Comparison

Dayleaf vs NoteThing Planner

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

Head to head
About

Dayleaf

This app offers a digital journaling experience that mimics a physical paper planner. It features multiple calendar views, customizable planners for different life areas, and quick entry options. Cloud backup and export capabilities ensure your notes are safe and accessible.

Highlights
  • Monthly, Weekly, and Day calendar views
  • Multiple color-coded planners
  • Quick entry and editing
  • Instant search functionality
  • Cloud backup and restore
  • Printable calendar views
  • Email export of entries
Features
Read full description

The warmth of a paper planner, the power of your iPhone. Write your days, stick stickers on your dates, and watch your life fill a beautiful calendar: journal, diary, goals, and planner in one quiet, ad-free app. Free to start; Pro is a one-time purchase or a subscription, your choice. Open it to a calendar, not a blank page: your entries, photos, and stickers live right inside the month, week, and day views, so every glance tells the story of your life. **New: Your Second Brain in an Agentic World** Switch on Headless Dayleaf and Meta Muse, Claude, Gemini or your own scripts can write the day's weather, your steps and sleep, or a summary of what you shipped into the right planner, labelled "via muse" so your words and theirs never blur, and read back what you wrote. Your whole journal also exports as Markdown files, one note per day, ready for Obsidian and any AI tool. Off by default; text only, never your photos or audio. **Switching from Day One?** Bring your entire journal home in minutes: every entry, photo, and voice recording. Choose your export in Settings → Import and Dayleaf does the rest, even for journals with a decade of memories. Free, forever. **Photos & Voice Notes** Attach photos to any entry and see them right on your calendar. Tap the mic to capture a voice note on the spot. Some days deserve to be heard, not typed. **Planner Stickers** Birthday, Pay day, Trip, Deadline, Date night… stick them on any date like a real paper planner, or design your own with your choice of icon and color. **Twenty Hand-Crafted Themes** Paper, Forest, Ocean, Lavender, Rosé, Ink & Gold, Sunset, Olive, Retro, Clay, Frost, Linen, Kraft, Pop: each tuned by hand with a light and a dark face, several with their own page construction. Your journal, your mood. **Set Goals. Reflect. Grow.** Daily, weekly, and monthly goals with a Notes & Reflection space to look back and write how it really went, just like the review pages of a great paper planner. **Private Diary with Lock. Your Year in Review.** App Lock (Pro) guards your diary with a 4-digit passcode; forgot it? A code sent to your email resets it. Year in Review (Pro) shows streaks, words written, busiest days and a globe lit by every city you've written from. Tag entries with your location, write your own reminder messages, and switch on a persistent reminder that nudges until you open the app. **Private. Backed Up. Always Yours.** One-tap backups to your own iCloud: entries, photos, voice notes, stickers, everything. No account required, no tracking, and your journal stays in your own Apple account. Restore anywhere, anytime. Key Features: - Day One import: entries, photos & audio, free forever - App Lock passcode, Year in Review, places globe, blog-post entries (Pro) - Headless Dayleaf: local API, `dayleaf` command line and MCP server (Mac); cloud access for Meta Muse and other agents - Markdown export: one note per day, ready for Obsidian and AI tools - Photo attachments with calendar thumbnails - On-the-spot voice notes - 20 planner stickers + design your own - 20 hand-crafted themes, each with light & dark - Per-planner icons, fonts, and text sizes - Daily, weekly, and monthly goals with reflection - Monthly, Weekly, and Day calendar views with zoom - Daily reminder at your chosen time - Instant search and a fast, beautiful Timeline - iCloud backup and restore: no account needed - Print your calendar; export by email (text/CSV) DAYLEAF EVERYWHERE Capture on Apple Watch: dictate an entry, record voice memos with automatic transcripts, tick off goals from your wrist, and add the watch-face complication. And with the Mac app, your whole journal is at home on your desktop too. Perfect for daily journaling, gratitude and mood tracking, habit reflection, work notes, reading lists, travel plans, and memory keeping. Your memories deserve a beautiful home. Start today. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

NoteThing Planner

This app combines notes, tasks, goals, and reminders into a single, focused experience. It offers a rich text editor, task management with flexible recurrence, habit tracking, and smart reminders. Enjoy a unified productivity toolkit across all your Apple devices with a one-time purchase.

Highlights
  • Rich text and Markdown editor
  • Task management with recurring options
  • Habit and goal tracking
  • Smart reminders with quiet hours
  • Cross-device sync via iCloud
  • Home Screen widgets
  • Native Mac app
Features
Read full description

Notes, tasks, goals, and reminders — together in one beautiful app. NoteThing is the productivity toolkit that replaces four apps with one. Capture quick thoughts, stay on top of deadlines, track habits over time, and never miss a reminder — from a single focused experience that works the same on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. One purchase covers every Apple device you own. No subscription. No in-app purchases. No account to create. NOTES • Rich text editor with formatting toolbar • Full Markdown mode with live preview • Folders and color-coded tags for organization • Fast search across every note TASKS • Due dates with flexible recurrence (daily, weekly, monthly, custom) • Smart notifications: at time, 15 minutes, 1 hour, or 1 day before • Completed recurring tasks automatically create the next occurrence • Upcoming view rolls all your deadlines into a single timeline GOALS • Track habits daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly • Yes/No tracking or quantity goals (push-ups, miles, dollars saved) • Four display styles: checkbox, tally marks, streak counter, progress bar • Complete history with charts and momentum REMINDERS • Recurring schedules with the same flexibility as tasks • Built-in quiet hours so notifications never wake you at 2 a.m. • Pause and resume individual reminders without losing their schedule • Smart batching keeps you under the system's 64-notification limit WORKS EVERYWHERE • One Universal Purchase covers iPhone, iPad, and Mac • iCloud sync via your own Apple Account — never our servers • Home Screen widgets in three sizes • Native Mac app with keyboard shortcuts, multi-select, and file export • Family Sharing supported HONEST PRICING • Buy once, own forever • No subscriptions, ever • No in-app purchases or paywalled features • No account to create — just your Apple Account • No ads, no upsells, no nags • Free updates for the life of the app SPEAKS YOUR LANGUAGE Fully translated into English, French, French (Canada), German, Spanish, Spanish (Latin America), Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Swedish, Japanese, and Korean. PRIVATE BY DESIGN NoteThing does not collect or transmit any personal data. Your content lives on your device and — if you choose — in your private iCloud. There are no servers holding your content, no analytics SDKs, and no third-party trackers in the app. Stop juggling four subscriptions. Get the calm of a single tool that does everything you need, owned outright. NoteThing is the productivity app you'll actually use.

Screenshots

Dayleaf4 screens
NoteThing Planner4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Dayleaf at Free against NoteThing Planner's $2.99. Dayleaf also leads on ratings volume (13 vs 1) and update cadence (weekly vs every 2 weeks). NoteThing Planner's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and rating (5.0 vs 4.8). On ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

Dayleaf is free to download; NoteThing Planner costs $2.99 up front. Dayleaf sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. NoteThing Planner asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

NoteThing Planner holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Dayleaf has 13 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Dayleaf ships an update weekly, NoteThing Planner every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Dayleaf versus NoteThing Planner: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDayleafNoteThing Planner
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating4.8 (13 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings13 — better1
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch — betteriPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size13 MB6 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperiMobiAppCore Dump Software LLC

Customer experience

Dayleaf

All ratings12 ratings
Positive91.7%
Neutral0.0%
Negative8.3%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

NoteThing Planner

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Dayleaf

Subscriptions2
  • Dayleaf Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Dayleaf Pro Yearly7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time1
  • Dayleaf Pro$19.99
None

NoteThing Planner

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Dayleaf free?
Dayleaf is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is NoteThing Planner free?
NoteThing Planner costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Dayleaf or NoteThing Planner?
NoteThing Planner is rated higher. Dayleaf averages 4.8 out of 5 from 13 ratings, while NoteThing Planner averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Dayleaf or NoteThing Planner have ads?
Neither Dayleaf nor NoteThing Planner shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Dayleaf or NoteThing Planner?
Dayleaf ships an update weekly, and NoteThing Planner every 2 weeks. Most recently, Dayleaf was updated on November 5, 2026 and NoteThing Planner on October 31, 2026.

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