Rhizo vs SFD
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Rhizo
This app offers a fluid and tactile mind-mapping experience, allowing users to capture and organize thoughts without forced structure. It prioritizes a minimalist interface and seamless interaction for a stress-free creative process. Ideas can be exported in various formats, ensuring data ownership.
- Kinetic thought nodes with physics simulation
- Minimalist gestures for idea creation and connection
- Infinite canvas with auto-adaptive nodes
- Seamless export to JSON and PNG
- Local data storage for absolute privacy
- Ad-free and no in-app purchases
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Rhizo is a calm, tactile space for ideas that are still taking shape. Write a thought. Move it where it belongs. Connect it to whatever it changes. No rigid templates. No forced hierarchy. Just a simple canvas that helps you see what you are thinking. In a few minutes, you can turn scattered thoughts into a working structure you can return to, expand, and act on. Every interaction is designed to stay out of the way: • Press to create a new block • Drag ideas into place • Double-tap to write • Connect related thoughts directly on the canvas • Add text and images when an idea needs more context The result is a clearer workspace with less mental overhead. Instead of keeping open questions, references, decisions, and next steps in your head, keep them visible on the canvas. That means fewer context switches and less time reconstructing what you meant. Rhizo is built for relationships that do not fit neatly into a tree: • One idea can connect to multiple parent ideas • Several ideas can share the same child • Cross-connections stay visible • Your structure remains a flexible network Most mind-mapping tools are designed to produce a finished diagram. Rhizo is designed for thinking while the idea is still changing. The canvas moves with you. Gentle motion and responsive feedback make each action feel direct without distracting you from the work. When your structure is ready, export it as editable JSON with stable IDs, text, positions, and relationships. Open the file in the AI assistant you already use. Ask it to expand, reorganize, summarize, or challenge your thinking. Then import the updated JSON back into Rhizo without flattening the structure. Your AI workflow stays connected to the original board. Use Rhizo for: • Game design • Product planning • Study notes • Research • Writing • Project breakdowns • Brainstorming • Visual thinking Start with one question: “What are you working on?” Then keep building from there. Your content stays on your device. Rhizo supports iPhone, iPad
SFD
This app helps you overcome writer's block by forcing you to write a first draft without the ability to edit or reread. It uses timed bursts and nudges to keep you moving forward, allowing you to flag sections for later revision.
- Forward-only writing
- Timed writing bursts
- Cursor nudges for stalls
- Flagging sections for revision
- Plain text export
- Offline functionality
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Writing apps help with the easy half — outlines, fonts, folders, word-count trophies. The hard half is producing a bad first version of something, and that's all SFD does. SFD is forward-only. You write in a burst, the earlier lines dim and scroll away, and you can't go back to fix them. You can't edit a draft into existence, so SFD won't let you try until it's out. How it works: — A go is a timed burst. You write. You don't reread. — Stall for a few seconds and you get a shove — a nudge that gets blunter the longer you stare at the cursor. — Hit a line you hate? Drop a later and keep moving. Your flags become a punch-list for when you revise. — A finished part is a chunk. A stack of chunks is the Pile — your whole first draft. — When it's done, send it out as plain text, to wherever you actually revise. Drafting is free. Every go, every later, every export — no account, no trial clock, no nagging. One thing costs money: SFD Habit Tracking, a 99-cent one-time unlock for the habit layer — the streak map and year wall, the month goal, THE BIG MONTH (50,000 words across November), the home-screen widget, the quiet reminder, stamps, and share cards. The scoreboard, not the game. If you bought SFD back when the app itself cost money, the habit layer is yours automatically. What SFD won't do: format, outline, sync, collaborate, or write the draft for you. You write the bad version. A chunk has to get written; inside that, anything goes. Your words stay yours. Every chunk is a plain-text file on your device. No proprietary format, no servers. SFD makes no network calls at all — it can't lose your words and it can't trap them. Get the first draft out. You can make it good later, somewhere with a real keyboard.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Rhizo at none against SFD's 1. SFD's advantage is update cadence (every 8 days vs every 7 months). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. SFD sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Rhizo asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Rhizo against 5.0 for SFD. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Rhizo ships an update every 7 months, SFD every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 13, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Rhizo | SFD |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 7 months | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 19 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 现兴 闫 | Daniel James Kinney-Spears |
Customer experience
Rhizo
SFD
In-app purchases
Rhizo
No in-app purchases
SFD
- SFD Habit Tracking$0.99





