liil vs HelixNotes
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
liil
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Your life, on one timeline. A personal event log for iPhone, iPad, and iPhone Duo. Any life event — and the papers that belong with it — on one chronological feed, synced through your iCloud. A FEED, NOT A FOLDER Every event sits in time. Look back along the feed and see when it happened. CATEGORIES AND YOUR OWN TAGS Health, bills, or general events. Mark events with your own tags — for example, everything about one doctor or one trip — and show only those on the timeline. FILES, PHOTOS, AND SCANS Attach PDFs and photos, or scan paper documents with the camera. They stay with the event they explain. SEND FILES TO liil FROM OTHER APPS Send documents to liil with the Share button from any other app. YOURS, NOT OURS No liil account. No liil servers. Events and files stay on your device and sync through your iCloud. FOR EXAMPLE Your visits to doctors or labs, in date order. liil does not read attached documents or process their contents: it is not software for processing medical data. A log of bills. Invoices and receipts next to the day you paid them. Later you can see what was paid, and when. Anything else with a date works the same way.
HelixNotes
A private, open-source Markdown note-taking app that keeps your data on your device. Organize notes with notebooks, tags, and wiki links, and utilize advanced features like mathematical notation and diagrams.
- Local Markdown storage
- Visual and source code editor
- Notebooks, tags, and wiki links
- Task management and calendar views
- KaTeX and Mermaid diagram support
- Version history and backups
- Optional WebDAV sync
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HelixNotes is a private, open-source Markdown notes app. Your notes remain standard Markdown files under your control. No account is required, and HelixNotes has no company-operated cloud. Write with a clean visual editor or switch to source mode when you want direct access to the Markdown. Organize your work with notebooks, tags, wiki links and full-text search. Features include: • Tasks collected from checklists across your notes • List and calendar views with priorities and due dates • Wiki links and an interactive graph view • Daily notes with a built-in calendar • Markdown tables, code blocks and syntax highlighting • KaTeX mathematical notation and Mermaid diagrams • Outline navigation and tag autocomplete • Version history and automatic backups • Light, dark and customizable themes • Optional WebDAV sync with your own server • Optional AI tools using your own provider Nothing leaves your device unless you enable a feature that connects to an external service. Your notes stay readable outside HelixNotes, without a proprietary format or platform lock-in. HelixNotes is free software released under the GNU AGPLv3. Its source code is publicly available on GitLab.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: liil at every 4 days against HelixNotes's monthly. HelixNotes's advantage is iOS requirement (14.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
liil ships an update every 4 days, HelixNotes monthly. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.
| Parameter | liil | HelixNotes |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Number of ratings | — | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 days — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 7 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Anton Shishkin | Yuri Karamian |
In-app purchases
liil
No in-app purchases
HelixNotes
No in-app purchases









