniLog at Free against IWL's $29.99. IWL's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.2). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence 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
CogniLog is free to download; IWL costs $29.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for IWL against 5.0 for CogniLog. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 3 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
IWL ships an update fortnightly, CogniLog every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.
| Parameter | IWL | CogniLog |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (3 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 — better | 26.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 27 MB | 53 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Koding Robots doo | Rivet Rune LLC |
Customer experience
IWL
CogniLog
In-app purchases
IWL
No in-app purchases
CogniLog
No in-app purchases









