A Reddit user shared their thoughts about journaling:
The first fold of their message just stayed with us. Journaling has quietly become one of the most powerful tools for self-reflection, mental health tracking, and emotional processing, especially in a world that often moves too fast to sit with your own thoughts.
Platforms like Journey help make journaling accessible and consistent for thousands of people. But if you’ve found your way here, you’re probably looking for something different. Maybe Journey feels a bit too rigid, you’re concerned about privacy, or you’re simply after a tool that better matches your personal rhythm.
Whether you’re tracking moods, reflecting on tough days, or just getting started with the basic features of digital journaling, we’ve rounded up top tools that meet you where you are!
- Journey Alternatives at a Glance
- Why Go For Journey Alternatives?
- What Should You Look for in Journey Alternatives?
- The Best Journey Alternatives
- 1. ClickUp (Best for journaling, habit tracking, and daily planning in one customizable workspace)
- 2. Day One (Best for private journaling with contextual memory enhancement)
- 3. Penzu (Best for journaling with version history to revisit mental health insights)
- 4. Diarium (Best for location-based journaling with deep memory tracking)
- 5. Grid Diary (Best for prompted journaling to overcome writer’s block)
- 6. Reflectly (Best for AI-driven mood tracking to boost self-awareness)
- 7. Daylio (Best for mood tracking with minimal writing)
- 8. Travel Diaries (Best for travel storytelling with printed keepsakes)
- 9. Dabble Me (Best for email-based journaling to preserve memories)
- 10. Evernote (Best for advanced note-taking to boost productivity)
- Give Your Thoughts a Safe Home With ClickUp
Journey Alternatives at a Glance
If Journey isn’t fitting quite right anymore, there are plenty of similar products that offer more privacy, deeper mental health tools, or just a smoother writing experience. ⤵️
| Tool | Key features | Best for | Pricing* |
| ClickUp | – Docs, tasks, reminders, habits – Journaling templates – AI insights (ClickUp Brain) – Mood tracking – Goal dashboards | Individuals who want all-in-one journaling, habit tracking, task management, and productivity | Free plans; Custom pricing available |
| Day One | – Private journal with encryption – On This Day memory prompts – Audio, photo, and calendar entry support | Users looking for beautifully designed, secure, reflective journaling with multimedia | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $2.92/month |
| Penzu | – Time Capsule feature – Zen writing mode – Tags for tracking emotional patterns | Writers who want secure, privacy-first journaling and long-term self-reflection | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $19.99/year |
| Diarium | – Timeline & memory tagging – Media-rich entries – Weather, location, fitness integration | Users who want deep life tracking with location and emotion-aware journaling | Free plan available; Custom pricing |
| Grid Diary | – Prompt-based journaling – 9-grid Mandala layout – Custom habit tracking system | Beginners and reflective writers seeking structured, question-based journaling | Paid plans start at $2.99/month |
| Reflectly | – AI-generated prompts – Mood graphing – Mindfulness challenges | Users who want daily emotional check-ins and reflective writing assisted by AI | Free plan available; In-app purchases |
| Daylio | – Mood logging with icons – ‘Year in Pixels’ visual reports – Minimal writing with goal tracking | People who want ultra-minimal, visual journaling and habit tracking | Free |
| Travel Diaries | – Travel mapping and photo logs – Printed journals – Shareable online chapters | Travelers looking to document self-reflective journeys with visual storytelling and physical keepsakes | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $13.99/month |
| Dabble Me | – Journaling by email – Past entry throwbacks – Spotify integration | Users who prefer email-based, simple, nostalgia-rich journaling | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $4/month |
| Evernote | – AI-powered note search– Web clipper – Media transcription – Productivity + journaling hybrid | Writers who blend journaling with research, productivity, and media-heavy reflections | Free plan available; Paid plans start at $14.99/month |
How we review software at ClickUp
Our editorial team follows a transparent, research-backed, and vendor-neutral process, so you can trust that our recommendations are based on real product value.
Here’s a detailed rundown of how we review software at ClickUp.
🧠 Fun Fact: Back in the late 1980s, psychologist James Pennebaker introduced expressive writing—a technique where you freely jot down your deepest thoughts and feelings without worrying about spelling, grammar, or polish. It’s pure, unfiltered emotional release
Why Go For Journey Alternatives?
If you’ve been using Journey for a while, you might relate to some of these common limitations 👇
- Limited privacy controls: Journey stores data via Google Drive, which isn’t ideal if you’re looking for local storage, end-to-end encryption, or complete control over your journal entries
- Rigid user interface: The app can feel a bit outdated or cluttered, which disrupts the writing flow and doesn’t adapt well to different journaling styles
- Paywalls on essential features: Core tools like syncing, backups, and media uploads are locked behind a subscription, making the free version feel more like a trial
- Lack of mental health depth: Journey doesn’t offer features like CBT-based prompts, mood tracking, or mental health analytics that other apps are starting to include
- No deep customization: You can’t change font styles, themes, or layout much. If you like your journal to feel truly yours, this can be a deal-breaker
- Minimal offline support: Accessing your entries without an internet connection is limited, which isn’t great if you want to journal on the go
👀 Did You Know? Nearly 2,000 years ago, a man named Ma Dubo kept a travel diary as he hiked to Mount Tai to perform a ritual for the emperor. Back then, only emperors were allowed to ‘write history’, but Ma’s journal gave voice to everyday life in ancient China!
📘 Also Read: How Can Productivity Journaling Boost Your Focus
What Should You Look for in Journey Alternatives?
Here’s what to keep an eye out for when exploring other journaling apps that promise to be your new digital diary 👇
- Data control: Look for options that allow you to store data locally or choose your preferred cloud service, giving you control over your information
- Offline access: Check if the app allows offline journaling, so you can write without an internet connection and sync later
- Voice-to-text: For hands-free journaling, look for apps with reliable speech-to-text functionality
- Mood and habit tracking: Look for apps that offer integrated mood tracking and habit formation tools, which can be beneficial for self-reflection and personal growth
- Data export: Ensure the app allows you to export your entries in various formats like PDF, DOCX, or Markdown for backup or migration purposes
🧠 Art and science of journaling: Zeb Evans, founder of ClickUp, shares how journaling helped him be calmer, mindful, and resilient:
📚 Read More: How to Be Productive After Work
The Best Journey Alternatives
While Journey offers a good journaling experience, several other apps provide unique features and benefits that may better suit your goals. Let’s explore their features in detail.
1. ClickUp (Best for journaling, habit tracking, and daily planning in one customizable workspace)

If you’re someone who wants one app to organize your thoughts, track your habits, and manage your day-to-day routines, ClickUp is an excellent place to start and often the best fit!
Journal your heart away in Docs and Notepad
At the heart of this flexibility is ClickUp Docs. It lets you create journal-style entries in a clean, distraction-free writing space. You can use it to jot down daily reflections, keep a gratitude bullet journal, or write longer entries when you need to process something deeply.

What makes Docs stand out is that you can organize your writing however you like. For example, you can create folders for different moods, tags for recurring themes, and even link journal entries to tasks or calendar events.
🎯 Quick Hack: Want to speed up formatting in ClickUp Docs? Click the drag handle (⋮⋮) to the left of any block to open the block options menu.

From there, you can instantly:
- Turn into → Headings, lists, quotes, banners, or code blocks
- Block Color → Add color to your text or background
- Duplicate → Clone the block in one click
- Copy Block Link → Share or link directly to a block
- Delete → Remove the entire block with no fuss
Journal seamlessly with Notepad
Meet the ClickUp Notepad—your new favorite spot for capturing thoughts, ideas, and reflections!

Here’s how:
- Jot down anything, anytime: Quickly capture your daily wins, worries, or wild ideas—no sticky notes required
- Organize with ease: Create separate notes for each day or topic, so your thoughts never get lost in the shuffle
- Sync across devices: Start a journal entry on your laptop and finish it on your phone—your notes go wherever you do
- Turn notes into action: Easily convert your reflections into tasks or reminders, helping you turn insights into real progress
Convert habits into tasks
Additionally, ClickUp Tasks adds a layer of functionality that’s perfect for habit tracking and personal routines. You can set up recurring tasks for activities like journaling, meditation, hydration, and mood tracking, making ClickUp the ideal digital planner.

Each task can have ClickUp Custom Fields, so you could rate your mood, energy level, or stress each day and start noticing patterns over time. You can view your tasks on a calendar, in a list, or even as a timeline, which makes it really easy to see how consistent you’ve been.
If you feel a sense of satisfaction from checking things off a list, this setup can be incredibly motivating.
Ask AI for journalling prompts
Adding to the powerhouse is ClickUp Brain, the AI-powered assistant built right into the platform.
You can ask ClickUp Brain to generate reflective prompts, summarize your entries, or even help you identify trends across your journal and tasks. You can even move the responses to a doc or create a task.

ClickUp effortlessly blends personal growth with daily productivity. Instead of switching between multiple to-do list apps, digital journals, goal and habit trackers, you get one place where everything stays connected.
💡 Bonus: Journaling doesn’t have to be one-dimensional. If you want to pen thoughts while commuting, or talk if you can type, you can do that and more. Here’s how:
- Instantly search ClickUp, Google Drive, GitHub, OneDrive, SharePoint, and ALL your connected apps + the web to locate files, documents, and attachments
- Use Talk to Text to ask, dictate, and command your journaling by voice—hands-free, anywhere
- Leverage premium, external AI models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini with a single, contextual solution
Try ClickUp Brain MAX—the AI Super App that truly understands you, because it knows your work. Ditch the AI tool sprawl, use your voice to journal, create notes, and more.

Begin with journaling templates
You also have the option to use ready-made or customizable ClickUp templates if you find a structure you like, such as a morning check-in or an evening reflection.
For instance, the ClickUp Daily Notes Template helps you quickly jot down thoughts, notes, track your progress, and turn reflections into action. Use the Calendar View to plan your day-to-day life with deadlines and schedules at a glance.
ClickUp best features
- Quick note-taking: Jot down quick thoughts and access them anywhere, anytime with ClickUp Notepad
- Secure self-reflection: Set up private spaces with automated recurring tasks to build a consistent journaling habit
- Personal growth tracking: Monitor your mental wellness journey by setting measurable targets on ClickUp Goals
- Timely reminders: Stay on top of your reflections with notifications for key journaling moments with ClickUp Reminders
- Visual progress tracking: Monitor your mental health goals with ClickUp Dashboards, showing you detailed, visual workload analysis and health check-ins
ClickUp limitations
- The tool may come with an initial learning curve for first-time users
ClickUp pricing
ClickUp ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.7/5 (10,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (4,000+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about ClickUp?
A G2 user says,
🎥 Watch: How to use ClickUp as your bullet journal
⚡ Template Archive: Free Content Writing Templates for Faster Content Creation
2. Day One (Best for private journaling with contextual memory enhancement)

Launched in 2011 by Bloom Built, Day One has evolved into a journaling app that supports mental wellness through structured, private reflection.
Its ‘On This Day’ feature resurfaces past entries with photos, audio, or location data, prompting users to reflect on emotional growth and life patterns. This makes it a good Journey alternative for those looking for a secure, reflective space to capture and revisit life’s moments with depth.
The tool’s voice transcription features let you turn spoken thoughts into text entries on the go. You can enrich your journal with unlimited entries, photos, videos, audio recordings, handwritten notes, or drawings.
Day One best features
- Generate Today View summaries combining calendar events and media for a holistic daily mindfulness practice
- Record voice-to-text or audio entries to preserve fleeting thoughts, ideal for processing emotions on the go
- Get curated questions like ‘What’s a lesson you learned this week?’ to spark reflective writing
Day One limitations
- Users often experience inconsistent location updates where manually set locations shift to a single point over time
Day One pricing
- Free
- Premium: $2.92/month (billed annually)
Day One ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Day One?
A G2 review says,
🌷 Mindfulness Tip: When you feel caught in your head or pulled by emotion, pause and W.A.K.E.:
- W: Witness (‘What is happening inside me right now?’)
- A: Allow (‘Can I let this be here for a moment?’)
- K: Know (‘What’s true beyond the noise?’)
- E: Engage (‘What’s the most conscious next move?’)
3. Penzu (Best for journaling with version history to revisit mental health insights)

As a privacy-first online journaling platform, Penzu offers a secure space for processing emotions and reducing stress through consistent writing. Its ‘Time Capsule’ feature lets users email entries to their future selves, encouraging long-term reflection on personal growth and setting it apart from Journey’s more immediate journaling focus.
For a more customizable and reflective experience, the tool supports journal and entry tagging, rich-text formatting, search filters, and structured navigation of past entries. There’s also a ‘Looking Glass’ feature, which sends you past entries via email (e.g., ’Here’s what you wrote 3 years ago‘), for a glimpse into your journaling journey.
In Penzu, all journals are private by default, with an optional Basic Lock (double password) for free users and military‑grade 256‑bit AES encryption for Pro accounts.
Penzu best features
- Activate Zen Mode for a distraction-free writing space, enhancing focus during emotional journaling
- Customize journals with personal photos, journal covers, themes, fonts, and colors
- Set custom email reminders (daily/weekly) to foster a consistent journaling habit
Penzu limitations
- The tool has limited customization options, such as photo resizing and page colors
Penzu pricing
- Free forever
- Pro: $19.99 per year
- Pro+: $4.16 per year
Penzu ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Penzu?
A Trustpilot review says:
📮 ClickUp Insight: Only 12% of people use physical journals to track their goals, and a surprising 38% aren’t tracking at all. But what if you could track goals with more precision and ease?
Enter ClickUp, where the structure of a planner meets the power of automation. From setting tasks and deadlines to tracking progress with visual dashboards, ClickUp helps you stay organized and focused. With AI-powered reminders and automated workflows, you’ll never miss a milestone again.
💫 Real Results: ClickUp users report a 2x boost in productivity
4. Diarium (Best for location-based journaling with deep memory tracking)

Evolving since 2017 into a cross-device journaling powerhouse, Diarium lets you add different media formats, multiple stylings, and use hands-free text input.
You can auto‑import data from services like calendar events, weather, Fitbit, Strava, Untappd, GitHub, Trakt, Facebook, Last.fm, to enrich journal entries with context. Plus, you can dictate your thoughts with voice-to-text for easy, hands-free journaling using speech recognition.
Diarium best features
- Design custom Tracker Tags to monitor unique habits, like sleep quality or creative bursts, with personalized graphs
- Celebrate Days of the Year with special prompts and add unique context to your daily entries
- Lock the app using a password, PIN, fingerprint, Touch ID, Face ID, or Windows Hello for added privacy
Diarium limitations
- Users sometimes face issues with file uploads on Chrome, requiring manual phone updates despite premium cross-platform claims
Diarium pricing
- Free forever
- Pro: Custom pricing (available as an in-app purchase)
Diarium ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Diarium?
A Reddit user says,
📚 Also Read: How to Master a Productive Mindset and Achieve More
5. Grid Diary (Best for prompted journaling to overcome writer’s block)

Grid Diary’s 3×3 grid layout (with the date/mood in the central cell) is ideal for organizing eight separate prompts per entry in a bite‑sized format to help reduce writer’s block and keep entries focused.
It is designed as a journal and planner hybrid that lets you track progress over time with daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly entry templates and rituals.
The app adapts to your unique journaling style, from morning gratitude and success logs to bullet journaling, manifestation journals, and more. You can even capture mood, weather, activity data (via HealthKit), and steps or energy metrics to add real‑life context to each entry.
Grid Diary best features
- Design a Mandala layout with a 9-grid structure to map out your thoughts like a mind map for deeper reflection
- Use prompted journaling with a library of questions to spark creativity and track personal growth
- Create a check-in system to monitor daily habits and routines, boosting consistency, mindfulness, and self-care
Grid Diary limitations
- Some users say they lost entries frequently due to unreliable saving, including past diaries, with no effective support response
Grid Diary pricing
- Pro: $2.99/month, 3-day free trial
- Premium: $22.99/year, 14-day free trial
Grid Diary ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Grid Diary?
A Google Play review says,
🧠 Fun Fact: A study led by Hans S. Schroder used EEGs to observe brain activity. They found that writing about worries significantly reduced the brain’s “error-related negativity” signals—those sharp electrical dips triggered by worry or distraction—compared to writing about neutral topics.
⚡ Template Archive: Free Daily Log Templates to Track Activities Efficiently
6. Reflectly (Best for AI-driven mood tracking to boost self-awareness)

Reflectly is a journaling app that acts like a friendly AI companion on your phone or tablet and helps you write about your feelings each day with AI-suggested prompts and questions. It tracks your mood over time and provides engaging visual graphs and trend data to help you understand emotional patterns and triggers.
The app also incorporates elements of positive psychology, such as daily exercises focused on gratitude and mindfulness, quotes, affirmations, and self-help tips to support your mental health journey and reinforce a positive mindset.
To incentivize consistent journaling, it offers gamification elements, such as streaks and rewards, to help you stay consistent in your journaling habit.
Reflectly best features
- Receive personalized AI prompts based on your past entries for deeper emotional exploration
- View mood correlation graphs to spot trends linking activities and emotions over weeks
- Complete daily mindfulness challenges, like affirmations, to build a positive mindset
Reflectly limitations
- Users report the app’s frequent crashes and biometric failures post-update, with the profile showing zero data despite several entries
Reflectly pricing
- Free (with in-app purchases)
Reflectly ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Reflectly?
A Google Play user says,
Friendly Tip: If you don’t want to share your thoughts with anyone immediately, you can rely on AI. Simply ask, ‘I’m feeling [emotion]. Can you help me unpack what might be going on beneath the surface, without judgment?

📚 Also Read: How to Use Drive Reduction Theory for Goal Setting
7. Daylio (Best for mood tracking with minimal writing)

Daylio uses a visual, icon-based interface for journaling. Instead of writing full entries, you can log your mood and select pre-set activities. This turns mood logging into a fun game with icons and streak challenges on your phone.
You can create custom goals (like ‘Sleep 8 hours’ or ‘Go for a walk’) and track them with daily streaks and reminders. The app automatically tracks patterns between your moods and daily activities with easy-to-read charts and stats to help identify how individual habits affect your mental well-being.
Daylio best features
- Explore your year at a glance with the ‘Year in Pixels’ heatmap-style view
- Track goals and habits with streaks and reminders to build consistency over time
- Generate a yearly mood report with a detailed emotional overview to share with therapists
Daylio limitations
- Some users report losing streak progress as entries saved past midnight fail to register
Daylio pricing
- Free
Daylio ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Daylio?
A Reddit user says,
🧠 Friendly tip: Why should leaders journal? Research has documented that outstanding leaders take time to reflect. Their success depends on the ability to access their unique perspective and bring it to their decisions and sense-making every day.
⚡ Template Archive: Free Self-Care Plan Templates (With Action Plans & Routines)
8. Travel Diaries (Best for travel storytelling with printed keepsakes)

Unlike generic journaling apps, Travel Diaries is built specifically for documenting trips. It lets users create structured travel journals with entries organized by date, destination, or itinerary.
Entries are styled like a real travel magazine, combining text, photos, and maps into elegant, scrollable digital diaries to make your journal feel more like a curated travel story. You can even save your work online and choose to have it turned into a physical book, delivered to your home.
Add geo-tags and pin locations on interactive maps to visually trace your route and give each entry rich spatial context to show where it happened. You can keep your journals private, share them with select friends or family members, or publish them publicly as travel blogs if you are a travel influencer.
Travel Diaries best features
- Pin your travel routes on an interactive map with the travel pin feature to mark every place you’ve been to
- Share your travel stories selectively by publishing entire diaries or individual chapters as online blogs
- Transform your digital journal into a professionally printed book and create a tangible keepsake of your adventures
Travel Diaries limitations
- Some users report the lack of offline use with no sync option when back online
Travel Diaries pricing
- Free forever
- Basic: $13.99/month per user
- Online: $39.99/month per user
- Print: $69.99/month per user
Travel Diaries ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
What are real-life users saying about Travel Diaries?
A Trustpilot user says,
9. Dabble Me (Best for email-based journaling to preserve memories)

Dabble Me is an open-source journaling app that sends daily emails to your inbox, asking you to reflect on your day with a simple reply.
It offers a lightweight way to document life events without needing a dedicated app, appealing to those who prefer email. You can also adjust the frequency of emails, from daily to monthly, giving you control over your journaling rhythm.
You’ll get delightful throwbacks with past entries from the same date to help you reflect on growth, changes, and patterns over time and add a nostalgic, emotional connection. The tool follows a minimalist philosophy, so it doesn’t push streaks, goals, or flashy dashboards. It’s designed more for peaceful self-reflection than for tracking productivity.
Dabble Me best features
- Embed Spotify tracks into your entries, adding a musical dimension to your reflections
- Import past entries from services like OhLife, Ahhlife, and Trailmix.life, consolidating your journaling history
- Tag entries with keywords like ‘travel’ or ‘family’ to organize and search your journal effortlessly
Dabble Me limitation
- Customization features are minimal, potentially limiting personalization for users seeking more control
Dabble Me pricing
- Free forever
- Pro: $4/month
Dabble Me ratings and reviews
- G2: Not enough reviews
- Capterra: Not enough reviews
💡 Pro Tip: Set a timer for 10-15 minutes and write everything that’s cycling through your mind. Don’t organize, edit, or worry about spelling. Include random thoughts, worries, tasks, ideas, frustrations, things you need to remember, and people you’re thinking about, literally every possible thing in a brain dump. The goal is to transfer the mental load from your mind to paper.
10. Evernote (Best for advanced note-taking to boost productivity)

Evernote enhances journaling with smart search and task management, making it easier to stay focused on mental wellness goals and build productivity over time. You can journal in any format—type, dictate, attach files, scan handwritten notes, or insert photos—to make your entries more dynamic.
If you like to maintain separate journals, such as personal, gratitude, travel, work, etc., Evernote lets you organize your journal entries using notebooks, tags, and stacks for detailed categorization.
The tool’s powerful search features make it easy to find past journal entries, even across handwritten notes, PDFs, and images.
Evernote best features
- Use AI-Powered Search to ask natural-language questions and get answers pulled from your notes, PDFs, images, and handwriting
- Transcribe media files automatically into editable text with AI Transcribe, which supports over 50 languages
- Customize your notes with rich formatting options, including tables, checklists, and code blocks
Evernote limitation
- Some users report frequent free version pop-ups pushing paid upgrades and single-device sync limits
Evernote pricing
- Free forever
- Personal: $14.99/month per user
- Professional: $17.99/month per user
- Enterprise: Custom pricing
Evernote ratings and reviews
- G2: 4.4/5 (2,000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.4/5 (8,000+ reviews)
What are real-life users saying about Evernote?
A G2 user says,
📚 Also Read: Best Evernote Alternatives & Competitors
Give Your Thoughts a Safe Home With ClickUp
The beauty of journaling is that it doesn’t ask you to be perfect; it only asks you to be present. And if you’ve been searching for a space that truly supports that presence, ClickUp might be your stop.
With ClickUp Docs, you get a clean, customizable space to reflect—whether it’s a gratitude list, a daily check-in, or a long, unfiltered mind dump.
ClickUp Tasks helps you integrate journaling into your routine, with mood tracking and habit loops that keep you on track.
And when you’re stuck, ClickUp Brain offers thoughtful prompts, reflections, and even summaries to help you understand what’s really going on. For quick thoughts on the go, ClickUp Notepad is your quiet space to jot and breathe.
One platform for all your journaling needs. Sign up for ClickUp now!



