Comparison

life note vs Complete Journal

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

Head to head
About

life note

Features
Read full description

Life Note is a simple, lightweight journal for recording your everyday life — one small note at a time. Instead of writing long diary entries, you can quickly capture what happened throughout the day: waking up, meals, walks, workouts, ideas, moods, errands, small wins, and ordinary moments that are easy to forget. Life Note is designed around a clean timeline. Open the app, write a line, and move on. Over time, those small notes become a personal record of your days. What you can do with Life Note Quickly record daily moments Add short notes whenever something happens. No heavy templates, no pressure to write perfectly. Build a personal timeline Your notes are organized by date, making it easy to look back at what happened today, yesterday, or weeks ago. Search your life Find past notes by keyword and rediscover patterns in your daily routines. Track habits and trends Use simple commands to view repeated activities, daily counts, or changes over time. Create lightweight todos Capture small tasks alongside your daily notes without turning the app into a complicated task manager. Review your week Generate simple summaries to see how many days you recorded, how many notes you wrote, and what your week looked like. Made for small daily records Life Note is not a heavy diary app. It is not a productivity system. It is not another place to manage your entire life. It is a quiet place to leave a few lines each day. A meal you cooked. A walk you took. A book you started. A thought you almost forgot. A small moment that made the day feel real. Over time, these tiny notes become something meaningful: a lightweight archive of your life. Life Note helps you remember your days — without making journaling feel like work.

About

Complete Journal

Capture your life's moments, layering them year over year to see your personal growth. Record daily entries, goals, milestones, and associate them with people and places. Organize with hashtags and create downloadable keepsakes of your year.

Highlights
  • Daily entries
  • On this day feature
  • Goal tracking
  • Bucket list creation
  • Milestone recording
  • Location and people tagging
  • Hashtag organization
  • Downloadable year keepsakes
Features
Read full description

The Complete Journal is a perpetual life journal. Not a diary that tracks days forward, but one that layers them — year over year, the same days finding each other across time. Open the app on any day and see who you were on that day last year, three years ago, five years ago. Watch your life deepen. One sentence is all it takes to hold a moment forever. There's no blank page anxiety here. By the time you open the app, the day has already happened — you're not performing or creating, just capturing what was true. YOUR LIFE HAS A CAST AND A SETTING The moments that define you don't happen in a vacuum. They happen somewhere. They happen with someone. Complete Journal captures the full picture — not just what happened, but where you were and who was with you. DREAM IT. DO IT. REMEMBER IT. Bucket List — The things you want to do before you're done. Goals — What you're actively working toward. Milestones — The moments that defined you. The chapters of your story. FIND ANY MEMORY INSTANTLY Use hashtags to organize your life the way you actually live it. #familyvacation. #career. #bestfriend. One tap and every moment with that tag comes rushing back — across every year, every version of you. YOUR YEAR, IN FOCUS At the end of every year, Complete Journal becomes something more — a downloadable keepsake that holds your entries, your milestones, your goals, your people, your places. Not a summary. A document of a life. Complete Journal isn't about writing more. It's about losing less. What's inside: — Daily Entries: A simple, fast way to capture each day in your own words — On This Day: See this date layered across every year you've used the app — Goals: Track what you're actively working toward — Bucket List: Hold onto the things you want to do someday, without pressure or deadlines — Milestones: Permanently record the moments that defined you — Places & People: Tag where you were and who mattered, woven into your story — Hashtags: Organize your life the way that makes sense to you — Reflections: Reflect on your favorite memories with monthly and annual recaps — Keepsakes: Turn your year into a memory card, journal, or photo magazine, professionally printed Complete Journal Premium — optional subscription - Length & price: 1 year for $12.00 (auto-renews yearly until canceled) - Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. - The subscription renews automatically unless turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your Apple ID Account Settings. - Privacy Policy: https://thecompletejournal.com/privacy.html - Terms of Use (EULA): https://thecompletejournal.com/terms.html

Screenshots

life note4 screens
Complete Journal4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: life note at none against Complete Journal's 1. Complete Journal's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 4 months). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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. Complete Journal sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $12.00 per year. life note asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

life note ships an update every 4 months, Complete Journal monthly. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard2 real differences · 7 level
life note versus Complete Journal: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameterlife noteComplete Journal
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 4 monthsMonthly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Freemium
DevicesiPhone, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS15.115.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB14 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJIANBO WANGTiffany Sanchez

In-app purchases

None

life note

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Complete Journal

Subscriptions1
  • Complete Journal Premium$12.001 Year

Questions

Is life note free?
life note is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Complete Journal free?
Complete Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do life note or Complete Journal have ads?
Neither life note nor Complete Journal shows ads.
Which is updated more often, life note or Complete Journal?
life note ships an update every 4 months, and Complete Journal monthly. Most recently, life note was updated on October 31, 2026 and Complete Journal on October 31, 2026.

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