Journalous vs Specula
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Journalous
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Journalous is a journal without the social part. A private place to write about your day. No feeds, no followers, no likes, nothing recommending you anything. Your words are encrypted and only you can read them. Journaling drifted onto social media at some point. Journalous pulls it back. It keeps what makes daily writing easy (a clean page, a routine, a streak you don't want to break) and drops the audience. Write every day The editor stays out of the way. Bold, italics, headings, lists, and quotes are there if you want them, but you can also just start typing. Entries save themselves as you go. Private by default Every entry is encrypted with AES-256. Each account gets its own key, stored in a vault separate from the database, so entries are protected the moment they're saved. Your email is stored only as a one-way hash. No ads, no feed, and your journal is never sold or used to train AI. More than words Attach photos to any day. Add quick notes, a quote, a passing idea, alongside your main entry when you don't feel like writing a full paragraph. Look back Browse a clean timeline, jump to any day on the calendar, or search everything you've written. Statistics show your current streak, total words, days journaled, and your longest run so far. Share on purpose Nothing is public unless you make it public. Generate a link for a single entry and that's all anyone sees. Keep your data Export the whole journal any time as plain, readable JSON. Back it up, move it, build something with it. No lock-in. Works everywhere Journalous is on your phone, your tablet, and in any browser, and it keeps working even when you're offline — your entries sync automatically once you're back online. Free to start The basics are free. Paid plans add unlimited journals, more sharing, and collaborative journals are coming soon. If you've been wanting somewhere to write that isn't performing for anyone, this is it. Start writing today. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.journalo.us/terms Privacy Policy: https://www.journalo.us/privacy
Specula
This app offers a private tarot journaling experience. Draw cards, reflect on their meanings, and record your thoughts. Over time, it reveals personal patterns and insights through descriptive trends and optional AI interpretations.
- Private tarot journaling
- Daily card draws
- Reflective and mystical interpretations
- Personal pattern analysis
- Optional AI insights
- Ad-free experience
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specula is a private tarot reflection journal. draw a card, read what it says to you, write a few lines about how it lands, and over time the app quietly reflects your patterns back — like a mirror. (specula is latin for mirror — and for watchtower, a place you see clearly from.) it is not fortune-telling, and it makes no predictions. tarot is simply the vocabulary for a daily reflective practice — a calm, repeatable journaling habit. it works honestly whether or not you believe in divination. — the daily loop — draw one card or three. set an intention if you have one, or just begin. the card settles with a slow, calm reveal, and its meaning is offered in two voices you can switch between any time: reflective (the card as a prompt for your own self-inquiry) and mystical (its traditional symbolic reading). then write a note, mark how the reading landed on a quiet 1–5 scale, add a tag or two, and seal it to your journal. that is the whole ritual — yours, and yours alone. — your patterns — this is the part the category forgot. over weeks, specula surfaces what you can't see day to day: which cards return to you, how your ratings trend, your current streak, the questions you keep asking. the free tier shows you the data as calm, descriptive trends. specula plus interprets it — continuity reflections that connect themes across draws, card-and-mood correlations, weekly summaries, and personal meanings for the cards that keep appearing in your own practice. — private by design — everything you write stays on your device. there are no accounts. there is no cloud sync, no server, and no analytics that read your entries — because there is no server to send them to. the optional ai features run with apple intelligence, entirely on your iphone: your words never leave the device, ever. (interpretation features need a recent iphone with apple intelligence; the draw, the journal, and the descriptive patterns work on every supported device.) — the deck — card artwork is the classic rider–waite–smith deck (1909, public domain), re-rendered in specula's silver duotone so it sits quietly inside the app's moonlit, near-monochrome design. the written interpretations are original. — specula plus — a small subscription unlocks the interpretation layer: ai continuity reflections, deep pattern analytics, card-and-mood correlations, your personal card meanings that deepen from your own history, weekly insight summaries, follow-up reflections that let you revisit a past draw and note what changed, question tracking, and journal export (json / csv). the daily draw, the journal, your full history, the card library, physical-deck logging, and the descriptive patterns are always free — and always ad-free. no ad ever stands between you and drawing a card. no countdowns, no pressure, restore purchases any time. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Specula at none against Journalous's 2. Journalous's advantage is iOS requirement (16.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads and device support 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. Journalous sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per year. Specula asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Journalous | Specula |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 1 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | — | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 38 MB | 36 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Retrosquare LLC | Markus Vaha |
In-app purchases
Journalous
- Journalous Plus - Extended Plan$14.991 Year
- Journalous Plus - Ultimate Plan$39.991 Year
Specula
No in-app purchases









