MatNotes vs RookFlow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MatNotes
This app helps martial arts students retain techniques by providing a structured review schedule for short instructional videos. It allows students to ask coaches questions directly from videos and track their progress. Coaches can film techniques once and have them resurface for students on spaced repetition schedules.
- Spaced repetition for technique review
- Video playback with slow-motion and looping
- Timestamped questions for coaches
- Private training notes and progress tracking
- Searchable technique library for coaches
- Academy branding
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MatNotes is how a jiu-jitsu academy makes the details from class actually stick. Coaches film a technique right after teaching it. Sixty to ninety seconds, phone propped on the mat. Students get it that night, then again on a spaced schedule (day 1, 3, 7, and 21), the same rhythm your memory needs to hold onto something new. Instead of "I saw that grip once and forgot it," the move keeps coming back until it is theirs. FOR STUDENTS - A simple checklist of what to review, not an endless feed - Watch tonight, then again each time the app brings it back - Slow any video to half speed and loop the exact section you are stuck on - Tap a moment in a video to ask your coach a question, with the timestamp attached - Keep private training notes and track the techniques you have drilled FOR COACHES - Film once, and the app resurfaces it for every student on the right days - See your students' questions, with the exact video moment, before class starts, so you know what to clean up - Spot where the room got lost on a technique and reteach it - Everything you have filmed, captioned and searchable by position, in one place - Your academy's name and colors throughout MatNotes is used by a whole academy under one plan. Coaches set up and manage their gym on the MatNotes website. Students join with a link from their coach and use the app for free. Questions? Visit thematnotes.com
RookFlow
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A map of grappling, in your hand. RookFlow is the GrappleMap: 601 named jiu-jitsu positions and 1,733 moves between them, drawn live in 3D, in an app that works with the radio off. A position is a place. A technique is a road. What you can do from where you are is exactly the map's edges. It opens on a gym, and its rooms are doors. The mat holds HELM, DRILL and ROLL; the office keeps your game plans, the weights room your training log. Long-press to move the rooms around. THREE DOORS ON THE MAT HELM — You are halfway through a roll. See what you can do from here. The moves out of the position sit under your thumb: drag one through its real keyframes, let go past halfway and it commits. Switch on Handles and the body is the menu: pull a joint, take its move. Or search the 601 by name, tag or the source it was checked against. DRILL — Pick a chain. Rep it till it's yours. Moves on a loop, with a rep counter and a goal. Five classics on the shelf, or make your own from any two positions. Half speed, mirrored, step by step. Switch the voice on and it calls each move by name, so the phone can stay by the wall. Send a chain as a link, or as a video. ROLL — Five minutes. Somebody's gotta tap. Two people sparring through the map, with a broadcast scoreboard and a coach's notes. In the academy, a real gym shot in the round, as Dummy, Stick or Shonen. RECALL Recall hides the next move and asks you for it. What comes back is what you own. Each rep grades itself by how fast you answered, and a spaced-repetition schedule (FSRS) says when the chain comes back. One reminder a day says what is due. The home-screen widget shows today's reviews and your streak, and at its larger sizes you answer them right there. THE REST OF THE BUILDING • Training log: classes, open mats, competitions. What you worked on lights up on the map, and what is going cold comes back to you. • Game plans: what you go for from a position, and what you switch to when they stop it, grown one move at a time. Drill a branch, or send the plan as a link. • The clock: rounds on the bags, circuits on the turf, breathing in the zen room, seven in all. Keep your own setups. The bells play over your music. • The dojo: warm up, drill, roll, three half hours on one clock. Follow it through and you have taken a class. • The wrestling room: the standing part of the map, until a takedown lands. Then a handshake, and again. • The rooftop: where the device can do AR, the mat stands on your own floor, at full size. • The ladder: training pays points, points climb levels, and levels and feats give your gym paint, decor and new looks. OFFLINE, AND HONEST ABOUT IT • The map ships inside the app. Nothing loads. • No account needed. No ads. No tracking. • Without an account, four things leave the device, and none says who you are: a short note each time the app opens, a crash report if it crashes or gets past an error, anonymous usage statistics (which screens are opened, and twenty-eight things done in them), and the GrappleMap repository's star count on the credits screen. The first three can be switched off: scroll below the gym and tap Privacy. • Without an account, your log and plans are never sent. • The map is Eelis van der Weegen's GrappleMap, in the public domain. We added 248 moves: 25 cut from Harmony4D's motion capture of real sparring, and ways out of the positions that had none. Each was watched before it went in. iPhone and iPad. On iPad, landscape puts the position beside its moves. On iPhone, a running clock counts down on the lock screen. RookFlow is an independent tool, not affiliated with or endorsed by any federation or academy.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: RookFlow at every 3 days against MatNotes's weekly. MatNotes's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 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.
MatNotes ships an update weekly, RookFlow every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 7, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MatNotes | RookFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 2 MB | 114 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jacob Weaver | Pratheek Balakrishna |
In-app purchases
MatNotes
No in-app purchases
RookFlow
No in-app purchases








