Raven vs Narrativ Timeline
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Raven
This app allows you to quickly open and write markdown notes as plain .md files. It offers fast launch times, native performance on iPhone and Mac, and seamless syncing between devices. Your notes are stored directly in your file system for easy access and integration with other tools.
- Plain .md file storage
- Under a second launch time
- Native iPhone and Mac app
- Full-text search
- Nested folders and pinned notes
- Syncs between Mac and iPhone
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Beautiful notes. Never locked in. Raven is a native Markdown notes app for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Write, journal, capture articles, and turn checkboxes into reminders—without putting your work in a proprietary note format. WRITE WITH CONTEXT Create notes with tables, images, checklists, code blocks, wiki links, and backlinks. Organize them with folders and tags, pin what matters, and find anything with full-text search. TURN NOTES INTO ACTION A checkbox can become a task with a due date and time. Raven gathers open tasks from across your notes, keeps each one linked to its source, and can send a local reminder when it is due. Complete or snooze it from the notification. JOURNAL WITHOUT ANOTHER SILO Daily and weekly journals live beside the rest of your writing. Save articles to Read Later, or capture a thought from widgets, Shortcuts, and the share sheet. MARKDOWN YOU CAN KEEP Raven works offline without an account. Keep notes on this device, choose a folder on Mac, or use iCloud Drive to keep the same Markdown files available in Files and Finder across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. No proprietary note format. No forced account. One purchase, with no subscription.
Narrativ Timeline
This app helps creative writers plan their stories by mapping out plotlines, characters, locations, and world events. It allows for detailed character and scene planning, capturing loose thoughts, and organizing entire story universes. Export your comprehensive story bible in various formats when planning is complete.
- Character planning with relationships and traits
- Scene mapping with summaries and plotline tags
- World event tracking
- Notepad for loose ideas
- Series planning and universe building
- Character relationship graph visualization
- Exportable story bible (PDF, Word, Markdown)
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Narrativ is a planning tool for creative writers. Map out the shape of your story. Add a cast, sketch your plotlines, create locations, note important world events, and link it all to the timeline so you can get a clear picture of the structure of your story. Plan your cast Build characters with photos, roles, traits, relationships, and the connections that make them more than a list of names. See who knows whom in a graph. Track who appears in which scene. Plan your scenes Scenes with summaries, tension, cast, and plotline tags. View them as cards, on a timeline, or in story order. This is where the story takes shape. The manuscript comes later, in your writing app of choice. Plan your world The story is ten per cent on the page. The world is the ninety per cent underneath. World Events is where that ninety per cent lives. Everything you know about your world that the reader never sees. Add events with your own when-labels and link them to the scenes that show them. Capture loose thoughts Not every idea is ready to become a character or a scene. Notepad is where it waits until it is. Write one note or a hundred, right inside the story you're planning. Plan a series A universe holds multiple stories that share characters, locations, and world events. Add a story and it inherits the cast. The bundled Sherlock Holmes example shows a three-book universe in action. See the connections The character graph maps your cast as a force-directed network. Characters who share scenes pull closer together, loosely connected characters drift apart. Tap a node to open a character card. Tap a line to see the scenes they share. The graph shows you where relationships are overloaded, where they are thin, and where a connection is missing that the story needs. Wherever the idea strikes Narrativ is universal across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, so you can work at your desk or on the go. Your work syncs through iCloud. One-time purchase, no subscription. Exports When the planning is done, export everything as a story bible. Choose PDF, Word, Markdown, or plain text. Select which sections to include: characters, scenes, plotlines, world events, or the full document. A clean reference to keep open while you write. Go dark With Narrativ, you can choose between light and dark mode, or let the app follow your system settings. Before the story, there's Narrativ.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Raven at 67% against Narrativ Timeline's 0%. Raven also leads on price ($12.99 vs $24.99) and rating (5.0 vs 3.5). Narrativ Timeline's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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
Raven costs $12.99 and Narrativ Timeline $24.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Raven holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 2 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of Raven's written reviews are positive against 0% of Narrativ Timeline's.
Raven ships an update every 2 days, Narrativ Timeline every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on September 13, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Raven | Narrativ Timeline |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $12.99 — better | $24.99 |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | 3.5 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 9 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #178 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 85 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Thomas Sivilay | EIRIK ANDRE STEEN |
Customer experience
Raven
Narrativ Timeline
In-app purchases
Raven
No in-app purchases
Narrativ Timeline
No in-app purchases





