Comparison

Habit Tracker Journal vs Cuebird

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

Head to head
About

Habit Tracker Journal

Track daily habits and follow routines with a private journal that visually displays your progress and streaks. Features include customizable goals, timers, and local reminders. Optional iCloud sync and group features are available with a subscription.

Highlights
  • Daily habit tracking
  • Routine creation with timers
  • Streak protection with 'mends'
  • Amount-based goals
  • Private journaling
  • Optional iCloud sync
  • Group habit tracking (Hexis+)
Features
Read full description

Track daily habits, follow routines and see your effort take shape. Hexis is a private habit tracker and journal with a paper-and-ink feel—one deliberate mark at a time. SEE YOUR EFFORT ADD UP Mark habits with a tap. Look back at your completions, streaks and consistency in a visual record you can make your own. KEEP GOING AFTER A MISSED DAY Your journal starts with three mends, and each full week you keep a habit earns another, up to three at a time. Use a mend to protect a streak without pretending the missed day never happened. FOLLOW YOUR ROUTINE Give your day a clear order with repeatable routines, individual steps, focused timers and a stopwatch. BUILT FOR DAILY USE • Daily or flexible weekly targets • Amount-based goals for pages, minutes, kilometres, and more • Routines with ordered steps, timers and a stopwatch • Tasks on Apple Calendar, if you want them there • Local reminders you control • Home Screen widgets • Apple Watch app and complications • Light, dark, paper, and ink styles PRIVATE BY DESIGN Your personal journal is stored on your devices. There are no ads or tracking. Optional iCloud sync keeps your habits and their progress in your private iCloud; routines stay on your device and can be exported in a backup. No Hexis account is needed. KEEP ONE HABIT TOGETHER With Hexis+, create a private iCloud group around one habit and invite people individually. Members can see the group's selected habit, display names and shared marks—not the rest of your journal. Each participant needs Hexis+ and an iCloud account. Groups have no public feed or discoverable profiles. You can report or locally block another member; the group owner manages invitations and access. HEXIS+ Unlock unlimited habits, private Groups, complete statistics and your full year, premium paper and ink styles, widgets, and habits to quit. Choose a weekly subscription or a yearly subscription with a seven-day free trial for eligible new subscribers. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled in your App Store account. Start with one habit. Make the first mark. Terms of Use (Apple Standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Subscription information: https://tally484.github.io/tally-legal/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://tally484.github.io/tally-legal/privacy.html

About

Cuebird

This app helps users manage daily routines with visual and auditory cues, breaking them down into timed, color-coded steps. It supports shared routines for households and adapts to individual timing to ensure tasks are completed on schedule.

Highlights
  • Timed, color-coded routine steps
  • Shared household routines
  • Visual time bar for routine overview
  • Auditory cues and voice recordings
  • Proportional routine compression
  • Real alarms, not notifications
  • Adaptive timing based on actual usage
Features
Read full description

See the time, hear your next step, walk out the door on time. Cuebird turns any routine (morning, lunch break, bedtime) into small, timed, color-coded steps and moves you through them automatically. Built for neurodivergent adults. Kind to every brain. HOUSEHOLDS Link the people you live with into a household. Start a routine and everyone gets a gentle offer to jump in, landing where you already are, not back at step one. Joining is one tap, and sitting one out is free: nobody is ever told either way. Be in more than one household at once, your own and the one at your mum's, and every routine says which one it came from. It is all end-to-end encrypted. DO IT TOGETHER In the same room, run a routine in step. Everyone starts on a shared 3, 2, 1, and pause, skip, or a minute back move for the whole group at once, so nobody is left behind. Near each other it is instant. Apart, it stays in sync across your household. Want your own timing? One tap, and your routine keeps going on its own. INVITE BY TEXT, OR BY QR Send someone a link. They tap it and they are in, even if your phone is closed. Together in person? Show the code on your screen for them to scan. Either way, one tap and they are in the household. TIME YOU CAN SEE While a routine runs, the whole screen becomes the current step's color. From across the room, mid-shower, without reading: blue means shower, amber means coffee. A color bar of the steps shows the shape of your time before you start. OUT THE DOOR ON TIME Set when a routine starts and when you have to be done. Cuebird shows the window, adds up your steps, and tells you plainly whether they fit. Running late? One control compresses the routine so you still walk out on time. HEAR YOUR NEXT STEP A chime marks every transition, or let Cuebird speak: "Next: Shower, 10 minutes." A 30-second heads-up warns before longer steps end. Prefer quiet? Silent mode keeps it to haptics. You can also record any step in your own voice. Recordings stay on your device and never sync. REAL ALARMS, NOT NOTIFICATIONS Give a routine a start time and days, and it rings with the system's full-screen alarm: through silent mode, through Focus, even with the app closed. Tap Start and you are already in it. BUILT THE WAY YOUR WEEK ACTUALLY WORKS One routine can ring at several times, each with its own days: weekdays at 7:00, weekends at 9:00. Your list sorts itself around today, and the Schedule view shows everything that will ring this week. IT LEARNS YOUR REAL TIMING Cuebird records every run and shows how long your routine ACTUALLY takes versus what you planned: "Morning really takes 42 minutes, not 35." Then it updates your plan with one tap. STARTING IS ONE TAP Every routine has a play button right on its card, no menus between you and momentum. For the times you do not need a whole routine, Quick Timer and Ring Me At are one tap away. NO SHAME BUILT IN Pause says "no rush." Skipping is a first-class button, and if you skip by mistake you can undo it. Need a minute back? Take one. Finishing celebrates every run, and one missed day never breaks your streak. That is what the habit-formation research actually says. Cuebird never scolds you. EVERYWHERE YOU NEED IT - Lock Screen and Dynamic Island Live Activity: glance without opening the app - Home Screen widget: start a routine in one tap - Apple Watch: your step and countdown on your wrist; pause, resume or skip from there - Siri and Shortcuts: "Start Morning in Cuebird," or run routines from your automations - Mac: runs on Apple silicon Macs too ONE PURCHASE COVERS YOUR FAMILY Family Sharing is on, so up to six family members get it with one purchase. You can also send any routine as a link, ready for their own times. ONE-TIME PURCHASE Buy it once. No subscription, no ads, no accounts, no analytics, no data collection. Your own routines sync through your private iCloud, no login ever. Households stay end-to-end encrypted, and Cuebird has no servers and cannot read any of it.

Screenshots

Habit Tracker Journal4 screens
Cuebird4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Habit Tracker Journal at Free against Cuebird's $0.99. Habit Tracker Journal also leads on iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). Cuebird's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and update cadence (daily vs every 2 weeks). On rating, ratings volume, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Habit Tracker Journal is free to download; Cuebird costs $0.99 up front. Habit Tracker Journal sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. Cuebird asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Habit Tracker Journal against 5.0 for Cuebird. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 2 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Habit Tracker Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, Cuebird daily. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Habit Tracker Journal versus Cuebird: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHabit Tracker JournalCuebird
PriceFree — better$0.99
Rating5.0 (4 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings4 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksDaily — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, Apple Watch
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size22 MB10 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMartin Joy ElenjikkalMichael Petrillo

Customer experience

Habit Tracker Journal

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Cuebird

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Habit Tracker Journal

Subscriptions2
  • Hexis+ Weekly$1.997 Days
  • Hexis+7 Days trial$24.991 Year
One-time1
  • Tally+ Lifetime$39.99
None

Cuebird

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Habit Tracker Journal free?
Habit Tracker Journal is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Cuebird free?
Cuebird costs $0.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Habit Tracker Journal or Cuebird?
Habit Tracker Journal and Cuebird are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 4 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do Habit Tracker Journal or Cuebird have ads?
Neither Habit Tracker Journal nor Cuebird shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Habit Tracker Journal or Cuebird?
Habit Tracker Journal ships an update every 2 weeks, and Cuebird daily. Most recently, Habit Tracker Journal was updated on November 10, 2026 and Cuebird on October 31, 2026.

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