dol vs RoutineArc
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
dol
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dol is a notes app you write in markdown. Your notes live on your device, and you decide which server they sync through. โ Everything you would expect Live preview as you type. [[Wikilink]] autocompletion and backlinks. Search across titles and bodies. Find and replace inside a note. Nested folders and image attachments. โ Sync that goes nowhere else Your iPhone, iPad, and the Windows and Mac apps all see the same notes, and they travel through a CouchDB server you choose. Run your own or use a host โ either works. Setup takes about five minutes from the settings screen, and your password is stored only in the iOS keychain. โ Sync is optional Leave it off and your notes stay on this device. No internet connection needed. โ Import and export Bring in a folder of .md files you already have. Or go the other way: export every note and image as a single zip.
RoutineArc
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Your to-do list isn't a plan. RoutineArc turns it into one: tap Plan my day and what's due is fitted into the gaps between your events. No account, no tracking. ONE-TAP DAY PLAN One tap builds a day plan around your events, your work hours and what's due โ ordinary arithmetic, not a guess, so it's instant. It honours what you said when you captured, like a hard stop or "this one before that one", and when the day can't hold everything it says how many tasks didn't fit. Export the plan to PDF, or take it one task at a time with On Deck. CAPTURE THE WAY YOU SPEAK Type or dictate โ "dentist tomorrow at 3pm" โ and RoutineArc turns it into tasks, events and notes with the date, time, place and priority filled in. Scan a photo or screenshot to pull its text into items. Share text, links and photos to RoutineArc, add from Control Center on iOS 18, or ask Siri (in English) what's next, to complete a task, or to add a task or event. BEAT TASK PARALYSIS Priorities P1โP4 on an Eisenhower matrix you can touch: drag a task into Do First, Schedule, Delegate or Eliminate. Subtasks, tags, recurrence and a weekly review. FOCUS WHEN IT COUNTS Pomodoro, countdown and stopwatch modes, focus and break lengths you set, and per-task sessions started straight from the list. Strict Mode fails a timer you walk away from. END EVERY DAY ALL CAUGHT UP Evening Review shows overdue tasks one at a time: roll it over, finish it or delete it. Keep It Honest flags anything you've pushed three times. A CALENDAR YOU CAN TOUCH Day and week views with drag to reschedule. Your Apple Calendar can show here too, never changed, and Plan my day works around it. HABITS, ROUTINES AND NOTES Daily habits with streaks, ready-made routines Plan my day makes room for, searchable notes, and insights into focus time and how long tasks take. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN Five widgets: Day Overview, Home, Tasks, Priority Matrix, and Day Briefing. On iPhone, turn on Live Activity and the current block follows you to the Lock Screen and, where the iPhone has one, the Dynamic Island. ACROSS YOUR DEVICES With iCloud sync on, your tasks, events, notes and habits are the same on each of your devices, in your own private iCloud, and Handoff lets another device pick up the item you have open. ON-DEVICE AI With Apple Intelligence, understanding what you type, summarising a note, and suggesting subtasks run on the Neural Engine โ nothing is sent to a server. Without it, a rules engine takes over. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no analytics, no tracking. Everything the app itself sends goes through Apple. SEVEN DAYS, THEN YOURS TO KEEP Free for seven days โ no sign-up, no card. Then RoutineArc turns read-only until you unlock it: everything stays readable, searchable, exportable and deletable, and you can still tick tasks off and defer them. Backing up and restoring by hand stay free for good. Unlock monthly, yearly or once for life; the automatic daily backup and iCloud sync come with monthly, yearly and the Unlimited lifetime unlock. Works fully offline, in Light and Dark Mode, with eight color palettes, adjustable text sizes and high contrast. SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS Unlimited โ Monthly: billed per month, auto-renewing. Unlimited โ Yearly: billed per year, auto-renewing. Essentials โ Lifetime: one payment; capturing and editing forever, without the automatic daily backup or iCloud sync. Unlimited โ Lifetime: a single payment that never renews. Unlimited โ Upgrade: one payment that adds both to Essentials. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation. A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours of the end of the period. Manage or cancel it at any time in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://jasonf90.github.io/routinearc-site/privacy-policy.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: dol at none against RoutineArc's 5. dol also leads on iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). RoutineArc's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 8 days). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. RoutineArc sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. dol asks for nothing beyond the download.
dol ships an update every 8 days, RoutineArc every 2 days. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | dol | RoutineArc |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days | Every 2 days โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No โ better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 โ better | 17.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 56 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Praxo Studio | Jason Fraser |
In-app purchases
dol
No in-app purchases
RoutineArc
- Unlimited โ Monthly$2.991 Month
- Unlimited โ Yearly1 Year trial$19.991 Year
- Essentials โ Lifetime$29.99
- Unlimited โ Upgrade$29.99
- Unlimited โ Lifetime$59.99









