Diarium vs Grid Diary
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Diarium
Private journal with a one-time Pro purchase and your own cloud sync
Grid Diary
Prompt-based diary and planner laid out as a grid of questions
Where they differ
- Diarium starts at $14.99 one-time purchase per platform. Grid Diary starts at $4.99 per month, or $29.99 per year.
- Only Diarium lists a Windows app.
- Diarium can be bought with a one-time purchase.
- Diarium also covers mood tracking.
- Grid Diary also covers Markdown and habit tracking.
At a glance
| Diarium | Grid Diary | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $14.99 one-time purchase per platform | $4.99 per month, or $29.99 per year |
| Free plan | Free to use on Android, iPhone, iPad and Mac, without Pro features such as Cloud Sync, unlimited attachments, Word export, widgets, custom fonts, weather and integrations. Windows is a paid app. | Many of the app's features are free to use. Sync between all your devices, the passcode lock and more color themes are member-only. |
| Free trial | 7-day trial of all Pro features on Android, iOS and macOS before buying. | The vendor's site lists a 3-day free trial on the monthly plan and a 14-day free trial on the annual plan. |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Timo Partl | Sumi Interactive |
| Price read from | apps.apple.com | apps.apple.com |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Diarium
- People who want to pay once instead of subscribing
- Journaling across Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad and Mac
- Keeping a journal on your own device and cloud storage with no account
- Pulling calendar, fitness and social activity into daily entries
Grid Diary
- People who find a blank page hard and prefer answering prompts
- Weekly, monthly and yearly reviews alongside a daily diary
- Building a custom journal or planner from templates
Worth knowing
Diarium
- Pro is bought separately for each platform, and iOS and macOS count as separate purchases.
- Cloud Sync, unlimited attachments, Word export, widgets and integrations require Pro.
- There is no free version on Windows, where Diarium is a paid app listed at $19.99 in the Microsoft Store.
- By default the journal is stored only on the device, so without Cloud Sync you need to make your own backups.
Grid Diary
- Sync between devices, the passcode lock and extra color themes require the paid membership.
- The vendor's site quotes $2.99 monthly and $22.99 annual, while the US App Store lists $4.99 and $29.99.
- Apps are listed for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Android; no Windows app is offered.
- The App Store version requires iOS 26, iPadOS 26 or macOS 26 or later.
Key features
Diarium
- Rich entries with attachments
- Entries support rich text formatting, tags and locations, plus photos, videos, audio recordings, PDFs and other files. Several entries can be created per day.
- Calendar, timeline and map views
- Look back through a calendar, a scrolling timeline, a map of places visited, an attachments gallery and an On this day page with optional notifications.
- Automatic feeds
- Connected services add context to a day: camera roll photos, calendar events, weather, Strava and Apple Health data, Microsoft To Do tasks and Last.fm scrobbles. Some feeds require Pro.
- Sync through your own cloud
- Pro syncs the journal across platforms using your OneDrive, Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud or WebDAV storage. The uploaded data is compressed and encrypted.
- Import and export
- Migrates journals from Day One, Diaro, Journey, Daylio, Diarly, Daybook, Evernote and Apple Journal, and exports to Word, plain text, HTML or JSON.
- Lock without an account
- No login or sign-up is required and the app carries no ads. The journal can be protected with a password, PIN or biometrics such as Face ID and Windows Hello.
Grid Diary
- Grid format with prompts
- An entry is a customizable grid of prompted boxes on a single page. Prompts come from a built-in library, or you can write your own.
- Day, week, month and year entries
- Separate daily, weekly, monthly and yearly entries let you plan and review at each time scale within the same journal.
- Templates
- Customizable templates cover a gratitude journal, a goal tracker, a weekly planner and more, so the app can double as a planner.
- Mandala layout
- A 9-grid layout inspired by the mandala keeps a fixed center cell, which the vendor compares to journaling as a mind map.
- Markdown editor and attachments
- The editor supports Markdown with rich preview, inline images and to-dos, and photos can be attached to entries.
- Multiple journals, tags and export
- Keep dedicated journals for areas such as family, work and travel, organize entries with tags, and export in PDF, Markdown, JPG and other formats.
Plans
Diarium
Free$0
The app on Android, iPhone, iPad and Mac without Cloud Sync, unlimited attachments, Word export, widgets, custom fonts, weather or integrations.
Pro version (Android, iOS or macOS)$14.99
one-time purchase per platform
Unlocks Cloud Sync, unlimited attachments, Word export, connected feeds, custom fonts, widgets and weather. iOS and macOS count as separate platforms.
Diarium for Windows$19.99
one-time purchase (Microsoft Store)
A paid app that already includes Pro. The same app is also sold as a direct download on Gumroad for $30.
Grid Diary
Free$0
Many of the app's features without a subscription. Sync between devices, the passcode lock and extra color themes are excluded.
Membership$4.99
per month, or $29.99 per year (US App Store)
One in-app subscription covering all your devices: sync, passcode lock, more color themes and future member-only features.
Ways to pay less
Diarium
No public discounts listed.
Grid Diary
- Annual discount
About 50% less with the annual membership
The US App Store lists the membership at $4.99 monthly or $29.99 annual, which is about 50% less than twelve monthly payments.
