Compare
Stoic is a mood journal. Amanu is everything you said today, with mood as a side effect.
Stoic built a beautiful structured journal: prompts, mood scores, monthly reviews. Amanu is shaped differently. You talk; mood is one of the things triage detects, not the whole product.
Who Stoic is for
People who want a daily prompted journal practice. The structured prompts (morning intention, evening reflection) are the product. If you want to be told what to write about, Stoic is doing the work for you.
Who Amanu is for
People who don't want prompts. They want to talk. The mood, the gratitude, the worry, the win — all picked up from what you actually said, not from a question you answered.
How they compare, side by side
| What you need | Amanu | Stoic |
|---|---|---|
| Capture style | Free-form voice | Prompted text entry |
| Mood detection | Inferred from how you spoke | You pick from a 1-5 scale |
| On-device only | No — triage uses Anthropic API (disclosed) | Yes — by default |
| Prompts / structure | None | Strong (morning, evening, weekly) |
| Routes to iOS apps | Yes — Reminders, Calendar | No |
Where Amanu wins
Voice-first. Stoic is type-first.
Captures route into Reminders and Calendar. Stoic stays inside Stoic.
Mood is detected, not asked for. You don't pick a 1-to-5 rating; the way you spoke about Thursday's pitch becomes a worry tagged on the right person.
Where Stoic wins
If you want a structured daily reflection practice — the morning prompt, the evening review, the mood graph — Stoic is the one. Amanu doesn't have prompts, and isn't trying to.
On-device by default. Stoic's privacy posture is genuinely strong; nothing leaves the phone unless you explicitly export. Amanu uses cloud triage with disclosed processors. If "no AI provider gets to see my journal" is your line, Stoic respects it.
The honest call
Use Stoic if you want structure and on-device privacy. Use Amanu if you want voice-first capture and don't mind disclosed cloud triage in exchange for one-orb-fits-everything.
Common questions
Why would I use Amanu if Stoic is private by default?
Different needs. Stoic is the right tool if your line is 'no AI provider sees my journal'. Amanu is the right tool if your problem is 'my best thoughts arrive when I can't type'. The two practices can coexist.
Does Amanu have mood prompts?
No. Amanu is unstructured. You talk; mood is detected from what you said and how you said it. If you want a daily prompted check-in, Stoic is built around that loop.