hodgepodge vs Day One: an honest one.
written by the hodgepodge team (well, brett)4 min read
Let’s get the awkward part out of the way: I built hodgepodge, so I am exactly as unbiased as you’d expect. But I’ve also recommended Day One to people many times, including people who were actively trying my app at the moment I said it. So consider this less a cage match and more me introducing you to two apps that are solving two different problems.
Day One is the deep one. It has been the serious journaling app for over a decade (it’s made by Bloom Built, now part of Automattic), and it shows. Unlimited text entries for free. End-to-end encryption. Photos, video, audio, even drawings with a premium subscription. An On This Day feature that resurfaces where you were a year ago. You can print your journal as an actual book. If journaling is a real practice for you (the kind with paragraphs), Day One is probably the best tool ever made for it. I mean that plainly.
It even does shared journals now: a premium member can open a journal to up to 30 people, who can join with free accounts to add entries and comments, all end-to-end encrypted. It’s a lovely feature. It is also, and I say this with respect, still Day One at heart: built around writing, private first, shared as the exception.
private first vs. people first. that’s the whole fork.
hodgepodge starts from the other end. The entry is deliberately tiny: today’s tasks, one photo, one thought. There’s no blank page, because the blank page is what kills most journaling habits by February. And it’s shared by default with the people you mutually add, because the entire point is that your partner or your scattered friends get to see your actual Tuesday. Free, no algorithm, no streaks to lose. A checkmark, not a celebration.
day one is a leather notebook with a lock. hodgepodge is show & tell for adults.
| Day Onethe deep one | hodgepodgethe daily one | |
|---|---|---|
| an entry is | As long as you want. Text, photos, video, audio, drawings. | Three small parts: tasks, a photo, a thought. About two minutes. |
| who reads it | You, by default. Shared journals are an opt-in feature (up to 30 people). | Your mutual friends, by default. Fully private and public modes exist too. |
| the record | A deep, encrypted archive of your inner life. Printable as books. | A scrollable feed of ordinary days, yours next to your people's. |
| price | Free for unlimited text; premium unlocks media, at $8.99 a month or $49.99 a year. | Free. |
| pick it if | You write to figure out what you think, and the writing is the point. | You keep abandoning journals, and you want your people in this one. |
prices as listed on the App Store, july 2026
pick Day One if
Genuinely, go get Day One if any of these sound like you: you journal for yourself, in paragraphs, and the privacy is the point (encrypted, passcoded, yours). You want one archive of your whole life, with the photos and the audio and the version of you from 2019 resurfacing every morning. You love writing and want a tool that honors that. None of that is what hodgepodge does, and pretending otherwise would be silly.
pick hodgepodge if
Pick hodgepodge if you’ve downloaded three journaling apps and abandoned all three by week two. If the people you love are scattered and the group chat isn’t cutting it. If two minutes is a budget you can actually keep. If what you want from a journal is less a mirror and more a window: witnesses, not word counts.
witnesses, not word counts
And honestly, some people should have both. Day One for the interior monologue, hodgepodge for the part you hold up. The apps aren’t fighting. Your Tuesday has room for a paragraph and a checkmark. You can find Day One at dayoneapp.com, and you already know where to find us.