Hyphen vs Nocturnum
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hyphen
This minimalist app allows for quick capture of daily thoughts, tasks, and moments. It organizes entries by day and provides a visual timeline of your year, highlighting days with more activity. Notes are automatically timestamped and can be entered via typing or voice.
- Quick entry via typing or voice
- Automatic timestamping
- Visual year-in-a-glance timeline
- Smart grouping of related notes
- Secure cross-device syncing
- Private and inaccessible by developer
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Hyphen is a quiet place for the details you would otherwise lose. Write a sentence, list, quotation, decision, observation, or full page. Every note belongs to its day, so you can move naturally through time and return by date, month, year, Chronicle, or search. WRITE WITHOUT FRICTION Capture a quick thought in place. Expand into the full editor when the thought becomes something larger. MARKDOWN MADE FOR IPHONE Use headings, emphasis, lists, checklists, quotations, links, and code without hunting through the iOS keyboard for punctuation. SEE YOUR DAYS TAKE SHAPE Move naturally between Day, Month, and Year, and view time as a quiet record of activity. Hyphen shows continuity without turning your writing into a streak game. FIND WHAT YOU WROTE Search your writing, browse Chronicle, and move directly back to the day where a thought belongs.
Nocturnum
Capture ideas quickly and organize them with Markdown formatting. This app provides a focused writing environment that remains fast and efficient as your note collection grows. Easily sort, search, and access your thoughts for seamless productivity.
- Quick idea capture
- Markdown formatting
- Workspace and notebook organization
- Fast search functionality
- JSON and Markdown export
- Inbox for temporary notes
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Nocturnum helps you capture ideas quickly, shape them with Markdown, and keep your notes easy to find. It gives you a calm writing space that stays fast as your library grows. From quick thoughts to deep project docs, everything stays clear and organized. Use Nocturnum as your daily note workspace on iPhone and iPad. You can write, sort, search, and return to the right context without losing momentum. **Capture Without Friction** Create notes from anywhere in the app and start writing immediately. Inbox keeps fast captures safe until you are ready to organize them. **Organize by Context** Group notes into workspaces, notebooks, and sub-notebooks that match how you think. Reorder key lists so active projects stay at the top. **Write Clearly in Markdown** Use headings, lists, checklists, links, and code blocks to keep ideas structured. Rich formatting stays readable while editing and reviewing. **Find What Matters Fast** Search across titles and note content to jump directly to the detail you need. Built-in views like Recent and Favorites help you resume work in seconds. **Keep Ownership of Your Data** Export full JSON backups when you need a complete snapshot of your library. Export markdown files for portable archives and import backups when restoring. Download Nocturnum today and build a notes system you can trust every day.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Hyphen at none against Nocturnum's 1. Hyphen also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 4 weeks) and ratings volume (7 vs 1). On price, rating, review sentiment 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
Both are free to download. Nocturnum sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Hyphen asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Hyphen against 5.0 for Nocturnum. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hyphen has 7 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Hyphen ships an update every 2 days, Nocturnum every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hyphen | Nocturnum |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (7 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 7 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 4 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | CHRISTOPH J WHITELAM | Fishington Studios |
Customer experience
Hyphen
Nocturnum
In-app purchases
Hyphen
No in-app purchases
Nocturnum
- Upgrade to Pro$4.99









