Comparison

Journal 18 vs Yardbook

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Journal 18

Transform your handwritten golf scorecards into detailed performance insights. This app uses AI to read your game data from photos or manual entry, revealing trends and areas for improvement. Track your rounds, drives, and approaches to lower your score.

Highlights
  • Digitize handwritten scorecards with AI
  • Track round history and scoring trends
  • Analyze drive patterns and approach proximity
  • Identify biggest opportunities for stroke reduction
  • Manual entry option for scores and stats
  • Compare performance to handicap benchmarks
Features
Read full description

You already keep the record. Journal18 reads it. Photograph your handwritten journal and Journal18 turns it into stats, trends, and a clear read on your game. Your journal stays on paper. Your insights live here. HOW IT WORKS 1. Snap a photo of your performance log, drives, and approaches pages after your round. 2. Journal18 reads the scores and stats with AI, then shows you everything it found. You review and confirm anything uncertain before it counts. 3. Every confirmed round builds your history, your trends, and your benchmarks. Prefer to type it in? Manual entry works too, hole by hole or as a quick summary. No photo required. WHAT YOU WILL SEE Round history. Every round saved with scores, stats, and notes, ready to revisit. Scoring trends. Watch your scoring move across rounds instead of guessing from memory. Drive patterns. Fairways hit, miss directions, and a landing board that shows where your tee shots actually finish. Approach proximity. How close you hit it from each distance range, and where the strokes are hiding. Benchmarks. See how your numbers compare to handicap benchmarks, so improvement has a target instead of a feeling. Your biggest opportunity. Journal18 calls out the one area costing you the most strokes, in plain words. BUILT FOR GOLFERS WHO WRITE IT DOWN Journal18 is made for players who keep a paper journal and want more from it. The app is calm and quick. No ads. No selling your data. Just your game, organized. FREE AND PREMIUM Creating an account is free, and your first round is included with core logging so you can see how it feels. Journal18 Premium unlocks the full experience: unlimited rounds, complete insights and trends, drive and approach trackers, and editing of completed rounds. PREMIUM SUBSCRIPTIONS Journal18 Premium is available as an auto-renewable subscription: - Premium Annual: $72 USD per year - Premium Monthly: $7 USD per month Prices may vary by region and are shown in the App Store before you subscribe. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Your subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage or cancel your subscription anytime in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.journal18.com/pages/app-terms Privacy Policy: https://www.journal18.com/pages/app-privacy Questions or feedback? We read everything: info@journal18.com

About

Yardbook

Features
Read full description

Every course you've played — ranked your way, remembered forever. Yardbook is a private golf journal, not another social feed. Log a round in about a minute: a score, a spot in your rankings, and one line you'll want to reread. Deepen it later with notes, photos, and a personal scorecard — or don't. THREE LENSES, ONE LIST Rank with your heart. Score with your gut — as a number, or in plain golf language, bogey to eagle. Then let the math argue: break a course down by category — architecture, vibes, walkability, or categories you invent on your own scorecard — and the composite makes its case. Sort by any lens whenever you like — sorting is a view, not an edit. Your rank is never rewritten. PRIVATE DEPTH, PUBLIC POLISH Every entry keeps a full private version and an optional summary you polish for friends. Your notes have no share button. It doesn't exist. A TRUSTED LIST, NOT A FEED Friends are a short list of people whose taste you trust. Compare books, taste match, and the courses they love that you haven't played. Never an audience to perform for. TRIPS, REMEMBERED PROPERLY Build the itinerary, log the rounds, and settle the awards. One page for the whole week — group rankings, disagreements preserved for the record. YOURS, FOREVER Works fully offline. Syncs privately through your iCloud. Export everything — free, always. Delete everything, anytime. Free while we're early — and everything's included: unlimited photos, custom scorecards, premium share cards, trip recaps, all of it. Yardbook Pro arrives soon. Until then, it's on the house.

Screenshots

Journal 184 screens
Yardbook4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Yardbook at none against Journal 18's shown. Journal 18's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Journal 18 ships an update weekly, Yardbook every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 31, 2026 and October 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Journal 18 versus Yardbook: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterJournal 18Yardbook
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.6 (5 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings5 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size59 MB7 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTravis ZappiaChristian Graham

In-app purchases

None

Journal 18

No in-app purchases

None

Yardbook

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Journal 18 free?
Journal 18 is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Yardbook free?
Yardbook is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Journal 18 or Yardbook have ads?
Journal 18 shows ads; Yardbook does not.
Which is updated more often, Journal 18 or Yardbook?
Journal 18 ships an update weekly, and Yardbook every 2 weeks. Most recently, Journal 18 was updated on October 31, 2026 and Yardbook on October 6, 2026.

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