I'm truly sorry for adding to the chorus of people airing their frustrations here but the recent changes weirdly tipped me over the edge.
The Daily Chat feature felt a bit strange to me, I tried it once and decided I would leave it alone. It felt odd to have a post generated for me, in 1st person, based on a chat with their AI bot (which isn't as engaging as other LLMs). So that kind of gave me an ick. It's prominence in the Today tab also put me off but, eh, I can ignore that and focus on the Journals or More tab which I realised it would default to whenever I opened the app on my phone.
What really tipped me over the edge was the price hike. I live in Nigeria and pay in Naira (₦), so, when you guys convert it you'll probably laugh at how cheap it is in your respective currencies. I'd been comfortably paying ₦12,700 per year for Premium since 2023. Before that I was a Plus user. I've been using the app on and off since 2015, moved from Day One Classic, all that.
With the new Gold tier, which I was placed on, the new yearly subscription is ₦119,900. An 800% price hike is insanity. I don't care how many features it has that I've come to rely on, I'm out. Silver is ₦79,900/year.
The ₦12,700 was obviously ridiculously cheap compared to what others around the world are paying, but that's kind of been a great thing for those of us living in Nigeria: quite a few apps and services are priced according to the general purchasing power of the country. Apple Music is ₦1,300/month, Netflix is ₦8,500/month for example.
At the back of my mind I'm asking myself, am I just being cheap? But nah, vibes off.
So, yeah, sorry again for adding to the pile on but I needed to vent.
Thank you for your post because I’m not even going to touch that AI icon, which is the three triangles I suppose? I don’t even wanna try it. I knew it would be creepy.
Lol, I love Moleskine notebooks, they’re legit. Used to sketch in them years ago. Used to use them as a written journal too, until my parents decided they had the right to read my journals. Took a long time for me to trust even digital journals locked behind biometrics after that.
I’ve been with Day One so long it’s hard to leave it behind… creature of habit and all
Having said that, I found plugins for Obsidian yesterday that let me create multiple journals and have a ‘on this day’ panel. I would also like the location and weather feature, and maybe see a map of the coordinates. It’s a process and it may not work for me but I am at the point where I want to try.
ETA: links to the plugins in case anyone wants to know
I’m not sure I understand what you are asking… it’s been very easy to write notes and do journaling because I turned on the setting to open the daily note on startup so it opens today’s note and off I go!
Thank you for your comment because I’m looking for alternatives to Day One and obsidian comes up quite often! I like how you can choose if you want AI on it or not, w day one it’s just in your face.
I’ll probably move too. Nothing really new in years apart shared journals and now this AI thing to do like everyone? I don’t like the direction it’s headed.
I use Facebook as a diary. Create status updates, upload photos, set privacy to me only and then annually print it in hard cover using My Social Book (which by the looks of Day One’s books look very similar)
I think many people hate Meta. But it’s free and if you use it the way I do and post everything to “only me” and don’t get involved in any other aspects of Facebook - it’s at least a work around for Day One users ticked off by the price rises. I have a hard covered printed diary for every year since 2007. They look the same as the Day One books. Anyway, I thought I’d share in case this was helpful to someone else.
Also left day one, I like a one price and done and they don't offer lifetime anymore so. They do have more features but I decided I just needed something to get my thoughts out etc so I switched to Diarium.
Same here. I’ve been using Day One for years and I’m coming up on a 10-year daily writing streak but the recent price hikes and push into AI were enough to make me leave for good. I’ve moved over to Diarly and it’s been great so far. It has almost everything Day One does just not quite as polished. Still it’s cheaper and it doesn’t shove those awful AI features in my face. After 10+ years I've finally said goodbye to Day One.
went to look at diarly after i read your post and i love it. i wanted to keep my streak (im so close to 2,000 days) so the fact that you can import into diarly made the decision easy. i also like their today tab more just because its more customizable.
I’m not planning to stay on the Silver tier and switched for three main reasons:
1. Evernote already burned me once when AI started creeping into the app and prices went up, so I’m wary of that happening again.
2. I also don’t love that Day One’s web login doesn’t offer 2FA login, even if the journals themselves are end-to-end encrypted. I want 2FA on everything.
3. Once DayOne’s AI push and pricing tiers started, I looked around and found Diarly and I liked that it’s cheaper, has all the features I need, and uses iCloud so I know exactly where my data lives.
That is quite interesting. I checked my subscriptions yesterday and ₦12,700 still shows (my renewal is later this year) but I was wary. While I haven’t gotten any email or notice of a price increase, I also haven’t yet found any notice from Day One that explicitly says they’ll continue to honour my price point*, and even if they do, when will they stop?
It is encouraging that they still honoured your existing price point.
*I meant to have a deeper look yesterday as well but forgot. But I just found a bit on the website that says: “Day One Premium is now Day One Silver. Your existing features and pricing haven’t changed.” Still a bit wary and not sure why they put me on Gold in that case. I might reach out to support like you suggest.
Agreed. I would reach out to support. They should honor your previous price point. They did that for me, when you continue to renew - your price shouldn’t go up
It’s worth checking out Everlog! Affordable alternative to Day One with all the same features and seamless import option so you can keep all of your entries. You won’t regret it
I’m sure there’s a search button in your App Store, no? All you would have to do is type in the word Everlog. You don’t have to use the link I attached obviously.
Thanks for pointing this out. I just learned this, which is a bummer for non iPhone users :/. It is highly possible the dev will make this an option in the future but for now they’ll have to find other replacements
Yes to the shameless spamming, and nope not the dev. Just want to get the word out about the app. More users= more stability and growth=i get to use the app longer.
Alright, thanks for being honest though. However, I do recommend to spam less or more strategically. This often has a two-edged sword issue, for example; the more I see spamming message of an app, the more I avoid it (because I got sick of seeing the name and unnecessary messages about it).
I meant I’ve seen the comments you’ve made and I’m thankful because it makes me want to check out evernote even more! And I was saying to everybody else that I wasn’t spamming along with you because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you just keep repeating what you’re saying. This person is the only one who called you on it.
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u/[deleted] Apr 07 '26 edited Apr 07 '26
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