Comparison

Shire vs Alison

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

Head to head
About

Shire

Features
Read full description

Shire is a horse who lives in a lantern-lit stable. When your child's head hurts, she goes and tells him about it — and that conversation is the whole diary. A DIARY A CHILD CAN KEEP HERSELF No forms, nothing to type. Shire asks one gentle question at a time and she answers by tapping: when it started, which Wong-Baker face matches the hurt, where it hurts, what else feels wrong, what might have set it off. It is written down as she said it — and if she isn't sure, "I don't remember" is always one of the answers. HE NEVER NAGS Shire doesn't scold, guilt-trip or hand out medical advice. If a headache is still going, he asks after it kindly for a few days and then lets it rest — a headache is never closed automatically. If she told him something wrong, she can say so, and the record is corrected without erasing what was there before. WHAT THE DOCTOR GETS From the Grown-Ups area, one tap builds a PDF for the neurology appointment: headache days per month, intensity and duration, time-of-day patterns, where the pain sits, symptoms in clinical language (photophobia, phonophobia, visual aura), reported triggers, missed school, and a complete episode log. It reads the whole diary, including records kept in earlier versions of the app. ALSO IN THE GROWN-UPS AREA • A calendar of headache days and check-in days — and a way to fill in a day that was missed • Time anchors: teach the app what "at lunch" or "after school" means in your house • Choose how long Shire keeps asking about a headache that is still open • Her progress: stars, streaks and rosettes, earned for showing up and telling the story — never for having headaches • Backups you can save and restore at any time MADE FOR IPAD, AT HOME ON IPHONE The stable is a full-bleed scene on iPad and a comfortable single column on iPhone, with big tap targets throughout. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Every entry is a plain file in your own iCloud Drive and syncs only between your devices. No accounts, no ads, no tracking, no analytics. Your family's health data stays yours.

About

Alison

This app helps you track headaches by logging symptoms, meals, water, and sleep. It identifies potential patterns in your data to share with a clinician. Your journal remains private and on your device.

Highlights
  • Start and stop headache tracking
  • Log meals with ingredients
  • Track water and sleep intake
  • Optional Apple Watch integration
  • Read-only Apple Health integration
  • Optional weather data
  • Generate clinic letters
Features
Read full description

Alison is a personal headache journal. Headache on? Tap Start. Headache over? Tap Stop. Log meals, water, and sleep as they happen. The journal is what you wrote. Nothing more. Alison is not a medical device. It does not diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent migraine or any condition. It does not forecast. Talk to a clinician about symptoms. No account. No ads. No tracking. Your journal stays on your device. Pairs are observational. When the same thing has shown up with three of your migraine days, Alison shows a note. That is what has shown up together. It is not a cause. It is not a forecast. It is not a trigger test. Free download. Keep is a monthly subscription through Apple: 1-month free trial for new subscribers, then $0.99/month (local price varies). For the first 24 hours after you first open Alison, nothing waits on Keep. The journal stays readable without Keep. After the first 24 hours, new Start, Food, and Health pull need Keep. When the trial or Keep ends, those services end. Restore on the Keep screen. Cancel in Apple Subscriptions. WHAT YOU CAN DO • Start and Stop a headache • Log meals with ingredients. Search, scan a barcode, or type. Open Food Facts supplies the ingredients. Not a trigger test. • Log water and sleep. Water in ml or oz: you choose under Units. • Optional Apple Watch: Start and intensity • Optional Apple Health: read-only. Alison reads food, water, sleep, menstrual flow, caffeine, and alcohol, only what you allow on Apple's sheet. Deny and the journal still works. • Optional weather: tap Resample for a pressure and humidity forecast from MET Norway (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute). It is a forecast estimate, not a measurement, and it does not diagnose anything. If the weather feed is unavailable, the journal still works. Deny location and the journal still works. Based on data from MET Norway. Values are grouped and simplified by Alison. • Clinic letter: after 5 episodes, 8 meals, and 7 days, share, copy, or save a PDF of what you logged to hand to your clinician. It restates your log. It is not a diagnosis. WHAT ALISON DOES NOT DO • Diagnose • Forecast a migraine • Give medical advice • Replace a clinician • Show ads • Upload your journal to Night Orders ON YOUR PHONE • Alison has no account and no Alison server. Your journal, food log, symptom entries and photos stay on your device, and we do not collect them. Alison does not sync through iCloud. • We do not sell your data, use it for ads, or track you across apps or sites. • Weather is optional and only runs when you tap Resample, never in the background. Your phone rounds your location to about 11 km (7 miles) and sends it directly to MET Norway in Oslo, Norway. MET Norway receives your IP address with the request, as any web server does. Night Orders Studio LLC does not receive or store your location. • Food lookups send your search text or barcode to Open Food Facts, which sees your network address when called. No journal rows are sent. Details: nightorders.app/privacy-alison.html • Deleting the app deletes the journal on the phone. Support: support@nightorders.app Site: https://nightorders.app Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://nightorders.app/privacy-alison.html

Screenshots

Shire4 screens
Alison4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Shire at none against Alison's 1. Alison's advantage is device support (4 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Alison sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month. Shire asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
Shire versus Alison: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShireAlison
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS26.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB16 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperRouslan ZenetlPaturious Grey

In-app purchases

None

Shire

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Alison

Subscriptions1
  • Keep Monthly1 Month trial$0.991 Month

Questions

Is Shire free?
Shire is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Alison free?
Alison is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Shire or Alison have ads?
Neither Shire nor Alison shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Shire or Alison?
Shire ships an update every 2 weeks, and Alison every 2 weeks. Most recently, Shire was updated on October 30, 2026 and Alison on November 6, 2026.

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