Prism Notes vs Fleeting Thoughts
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Prism Notes
Capture thoughts and links quickly with a familiar texting interface. Organize ideas with AI-suggested tags and develop them across linked threads. Review notes to keep what matters and easily search by keyword or meaning.
- Texting-like note capture
- AI-suggested tags
- Threaded idea development
- Review mode for notes
- Sync across devices
- Natural language reminders
- Lock screen capture
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Prism is the private place for quick thoughts and links. It feels like texting, rather than writing in a document. Capture easily, organize with tags, develop ideas across threads, review to keep only what matters. Free to try! Features: - Private and on-device - Opt in to iCloud sync between iPhone and Mac - Voice transcription and voice memos - Lock screen widgets for text and voice capture - AI-suggested tags to make organizing easy or automatic AI tagging (requires apple intelligence) - Review mode to keep notes alive or let them go - Threads to evolve a thought and link them together - Search by keyword - Natural language reminders - just say "remind me tomorrow at 2pm" (requires apple intelligence)
Fleeting Thoughts
Capture thoughts privately with voice, text, scans, videos, and files in a unified timeline. Your data stays on your device or chosen cloud storage, with no accounts or tracking. Edit, tag, and export your notes easily.
- Unified timeline for voice, text, scans, video, and files
- On-device transcription and Apple Intelligence cleanup
- Private data storage (device, iCloud, or Files app)
- Video trimming, reframing, and image cropping
- Document scanning with text extraction
- Tagging and filtering for organization
- Markdown or JSON export options
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Fleeting Thoughts is a private capture pipeline for the agentic era. Save ideas, notes, links, screenshots, scans, PDFs and voice thoughts the moment they appear, as plain files you control, ready for the notes apps, workflows and AI agents you choose. Use it when you want a fast private place to save something now and organize it later. Start with a quick voice note, paste text, share in a link, scan a page, import a file, or capture from Apple Watch. Everything lands in one clean timeline you control. - YOUR DATA, YOUR CHOICE Every thought is saved as a plain, readable file, on your iPhone or in a folder you choose. Use those files with your notes app, your own database, your local agents or the AI assistant you prefer, or keep them just for yourself. Nothing requires an agent or a subscription, and your data stays yours whatever you use next. - CAPTURE FAST Tap the mic to record, type a note, paste from the clipboard, scan a page, import a photo or file, or share content into Fleeting Thoughts from other apps. - BUILT FOR THE MOMENT The app is designed for quick capture first. Save the thought, hear the confirmation, and move on. You can clean it up later. - TAGS THAT STAY SIMPLE Use lightweight tags to keep ideas, links, health notes, project thoughts, and other captures separated without turning capture into a filing task. - MEDIA THAT STAYS USEFUL Keep original images, scans, screenshots, videos, audio, and PDFs attached to the thought that created them. Preview, copy, share, export, trim, crop, or remove extra attachments when needed. - PDF READER COMPANION Open saved PDFs in a focused reader, resume where you left off, bookmark a page, save a page as an image, clip selected text, and add page notes back into the original thought. - APPLE WATCH CAPTURE Capture from your wrist when your phone is not in your hand. Watch recordings keep going while you use other apps, then arrive in your iPhone timeline, transcribed. - SEARCH AND EXPORT Search your timeline, copy individual thoughts, export selected groups, and use iPhone Spotlight to find saved thoughts from outside the app. - LOCAL-FIRST BY DEFAULT No account required. No tracking. Your captures stay private and local unless you choose to share or export them. You can also choose a folder for readable saved files. - ONE PURCHASE, EVERY PLATFORM Universal Purchase includes iPhone, Apple Watch, and Mac. Each app is designed for its own device: iPhone for capture on the go, Apple Watch for wrist capture, and Mac for desktop dictation. Fleeting Thoughts is for people who think faster than they can organize: builders, writers, researchers, students, and anyone who needs to save useful things before they disappear.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Prism Notes at Free against Fleeting Thoughts's $9.99. Prism Notes also leads on ratings volume (39 vs 5) and iOS requirement (18.6 vs 26.0). Fleeting Thoughts's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2). On rating, review sentiment, 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
Prism Notes is free to download; Fleeting Thoughts costs $9.99 up front. Prism Notes sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Fleeting Thoughts asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for Prism Notes against 5.0 for Fleeting Thoughts. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Prism Notes has 39 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Prism Notes ships an update every 3 days, Fleeting Thoughts every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Prism Notes | Fleeting Thoughts |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 4.9 (39 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 39 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 24 MB | 12 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Tommy Joseph | Dylan Russell |
Customer experience
Prism Notes
Fleeting Thoughts
In-app purchases
Prism Notes
- Lifetime Unlock$6.99
- Lifetime Unlock$12.99
Fleeting Thoughts
No in-app purchases









