Looking for a Rosebud alternative?

Verified against Everglow 1.5 on 10 October 2026.

What changed at Rosebud

Rosebud’s help center says its free plan was retired effective 30 September 2026. The reason it gives is a move to an upgraded experience with a new memory system that needs far more resources, which it says makes a free tier unsustainable. The same article says nothing users have written is going away, that entries can be exported at any time, and that free users can see a special offer in the Rosebud app.

On the US App Store, Rosebud lists in-app purchases for Rosebud Bloom at $12.99 and $107.99, Thrive 2x at $24.99 and $199.99, and Thrive 5x at $59.99 and $499.99. Its website presents Bloom as $12.99 a month or $107.99 a year, with a free trial. We read these pages on 10 October 2026; check them for current terms.

• Rosebud help center: Changes to the Free Plan
• Rosebud on the US App Store
• Rosebud’s website, pricing section

What Everglow costs

Everglow is free to download, with no account to create. The free start is small: 7 journal entries and 10 companion chat turns, counted in total rather than per month. That is enough to try the app, not to keep a journal in it. After that there are two ways to continue, and you can choose either or both.

• Everglow Unlimited is a one-time purchase, $9.99 in the US, that permanently removes the entry and chat limits. It does not include hosted AI. You use it with on-device AI or your own API key.
• Everglow Cloud is an optional subscription for hosted AI with a monthly usage allowance: Standard at $2.99 a month or Pro at $5.99 a month in the US. It needs no model download or API key, and it lifts the entry and chat limits only while it is active.

Prices vary by storefront, and the app shows the current price before you buy. If you want to stop paying a monthly fee for journaling, the combination that does that is Unlimited with on-device AI. With your own API key, you pay that provider for what you use instead.

Where the AI runs

Everglow keeps your journal archive on your iPhone whichever engine you pick. You choose where the AI that reads it runs, you can switch in Settings, and you can write with no AI at all.

• On your iPhone. Google’s Gemma 4 E2B model runs through Google’s LiteRT-LM runtime. It is a one-time download of about 2.6 GB over Wi-Fi; after that, writing, Ask and the companion work offline. It is slower than hosted AI, and availability and performance depend on your device.
• Your own API key. Use a key from OpenAI, Anthropic (Claude), Google (Gemini) or DeepSeek. The context a request needs goes to that provider, under its policies and charges. The app names the provider and asks for your consent before anything is sent, and keys are kept in the iOS Keychain.
• Everglow Cloud. Requests pass through Everglow’s hosted service to OpenAI. Everglow retains no content after a request completes.

Everglow never uses your writing to train any model, and its App Store privacy label reads “Data Not Collected”.

Side by side

Only what each company publishes, read on 10 October 2026, with US prices.

Bringing your Rosebud entries over

Rosebud’s Export data help page describes an Export option under Settings in its mobile app, and an Export button under “Export to Markdown” in Settings on the web. Everglow 1.5 imports Markdown, so that file is the place to start.

1. Export your entries from Rosebud, and keep that file as your own backup.
2. In Everglow, open Settings, then Import from another app, and choose the file or folder. It accepts Markdown, plain text, folders, ZIP, and CSV or JSON with field mapping. You can also paste text.
3. Review before anything is saved. You can edit an entry’s text and date, merge it into the previous entry, split it, or leave it out.
4. Confirm. Entries land on their original dates. One without a readable date goes to a queue for you to place later, never onto today, and importing the same file again won’t create duplicates.

Some limits to plan around. Everglow has no Rosebud-specific importer, and we haven’t tested a Rosebud export file, so check the dates in the review. Everglow reads a date from a heading line that is only a date, from a date or created field in front matter, or from a file name. Rosebud’s page doesn’t say what its export includes, so compare a few entries with the originals.

Imported entries count toward the free limit, so an import pauses when the free entries run out and waits in Settings until you unlock Unlimited or subscribe to Cloud. Each imported entry is also read by the AI engine you choose. On device, a few hundred entries can take a while, and the import continues in the background. With your own key, entry text goes to that provider. With Cloud, each entry uses part of the monthly allowance.

Rosebud help center: Export data

Is Everglow the same kind of app?

Not quite, and it helps to know before you move. Rosebud’s App Store listing describes it as “Daily Self-Care & Habits” in the Health & Fitness category. Everglow is a journal archive you can ask questions of.

• Ask answers questions across your journal at Fast or Considered depth and shows the dated excerpts it used.
• People, places and things get pages that collect what you have written about them, with each fact linked to the entry it came from. You can confirm, edit, pin or delete facts, and earlier values are kept rather than overwritten.
• A companion to talk with, in six editable personas, three reflective and three companion-style. It draws on your journal, and your conversations become part of the archive.

What Everglow does not do matters as much. It is not a guided therapy or coaching program, and it has no habit tracker or goal plans. It runs only on iPhone, with no Android app, web app or sync between devices. AI can make mistakes, so check important details against your original entries.

Rosebud’s billing help page covers subscriptions on the web, iOS and Android. If you write in Rosebud on Android or the web, Everglow cannot follow you there.

Read more

• Free limits, Unlimited and Cloud
• Is an AI journal private?
• Import, export and backup
• Using Everglow with your own API key