Comparison

DoughNote vs Sourdough Starter

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

Head to head
About

DoughNote

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DoughNote gives sourdough bakers one private place to keep a starter routine, log feeds, and learn from completed bakes. KNOW THE NEXT USEFUL ACTION - Set one starter's maturity, flour mix, hydration, feeding ratio, room temperature, and preferred feeding time - Preview a personalized 24-hour routine before subscribing - See an honest action window instead of a fake exact peak prediction LOG WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED - Record flour, water, ratio, temperature, rise time, and notes - Keep a chronological starter history - Save bake formulas, fermentation notes, outcomes, ratings, and crumb notes BUILD A BETTER ROUTINE - Review deterministic summaries calculated from your own entries - Use optional local reminders - Export JSON when you choose - Keep records locally without an account, ads, analytics, or tracking DOUGHNOTE PRO DoughNote Pro subscription required after setup. Weekly has no free trial. Annual includes a 7-day free trial for eligible new subscribers and then automatically renews at the localized annual price shown by the App Store unless canceled. Both plans unlock the same features. The App Store shows your exact price, currency, and eligibility before purchase. DoughNote is an organizational journal, not food-safety advice. Privacy Policy: https://doughnote-app.vercel.app/privacy.html Terms of Use: https://doughnote-app.vercel.app/terms.html Requires iOS 17.6 or later.

About

Sourdough Starter

This app helps you track and care for your sourdough starter and other ferments. It uses your phone's camera to analyze your starter's progress and provides personalized feeding schedules and troubleshooting advice. It also includes recipes and calculators for various fermented foods.

Highlights
  • Camera-based starter analysis
  • Personalized feeding schedules
  • Troubleshooting for ferment issues
  • Recipes for starter and other ferments
  • Ferment tracking for multiple types
  • Bake planning and calculators
  • Voice and widget controls
Features
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Your sourdough starter is alive. Fermento treats it that way. Klaus — or whatever you name yours — has a face. Leave him too long and he looks hungry. Feed him and he beams. It sounds silly right up until you realise you haven't killed a starter in months. A PHOTO INSTEAD OF A GUESS Hold the jar up to the camera. Bubbie reads the bubbles, how far it climbed, the crust drying on the glass — six things a camera can genuinely judge, not ten invented ones. Then she says what it means for your next feed, and moves it. Photograph a cut loaf and she reads the crumb the same way. SIX JARS, ONE SHELF Sourdough starter, brine pickles, kombucha, kraut and kimchi, yogurt and kefir, ginger bug. Each gets its own character, rhythm and checklist. FROM FLOUR AND WATER Three day-by-day recipes raise a starter from scratch: the grams for each day, and what you should be seeing. Around day four it looks dead in every one of them — Fermento tells you that before you throw it out. REMINDERS THAT READ THE ROOM Free jars run on a fixed rhythm you choose. With Plus, tell Fermento how warm your kitchen is and it pulls the next feed forward on hot days, pushes it back when it's cold. Quiet hours are respected — nothing pings you at 3 a.m. Burp reminders for pickles, fizz checks for kombucha, a wake-up when a jar leaves the fridge. FEED BY THE SCALE Tell Fermento once what the empty jar weighs and every feed names the number to watch for instead of an amount to guess at. Your jar can hold a blend — 70 % wheat, 30 % wholegrain rye — and Bubbie says whether that ratio carries it to the next feed. WHEN SOMETHING LOOKS WRONG Grey liquid on top? White film? No rise? Photograph it, or pick what you see from a list. Bubbie explains what it actually is, and with Plus installs a real fix: a changed ratio, a shorter schedule, a set number of feeds. The jar stays in rescue mode until it's back on track. IT LEARNS YOUR STARTER Log a rise and Fermento remembers how long it took. The countdown to the peak is free and runs on your Lock Screen. With Plus it drops the rule of thumb and uses your jar's own measured curve instead. PLAN A BAKE BACKWARDS Say when the dough goes together and Fermento names the feed time and the ratio so the starter peaks exactly then. One plan a month is free. WHEN YOUR HANDS ARE FULL "Hey Siri, feed my starter in Fermento." A widget and a Control Centre button do the same in one tap. On bake day the step you're in counts down on the Lock Screen. EVERYTHING YOU DID, KEPT A calendar that fills itself and, with Plus, a photo timeline per jar and a monthly recap to share. Dough and brine calculators. Discard recipes so nothing goes in the bin. Your whole log exports as CSV — free, because it is your data. BADGES YOU EARN Twenty milestones and twenty-one outfits for your jars. None of them can be bought — they only come from actually looking after your ferments. WHAT LEAVES YOUR IPHONE No account, no sign-up, no ads, nothing sold on. Your jars, photos and history live on the device and sync through your own iCloud if you want them to. A photo sent for a reading is resized, stripped of its location, and stored nowhere — not on the server, not in a log. The weather heads-up is optional and sends a rounded-off region, never an address. Anonymous counts show where people get stuck; a switch in Settings turns them off. FERMENTO PLUS Unlimited jars, full history, the photo readings, the bake planner, rescue plans, temperature-aware reminders, photo timelines and the bake book. Free keeps two jars and 30 days of history. Fermento is a logbook, not a lab. It won't tell you whether something is safe to eat - when in doubt, throw it out. Apple Standard EULA: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Terms of Use: https://jonaspolenz368.github.io/Fermento/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://jonaspolenz368.github.io/Fermento/privacy.html

Screenshots

DoughNote4 screens
Sourdough Starter4 screens

Verdict

The call

DoughNote and Sourdough Starter are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. DoughNote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days and Sourdough Starter sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.49 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
DoughNote versus Sourdough Starter: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDoughNoteSourdough Starter
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequency—Every 3 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Freemium
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS17.617.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size6 MB16 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDaniil MukashevJonas Polenz

In-app purchases

2 purchases

DoughNote

Subscriptions2
  • DoughNote Pro Weekly$2.997 Days
  • DoughNote Pro Annual7 Days trial$24.991 Year
3 purchases

Sourdough Starter

Subscriptions2
  • FermentoPlusMonthly7 Days trial$4.491 Month
  • Fermento Yearly7 Days trial$35.991 Year
One-time1
  • FermentoPlus Lifetime$17.99

Questions

Is DoughNote free?
DoughNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Sourdough Starter free?
Sourdough Starter is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do DoughNote or Sourdough Starter have ads?
Neither DoughNote nor Sourdough Starter shows ads.

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