Comparison

Exist vs Grid Diary

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

Head to head
About

Exist

This app helps you understand and optimize your behavior by combining manual tracking with automatic syncing from various services. Track health, productivity, and more, uncover relationships between habits, and run experiments on your behavior. Gain daily insights and weekly summaries to improve your life.

Highlights
  • Track any data point manually
  • Automatic syncing from health and productivity services
  • Daily insights and weekly summaries
  • Discover correlations between habits
  • Run behavioral experiments
  • Integrates with Apple Health and other services
Read full description

THIS APP REQUIRES A PAID ACCOUNT. Signing up for a new account will start a 30-day free trial. After your trial, you can choose to purchase a subscription using in-app purchase if you wish to continue using Exist. By combining manual tracking with automatic syncing from other services, we can help you understand and optimise your behaviour. Track whatever you like. Bring your activity from your phone or fitness tracker, add other services like your calendar for greater context on what you're up to, and manually enter anything else you care about. Track everything in one place See numbers about things like your health, activity, productivity, social media, and local weather all together. Data syncs automatically from connected services, so your step count and time asleep are right next to manual data points, like your energy level and how many coffees you drank. But it's not just about raw numbers. We deliver extra context like daily insights on how you're going, track long-term trends and averages, uncover relationships, and send it all in a weekly summary email too. Which habits go together? Correlations are the most powerful part of Exist. By finding relationships in your data, we can help you answer questions like: “What makes me happiest?” “What can I do to be more active?” “When am I most productive?” Track anything you can think of Some things in life can’t be counted by your watch or fitness tracker. With Exist, you can create your own data points to track anything else you want. Use it as a habit tracker, keep a record of medications and symptoms, or track subjective measures like energy and stress levels. Run experiments on your behaviour, and Exist will confirm or rule out your hunches.You can enter data as a quantity, time period, scale from 1–9, percentage, or time of day. Or just add a tag to a day as a quick way to say "this happened". We support the following Apple Health data from your iPhone: * Steps, active minutes, floors, cycling distance, stand hours, active energy burned * Sleep * Food and water (energy intake, fat, protein, etc.) * Workouts * Heartrate (max., resting, average, HRV) * Weight, body fat percentage, lean mass * Mindfulness sessions * Alcoholic drinks * Sexual activity * Menstrual flow Other data you can sync from your iPhone: * Location (Exist will use this to track weather data for you) * Events from your calendar Exist works best when connected to other services — add even more data by connecting any of these: * Fitbit * Oura * Garmin * Withings * Strava * RescueTime * Todoist * Toggl * Instapaper * GitHub * iCal Calendars (Google, iCloud) * Swarm by Foursquare * last.fm * Weather from Apple Weather Take Exist with you on your iOS device and see all your metrics, wherever you are. If you choose to continue using Exist after your free trial, you will need to purchase a monthly auto-renewing subscription. The current price for an Exist monthly subscription is 7.99 USD. Price will depend on your local currency. Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24-hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage your Subscription and turn off auto-renewal by going to your Account Settings after purchase. Privacy policy: https://exist.io/privacy/ Terms of use: https://exist.io/page/terms/ This app uses software licensed under the MIT License. Note: Continued use of GPS running in the background can dramatically decrease battery life.

About

Grid Diary

This app offers a guided journaling experience to foster personal development and mindfulness. It helps users build positive habits, manage stress, and enhance various aspects of their lives through customizable prompts and unique layouts.

Highlights
  • Prompted journaling with custom questions
  • Unique grid and mandala layouts
  • Daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly planning
  • Supports various journaling methods
  • Mindfulness and self-care focus
  • Stress and anxiety alleviation techniques
Features
Read full description

Introducing Grid Diary: More than just a journaling app, it's your comprehensive personal development system. Embark on a personal growth journey that covers all aspects: • Embrace mindfulness & self-love • Establish morning & evening routines • Enhance personal health & wellbeing • Develop self-care habits • Alleviate stress and anxiety through Cognitive Behavioral Therapy • Acquire new skills • Boost productivity • Strengthen relationships • Ignite creativity ...and so much more. At Grid Diary, we understand that personal development is a holistic endeavor, not a singular pursuit. Grid Diary empowers you to create a diary system that goes beyond simple daily entries. By utilizing features such as custom prompts, tags, and categories, you can build a personalized framework for cultivating happiness and developing positive habits such as proactivity, optimism, and gratitude. Use Grid Diary to unlock the true power of keeping a diary and start your journey towards a happier, healthier you. # Feature Highlights • Prompted Journaling: Guided Self-Reflections Avoid writer's block with our question library or customize your own prompts for deeper self-reflection. • Unique Grid Format: Elegant and Comprehensive Organize all that matters to you on a single page with our customizable grid layout, fostering a holistic personal development system. • Mandala Layout: Journal like a Mind Map Our 9-grid Mandala-inspired layout, featuring a fixed center, emulates the artful representation of life's organization and connection to the cosmos. Journaling becomes intuitive and mirrors the way our minds work. • Day/Week/Month/Year Dimensions: Create Your Own Rituals Establish rituals that anchor you in time, crafting a framework for planning, acting, and reviewing on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. • Compatibility with Various Journaling Methods Whether you prefer morning diaries, success diaries, manifestation journals, or bullet journals, Grid Diary's flexibility accommodates your preferred approach. Discover the transformative power of Grid Diary and unlock your full potential today! # Don't Just Take Our Word for It "New Apps We Love" - Apple "If you've wanted to journal but don't know where to start, meet Grid Diary. Swappable prompts in a lovely, flexible grid format invite you to record and reflect on life's happenings - from noting your habits and goals to sharing affirmation and gratitude." - Google "Grid Diary is a good option for journal writers pressed for time or inspiration." - The New York Times --- As a dedicated three-person team, we believe that privacy is paramount for a journaling app. With no venture capital or advertisers backing Grid Diary, our long-term development relies solely on our members' paid subscriptions. We never sell your data to third parties for profit. # Note about Health App integration: After you have authorized access to health data, you can insert information such as steps or activity energy into your diary. Additionally, you can save your journaling time as mediation minutes to Health app. Grid Diary won't use your health data for other purposes. Privacy Policy https://griddiaryapp.com/support/privacy Terms of Service https://griddiaryapp.com/support/terms

Screenshots

Exist4 screens
Grid Diary4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Grid Diary at 4.6 against Exist's 4.1. Grid Diary also leads on ratings volume (963 vs 46). Exist's advantage is review sentiment (68% vs 48%) and iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Exist sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $8.49 per month and Grid Diary sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Grid Diary holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Grid Diary has 963 ratings behind it against 46, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 68% of Exist's written reviews are positive against 48% of Grid Diary's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Exist ships an update every 3 weeks, Grid Diary every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 8, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Exist versus Grid Diary: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterExistGrid Diary
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.1 (46 ratings)4.6 (963 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.4% of reviews — better48.3% of reviews
Number of ratings46963 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationSubscriptionSubscription
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size14 MB80 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperHello Code Pty LtdSumi Interactive

Customer experience

Exist

All ratings46 ratings
Positive76.1%
Neutral8.7%
Negative15.2%
Written reviews38 reviews
Positive68.4%
Neutral5.3%
Negative26.3%

Grid Diary

All ratings963 ratings
Positive90.7%
Neutral3.3%
Negative6.0%
Written reviews497 reviews
Positive48.3%
Neutral9.3%
Negative42.5%

Bugs and requests

Exist

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

Grid Diary

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Entries disappearing or not syncing properly
  • Password reset functionality not working
  • Subscription issues and inability to access premium features
  • Compatibility problems with newer iOS versions

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add Apple Pencil support
  • Improve sync reliability across devices
  • Provide more customization options for layouts and fonts
  • Integrate with other productivity apps and calendars
  • Implement a one-time purchase option
Show 1 more
  • Allow randomized daily prompts

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Exist

Subscriptions1
  • Exist monthly subscription$8.491 Month
4 purchases

Grid Diary

Subscriptions4
  • Monthly3 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Monthly3 Months trial$4.991 Month
  • Annual7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Annual6 Months trial$29.991 Year

Questions

Is Exist free?
Exist is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Grid Diary free?
Grid Diary is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Exist or Grid Diary?
Grid Diary is rated higher. Exist averages 4.1 out of 5 from 46 ratings, while Grid Diary averages 4.6 from 963 ratings.
Do Exist or Grid Diary have ads?
Neither Exist nor Grid Diary shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Exist or Grid Diary?
Exist ships an update every 3 weeks, and Grid Diary every 2 weeks. Most recently, Exist was updated on October 8, 2026 and Grid Diary on October 13, 2026.

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