Comparison

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.

Head to head
About

Shadow Journal

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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: โ€ข 200+ shadow work prompts across 6 categories: triggers, projections, inner child, fears, shame, and desires โ€ข Tag emotions with intensity: Fear, Anger, Shame, Jealousy, Grief, Loneliness, Inadequacy, Resentment, Guilt โ€ข PIN lock for privacy โ€” your journal is protected โ€ข Dark mode only โ€” designed for evening introspection โ€ข Streak tracking with milestone celebrations INSIGHTS & TRENDS: โ€ข Pattern view: see your dominant shadow, emotion frequency, and day-of-week patterns (after 14+ entries) โ€ข 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.

About

Shadow Work Journal

Features
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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 โ€ข 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 โ€ข A distraction-free writing space. No formatting tools, no word count, no notifications while you work โ€ข Burn mode with a deliberate, ceremonial animation and haptic response โ€” because the act of release should feel like something โ€ข A private history of kept entries, and a record (without content) of what you released โ€ข 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

Shadow Work Journal4 screens

Verdict

The call

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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

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.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
Shadow Journal versus Shadow Work Journal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShadow JournalShadow Work Journal
PriceFree โ€” better$2.99
Update frequencyโ€”Every 5 weeks
Adsโ€”No
In-app purchasesNoNo
Devicesโ€”iPhone โ€” better
Requires iOS15.1 โ€” better18.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size26 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperBlas PrietoLean Orbit LLC

In-app purchases

None

Shadow Journal

No in-app purchases

None

Shadow Work Journal

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Shadow Journal free?
Shadow Journal is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Shadow Work Journal free?
Shadow Work Journal costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.

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