Diarium vs RedNotebook
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
Free plan · from $14.99 one-time
RedNotebook
Free desktop diary that stores entries as plain text files
Free
Where they differ
- Diarium starts at $14.99 one-time purchase per platform. RedNotebook is free.
- Only Diarium lists macOS, iOS and Android apps.
- Only RedNotebook lists a Linux app.
- Diarium can be bought with a one-time purchase.
- RedNotebook is open source, according to its own site.
- Diarium also covers mood tracking.
In commonFree planWindowsWorks offlineLocal-firstDaily notesTemplates
At a glance
| Diarium | RedNotebook | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | $14.99 one-time purchase per platform | Free |
| 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. | Free Software under the GPL with no paid version or feature limits. The downloads page accepts voluntary donations in US dollars or euros. |
| Free trial | 7-day trial of all Pro features on Android, iOS and macOS before buying. | None listed |
| macOS | ||
| Windows | ||
| Linux | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | Timo Partl | Jendrik Seipp |
| Price read from | apps.apple.com | rednotebook.app |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 6, 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
RedNotebook
- Linux and Windows users who want a diary kept as plain text on their own disk
- People who tag entries with #hashtags and search across years of them
- Writers who want their journal exported to plain text, HTML or LaTeX
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.
RedNotebook
- There are no mobile apps or web version, and macOS has no official support, only Homebrew or source builds to try on your own.
- There is no built-in encryption or lock; the help suggests an encrypted folder or an encrypted home partition.
- Sync is not built in: using it on several computers means keeping the journal folder in Dropbox, Syncthing or on a server.
- Word clouds are missing from version 2.x on Windows, and there is no direct PDF export.
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.
RedNotebook
- Formatted daily entries
- Text can be bold, italic, underlined or struck through, with lists and links. You write in an edit mode and read the result in a preview mode.
- Hashtags, search and word clouds
- Entries are tagged with #hashtags and found with search-as-you-type. Clouds show the most common words and tags, though not in version 2.x on Windows.
- Templates
- There is one template for each day of the week plus any number of named templates, all kept as editable text files in a template directory.
- Images, files and links
- An Insert menu adds images, files and links at the cursor. Inserted items are linked to, not copied into the journal directory.
- Plain-text storage and backups
- A journal is a directory of plain text files, one per month. Entries save automatically, and a Backup command packs the journal into a zip archive.
- Export
- The journal exports to plain text, HTML or LaTeX. A PDF is made by printing the HTML export from a browser or compiling the LaTeX file.
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.
RedNotebook
RedNotebook$0
The complete desktop journal for Linux and Windows, with every feature included.
