Reflect is a capable note-taking and journaling tool. The catch: its AI features send your notes to a cloud for processing. MirrorNotes takes the opposite approach. Gemma 3 runs locally on your iPhone, so daily prompts, mood analysis, and journal queries work offline, with no text ever reaching a server.
| Feature | MirrorNotes | Reflect |
|---|---|---|
| Where AI runs | On your iPhone (Gemma 3 via CoreML) | Cloud servers |
| Journal text leaves device | Never | Yes, for AI processing |
| Works offline | Fully, including all AI features | AI requires internet |
| Daily AI reflection prompts | Yes, personalized to your recent entries | No |
| Ask your journal | "What stresses me out?" answered on-device | AI chat, cloud-processed |
| Mood tracking & timeline | Yes, on-device detection | No mood analytics |
| Weekly & monthly AI summaries | Weekly Digest + Monthly Deep Report | No |
| Account required | No account, no sign-in | Account required |
| Free tier | Everything is free: unlimited writing, full AI features, full history, search, iCloud backup | Limited free tier |
| Price | Free | ~$10–15/mo |
| Platforms | iPhone only | iOS, Mac, web |
Most AI journaling apps, including Reflect, process your writing on a server. That's not a criticism of their privacy policies; it's a technical consequence of running cloud AI. The model has to see the text to process it.
MirrorNotes ships its own model. Gemma 3 1B runs via CoreML on your iPhone's Neural Engine. When you write an entry, the AI reads it on your chip, generates an insight, and the text stays on your device. Not transmitted, not logged, not stored anywhere outside your iCloud.
Reflect is stronger for knowledge management: linked notes, backlinks, web clipper, multi-platform sync. If you're building a personal wiki or need notes on Mac and iOS simultaneously, Reflect is a better fit. MirrorNotes is focused on one thing: personal journaling with private AI that feeds insight back to you.
You can start writing in MirrorNotes immediately, everything is free and unlimited. Journal import from Reflect isn't available yet, but existing entries in Reflect stay there while you build a habit in MirrorNotes.
No. MirrorNotes is a focused journaling app, not a knowledge base. The AI reads across all your entries to surface patterns, but there's no manual linking system. If you need that, Reflect or Obsidian are better tools.
On-device inference has zero marginal cost. Cloud AI journals pay per token to a model provider or run their own GPU infrastructure, and that cost passes to you. MirrorNotes' model runs on your own chip, so there's nothing to pass on.
Every feature, completely free. No trial, no card, no catch.
Download on the App Store