Sometimes the answer is a different app
We make one of these. That is the first thing you should know, because every comparison of journaling apps you will find today was written either by a company selling one of them or by a blog paid per click, and both kinds tend to arrive at a conclusion before they arrive at the apps.
So: this page lists eight apps alphabetically, says what each is genuinely better at than the others, and says where each one loses. Ours is in there at position three, because D comes after C.
The best year in pixels app is not a single app. It is whichever one draws a twelve-by-thirty-one grid on the phone you already own, with a key short enough that you will still fill it in on a bad Tuesday in February. Which one that is depends mostly on whether you carry an iPhone or an Android phone.
The table nobody else has
The page most people land on for this question reviews four apps one after another with no table at all — and two of those four are iPhone-only, which an Android reader discovers three screenshots in. Here is the same information in one screen.
| App | Runs on | Best at | Where it loses |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Year in Pixels | iOS | One tap a day, an optional note, nothing else | iPhone only, and it stays deliberately small |
| Color My Day | Android | Naming your own moods, emoji included, then printing the year onto one page | Android only, and the design is plainer than the iOS field |
| DayBloq | Android | A page that looks like a journal spread rather than a form, kept on the device | Android only, no sync, no analytics — and it is much smaller than everything else here |
| Daylio | iOS, Android | Statistics: moods against activities, over years | Not really a pixels app — the grid is a side view, not the point |
| Moodflow | iOS, Android | Getting started in a minute on five preset moods | Those five moods are most of what you get |
| Moodistory | iOS, Android | The most complete of these: analytics, reminders, PDF export, Apple Watch | More app than some people want; the grid is one feature among many |
| Moojo | iOS | Refusing to give you anything to configure | iPhone only, and the preset colours are the colours |
| Pixels | iOS, Android | Depth: subpixels for parts of a day, tags, notes — and a decade of updates behind it | The extra structure is work on the evenings you have none |
No prices and no star ratings in that table, on purpose. Both change without warning, and a comparison that is quietly wrong about money is worse than no comparison. Every app name links to its own store page, where the number is current.
Four things worth checking before you install
Every app here draws the grid. The differences that decide whether you are still colouring squares in March are duller than the feature lists suggest.
- How long is the key? Five to seven colours survives a bad evening. Twelve does not — you will stand there deciding between fine and quite good, and one night you will decide it is not worth it.
- Can you get the year out? An export, an image, a printable page — anything that means the record outlives your interest in the app.
- Does it want an account before it will let you start? Some do. That is a fair trade for sync, but it is a trade, and it should be one you made on purpose.
- What happens when the phone dies? Cloud apps restore. Local ones do not, unless you exported. Neither answer is wrong; not knowing which you picked is.
If you have an iPhone
Then DayBloq is not a choice you can make. We have not built it, and saying otherwise would waste your afternoon.
Moodistory is the most complete thing in this list — an interactive grid, analytics, reminders, PDF export, and an Apple Watch app. Pixels is the one to pick if you want depth: subpixels split a day into parts, tags let you track things that are not moods, and it has been shipping since 2017 with a million-plus installs behind it. If you want neither, Moojo and A Year in Pixels both refuse to give you anything to configure, which for some people is the entire feature.
If you have an Android phone
The field is smaller than the iPhone one, which is the gap this whole page exists to fill. Pixels and Moodistory both run here and both are excellent. Color My Day is free, lets you name your moods with any character including emoji, and prints the finished year onto a single page — if your plan is to end up back in a paper journal, that last feature is the one to weigh.
DayBloq is the Android one we make. It is worth your time if you want the page to look like a journal spread rather than a form, if you would rather colour a square than answer questions about your activities, and if you want the record to stay on the phone — entries are stored locally, with no account.
Where DayBloq loses, plainly
No iPhone build. No sync, so a lost phone is a lost year unless you have exported it. No statistics worth the name — if you want to know whether Tuesdays are worse than Thursdays, Daylio and Moodistory will tell you and we will not. And it is by a long way the smallest app on this list: Pixels has over a million installs, DayBloq has a few thousand. That is not false modesty, it is a real risk you are entitled to price in when you choose where to keep a year of your life.
What we would say for it is narrow and, we think, true: it is a grid that behaves like a page rather than a dashboard, and it does not ask for an account before it will let you colour Monday.
If none of them is right
Paper is still a legitimate answer, and it beats every app in this list at one thing: being on a wall where you can see it without unlocking anything. You can make and print a sheet here without an account or an email address, or use Color My Day’s printing feature to get the same result out of an app.
And if what you actually want is to log how days felt rather than to look at a year as a picture, a mood tracker is a different tool and the statistics apps are better at it.
Questions we are asked
What is the best Year in Pixels app?
There is no single one. Moodistory is the most complete and runs on both platforms; Pixels has the most depth and the longest track record; Color My Day and DayBloq are Android-only and free to start; Moojo and A Year in Pixels are iPhone-only and deliberately minimal. The right answer depends on your phone and on how much you will do on a bad day.
Which Year in Pixels apps work on Android?
Color My Day, DayBloq, Daylio, Moodflow, Moodistory and Pixels. A Year in Pixels and Moojo are iPhone-only, which is worth knowing before you read a review that does not say so.
Is this list ranked?
No. It is alphabetical, and the structured data on this page says so too. DayBloq sits third because of its name, not because we put it there.
Why would a DayBloq page recommend other apps?
Because most people reading this will be better served by something else, and a list that pretended otherwise would be worth nothing to anyone. If you have an iPhone, DayBloq is not an option at all today.
Do any of these keep my journal off the internet?
DayBloq stores entries locally on the device and needs no account. Color My Day states it works offline. Moodistory describes itself as privacy-first. For the others, read their own privacy pages rather than taking this page's word for it.
Platforms were checked on 5 September 2026 against each app’s own store listing. Apps get discontinued and platforms get added; if something here has gone stale, tell us and we will fix it rather than leave it. Questions about what DayBloq itself costs are answered on the FAQ.