Skrive vs Vesper
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Skrive
A straightforward and secure journaling app focused on daily writing. It offers a clean interface with no distractions, allowing users to easily record thoughts and memories. Entries are encrypted and can be exported as plain text.
- One entry per day
- Plain text writing
- Clean interface
- Searchable history
- Device encryption
- Plain text export
- Cross-device sync (Pro)
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Skrive is a simple, secure journal built for daily writing. One entry per day, plain text, nothing in the way. Keeping a daily journal is one of the most rewarding habits you can build. It sharpens how you think and write, helps you process stress, and gives you a record of your life to look back on. Regular journaling has been shown to improve memory, boost mental clarity, and support mental health. Skrive exists to make that habit as easy as possible to keep. There are no tags, no folders, no formatting options. Just a clean writing surface that opens fast and gets out of the way. The focus is entirely on the words you write. Every entry is dated, and your full journal history is always at your fingertips. Scroll back through past entries or search for a specific memory, moment, or thought you wrote down months ago. Skrive is free to use with no limits on how much you write. Your entries are encrypted and stored securely on your device, and you can export everything as plain text at any time. Your journal belongs to you. Skrive Pro adds sync across all your devices. Write on your iPhone, continue on your iPad or your Mac. Everything is encrypted end to end before it ever leaves your device, and stored on servers in Europe. Only you hold the key. Only you can read what you write. Skrive is made by an independent developer who journals every day. It is a small app, built with care. Website: https://skrive.app Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Vesper
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How did today feel? That's the only question Vesper ever asks. No streaks to protect. No scores to chase. No guilt for the days you miss. Vesper doesn’t gamify your feelings or compete for your attention, it asks once each evening, then gets out of your way. What’s left, over time, is an honest, quiet record of your life worth actually looking back on. WHAT VESPER DOES Every evening, Vesper asks how today felt: Good, Meh or Hard. Add a line if you want to remember why. Your answer becomes one colored dot on a simple monthly grid. Miss a day and nothing happens, no penalty, no broken chain to mourn. Vesper never judges your day. It just holds it. Tap any past day to see what you wrote. Once you’ve kept it up for six months, your memory trail unlocks: every note you’ve ever written, in one place, in your own words. VESPER PLUS For anyone who wants to see the bigger picture, Vesper Plus reveals patterns that only show up over time: - Side by Side, comparing recent months at a glance - Shape of Your Weeks, seeing which days tend to feel harder - Quietest & Fullest, the months that stood apart - Yearly Portrait, one full year, at a glance - On This Day, a quiet echo of what today looked like a month or a year ago Plus also includes: - iCloud sync, so your record follows you across every device - An Apple Watch app, for checking in from your wrist - A home screen widget, a glance at your month without opening the app - Curated themes: Chalk, Marigold, and Ink - Anytime check-in, if evenings aren't when your day actually ends Vesper Plus is available as a monthly or annual subscription, or a one-time lifetime purchase. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS Vesper syncs privately through your own iCloud account. Nothing is shared, sold, or used to train anything. Some days are good. Some are hard. Most are somewhere in between. Vesper is a quiet place to keep track of all of them. For details on subscriptions and purchases, see Apple's Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
Skrive and Vesper are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Skrive sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Vesper sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | Skrive | Vesper |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, Apple Watch — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 66 MB | 7 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Isak Solheim | Calvin Ng |
In-app purchases
Skrive
- End-to-end encrypted sync$3.991 Month
- End-to-end encrypted sync$29.991 Year
Vesper
- Vesper Plus Monthly$1.991 Month
- Vesper Plus Annual$14.991 Year
- Vesper Plus Lifetime$49.99









