Comparison

Hyphen vs Raven

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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.

About

Raven

This app allows you to quickly open and write markdown notes as plain .md files. It offers fast launch times, native performance on iPhone and Mac, and seamless syncing between devices. Your notes are stored directly in your file system for easy access and integration with other tools.

Highlights
  • Plain .md file storage
  • Under a second launch time
  • Native iPhone and Mac app
  • Full-text search
  • Nested folders and pinned notes
  • Syncs between Mac and iPhone
Read full description

Beautiful notes. Never locked in. Raven is a native Markdown notes app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Write, journal, capture articles, and turn checkboxes into reminders—without putting your work in a proprietary note format. WRITE WITH CONTEXT Create notes with tables, images, checklists, code blocks, wiki links, and backlinks. Organize them with folders and tags, pin what matters, and find anything with full-text search. TURN NOTES INTO ACTION A checkbox can become a task with a due date and time. Raven gathers open tasks from across your notes, keeps each one linked to its source, and can send a local reminder when it is due. Complete or snooze it from the notification. JOURNAL WITHOUT ANOTHER SILO Daily and weekly journals live beside the rest of your writing. Save articles to Read Later, or capture a thought from widgets, Shortcuts, and the share sheet. MARKDOWN YOU CAN KEEP Raven works offline without an account. Keep notes on this device, choose a folder on Mac, or use iCloud Drive to keep the same Markdown files available in Files and Finder across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. No proprietary note format. No forced account. One purchase, with no subscription.

Screenshots

Hyphen4 screens
Raven4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Hyphen at Free against Raven's $12.99. Hyphen also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 75%) and iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On rating, ratings volume, 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

Hyphen is free to download; Raven costs $12.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Hyphen against 5.0 for Raven. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 7 and 3 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 100% of Hyphen's written reviews are positive against 75% of Raven's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Hyphen versus Raven: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHyphenRaven
PriceFree — better$12.99
Rating5.0 (7 ratings)5.0 (3 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews — better75.0% of reviews
Number of ratings7 — better3
Update frequencyEvery 2 daysEvery 2 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB88 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCHRISTOPH J WHITELAMThomas Sivilay

Customer experience

Hyphen

All ratings7 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Raven

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%

In-app purchases

None

Hyphen

No in-app purchases

None

Raven

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Hyphen free?
Hyphen is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Raven free?
Raven costs $12.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Hyphen or Raven?
Hyphen and Raven are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 7 and 3 ratings respectively.
Do Hyphen or Raven have ads?
Neither Hyphen nor Raven shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hyphen or Raven?
Hyphen ships an update every 2 days, and Raven every 2 days. Most recently, Hyphen was updated on October 8, 2026 and Raven on October 14, 2026.

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