Comparison

Hyphen vs Beginbeat

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

Beginbeat

Features
Read full description

Beginbeat helps you turn a stuck task into a first move you can actually take. Open the app, type the task that is sitting in your way, and tap Begin. Beginbeat gives you a short haptic countdown, one concrete micro-step, and a clean finish flow so the start feels smaller and more doable. What Beginbeat does: - Creates a short start ritual for any task - Shows one smallest-first-step line beside the countdown - Supports 45, 60, and 90 second countdowns - Offers 2, 5, 10, and 25 minute focus blocks after the countdown - Tracks streaks, patterns, notes, and task history locally - Lets you pin recurring tasks as Quick Starts - Shows a Lock Screen Live Activity while a countdown or focus block is running - Works without an account, server, analytics SDK, or cloud sync Version 2.1 adds Today's Start Plan, a local recommendation card on the Begin tab. It looks at your recent starts, pinned Quick Starts, momentum, time-of-day patterns, and rating history to suggest the next useful start. The plan is computed on your device and can route directly into the normal Begin flow. Large tasks are easier to start when the first action is small and physical. Beginbeat can generate a micro-step on device when Apple Foundation Models are available, or use a bundled offline fallback library when they are not. Either way, your task text stays on your device. The Streak tab shows starts by day, useful timing patterns, and your recent history. Optional before/after ratings help you compare what you expected with how the start actually felt. Notes are optional and stay attached to the local task entry. Live Activities keep the timer visible on the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island while the app is running a countdown or focus block. They are updated locally by the app and do not require a push server. Beginbeat stores task history, settings, notes, ratings, Quick Starts, and streaks on device. There are no accounts, ads, analytics SDKs, third-party tracking SDKs, or external task-processing servers. You can erase local history from Settings. For the moment when the hardest part is simply beginning.

Screenshots

Hyphen4 screens
Beginbeat4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Hyphen at Free against Beginbeat's $1.99. On update cadence, 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

Hyphen is free to download; Beginbeat costs $1.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hyphen ships an update every 2 days, Beginbeat every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on August 7, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Hyphen versus Beginbeat: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHyphenBeginbeat
PriceFree — better$1.99
Rating5.0 (7 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings7 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterEvery 4 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB5 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCHRISTOPH J WHITELAMRobert Corbin

In-app purchases

None

Hyphen

No in-app purchases

None

Beginbeat

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Hyphen free?
Hyphen is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Beginbeat free?
Beginbeat costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do Hyphen or Beginbeat have ads?
Neither Hyphen nor Beginbeat shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hyphen or Beginbeat?
Hyphen ships an update every 2 days, and Beginbeat every 4 days. Most recently, Hyphen was updated on August 7, 2026 and Beginbeat on September 24, 2026.

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