Shadow Journal vs Shadow Work Journal
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Shadow Journal
Read full descriptionHide full description
What parts of yourself do you keep hidden? Shadow Journal helps you confront your shadow self with 200+ rotating prompts inspired by Jungian psychology for nightly self-reflection. FEATURES: โข 200+ shadow work prompts across 6 categories: triggers, projections, inner child, fears, shame, and desires โข Tag emotions with intensity: Fear, Anger, Shame, Jealousy, Grief, Loneliness, Inadequacy, Resentment, Guilt โข PIN lock for privacy โ your journal is protected โข Dark mode only โ designed for evening introspection โข Streak tracking with milestone celebrations INSIGHTS & TRENDS: โข Pattern view: see your dominant shadow, emotion frequency, and day-of-week patterns (after 14+ entries) โข Monthly Shadow Report with dominant and rising emotion analysis PRIVACY FIRST: All data is stored locally on your device. No accounts required. No cloud sync. No sharing features. PIN-protected. No one sees your data but you. Shadow Journal is free and ad-supported. Not therapy. For personal reflection only. Download now and start exploring your shadow today.
Shadow Work Journal
Read full descriptionHide full description
Some things are too heavy to carry and too important to throw away. That's where Shadow Work Journal begins. Every morning, Shadow Work Journal opens to a single prompt. Not a feed. Not a dashboard. Not a choice between seventeen things. One question, written for the part of you that you usually keep quiet. You write. However long you need. There's no word count, no timer demanding productivity, no streak shaming you for a missed day. Just a warm cursor on a dark screen, the way a page looks by candlelight. And when you're done, something unusual happens. Ember asks you a question most journaling apps never will: Do you want to keep this, or burn it? If you keep it, it joins a quiet archive you can return to. If you burn it, the words catch light at the bottom of the screen. Embers rise. The text disintegrates, line by line, into drifting particles that fade into the dark. A single word remains: Released. Then it's gone. Really gone. No trash folder. No cloud backup. No undo. (Ember always asks you to confirm โ burning is deliberate, never accidental.) This is not a gimmick. It's the whole point. Jung called it the shadow: the parts of yourself you've hidden โ the anger, the shame, the envy, the fear. Shadow work is the practice of dragging them into the light long enough to look at them. The value isn't in the archive. It's in the looking. Ember is built around that truth. Some entries deserve to be kept. Most deserve to be written, witnessed by you, and set down. WHAT'S INSIDE โข 370 shadow work prompts, one per day, organized across ten themes: anger, shame, fear, abandonment, control, envy, people-pleasing, identity, family patterns, and self-sabotage โข A distraction-free writing space. No formatting tools, no word count, no notifications while you work โข Burn mode with a deliberate, ceremonial animation and haptic response โ because the act of release should feel like something โข A private history of kept entries, and a record (without content) of what you released โข A single optional daily reminder at a time you choose. No badges. No guilt. No streaks WHAT'S NOT INSIDE No account. No email signup. No onboarding survey. No ads. No AI watching your words. No analytics. No cloud. Your writing lives on your device and only on your device. TRY IT FIRST. THEN OWN IT. Ember is free to download, and your first three entries are free to keep. Write with it before you decide anything. When you're ready, a single Lifetime purchase unlocks all of it โ all 370 prompts, unlimited kept entries, burn mode, Live Activity, notifications โ and never asks you for money again. It doesn't renew. It doesn't expire. There is no premium tier waiting above it and no upgrade nudge hiding behind a feature. There's also a weekly option, if you'd rather not pay up front. It unlocks exactly the same app. The Lifetime unlock is the one we'd point you to. Shadow work is personal, and personal work shouldn't be rented to you month after month. Buy the tool once. Own the practice. WHO THIS IS FOR Ember is for people who've encountered Jungian archetypes online, heard about inner child work from a therapist, or felt the pull of shadow work and didn't know where to start. It's for those who have tried bloated wellness apps and closed them within a week, seeking something more substantial. It's for the person who suspects โ rightly โ that the journal they actually need isn't the one with mood graphs and streak badges, but the one that respects the depth of the work they came to do. Open it tonight. Write the thing you haven't said. Keep it if it's meant to stay. Burn it if it isn't. Either way, you did the work. Privacy Policy: https://www.leanorbit.app/shadowwork/privacy.html Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Shadow Journal at Free against Shadow Work Journal's $2.99. Shadow Journal also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On in-app purchases 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
Shadow Journal is free to download; Shadow Work Journal costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | Shadow Journal | Shadow Work Journal |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free โ better | $2.99 |
| Update frequency | โ | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | โ | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | โ | iPhone โ better |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 โ better | 18.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 1 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Blas Prieto | Lean Orbit LLC |
In-app purchases
Shadow Journal
No in-app purchases
Shadow Work Journal
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Shadow Journal free?
Is Shadow Work Journal free?
Other comparisons















