Comparison

stash.bar vs Sift

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

Head to head
About

stash.bar

Features
Read full description

Stop re-explaining yourself to ChatGPT, Claude, or every new AI tool you open. Stash is the personal context layer for AI — capture once, and every tool you use already knows you. Forward an email. Talk into a voice memo. Share a screenshot. Drop a link. Whatever's easiest. Stash quietly organizes everything you put in — people, projects, ideas, decisions — into a structured graph of what you're working on. No folders. No tags. No setup. Then, when you open Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, or any AI tool that speaks MCP, your context is already there. Same prompt, smarter answer. Different tool, same brain. — Capture without thinking. Voice on the walk. Screenshot of the chart. Link you'll come back to. Thought at 2am. — Find what you almost forgot. Ask in plain English. Stash returns the moment you said it, the article you saved, the decision you made. — Watch your world organize itself. People, projects, ideas — extracted automatically. Linked. Kept current. A living wiki of how you think, written from everything you do. — Build context as you work. Every AI you use reads from the same brain — and writes back to it. Your thoughts are yours. Encrypted. Never shared. Never used to train AI models. Full export anytime, in open formats. No ads, no trackers, no data brokering. Made in Asbury Park, NJ.

About

Sift

Features
Read full description

Sift is a notes app built around one question: can you find what you wrote? Most note apps can't. Their search matches text exactly, so it misses "lightbulb" when you typed "light bulb", misses "running" when you searched "run", and gives you nothing at all when your thumbs put an extra letter in a word. Sift is built the other way round. FIND WHAT YOU HALF REMEMBER • Typo tolerance — "meting notes" finds "Meeting notes" • Word endings — "run" finds "running", "city" finds "Cities" • Compound words, both directions — "light bulb" finds "lightbulb", and the other way round too • Accents ignored — "resume" finds "résumé" • Results as you type, with the matching words marked so you can see why something matched • Filters when you want them: tag:work/clients, is:todo, "exact phrase", -exclude, updated:>2026-01-01 NOTHING IS EVER LOST Every save is a revision. Open the history of any note, read any earlier version, and bring it back with one tap. Restoring is itself just another revision, so it can't destroy anything either. Notes are written one file at a time, and the history is written before the file is replaced — so even an interrupted write leaves your words recoverable. Deleted notes wait 30 days in the trash. NOTES THAT KNOW ABOUT EACH OTHER Type [[ to link one note to another. The link works both ways: the note you point at shows everything that points back. A connections view draws the shape of what you've been thinking about, and notes you've mentioned but not written yet become an invitation to write them. WRITING THAT FEELS RIGHT • Live Markdown — headings, bold, highlight, quotes, code, checklists • Lists continue themselves; Return on an empty item ends the list • Tap any line to put the cursor exactly there • Tick checkboxes without entering edit mode • Nested tags like #work/clients/acme • Pin, archive, and lock notes behind Face ID • Light and dark, six accent colours, three writing fonts, four text sizes YOUR NOTES ARE YOURS Every note is a plain Markdown file stored on your device. No account. No server. No sync that can fail, because there is nothing to sync. Export any note, or all of them, whenever you like. Sift is free. There is no subscription, no advertising, no note limit, and no paid tier holding features back.

Screenshots

stash.bar4 screens
Sift4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Sift at 16.4 against stash.bar's 26.2. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference · 4 level
stash.bar versus Sift: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameterstash.barSift
PriceFreeFree
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.216.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size1 MB29 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTyler KloseMuhammad Hasan Zafar

In-app purchases

None

stash.bar

No in-app purchases

None

Sift

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is stash.bar free?
stash.bar is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Sift free?
Sift is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do stash.bar or Sift have ads?
Neither stash.bar nor Sift shows ads.

Other comparisons