Show HN: baseline – a free, open-source journaling and mood tracking app

[nkalupahana]

Hey HN! I recently released baseline, a journaling and mood tracking app for iOS, Android, and web. If you've been looking for a better journal, or just want to work on your mental health, you should check it out! It includes:

- Simple and fast journaling — just open the app and start typing.

- Visualizations to help you understand your progress over time.

- Screeners to help you better understand what you might be struggling with.

- Customizable notifications to help you build journaling into your daily routine.

- Strong privacy — personal data is encrypted with user-specific keys that I can’t access.

This app started as a personal project for my own mental health, and it really helped me out — so now here we are! Again, if you've wanted to try journaling or just want to start working on your mental health, I really recommend trying it out. I'll also be here all day to answer any questions y'all have. Thanks so much :)

[zi_]

I used to consistently journal on Day One. That period of time was arguably the most retrospective and emotionally accepting period of my life… until I stopped. Turns out, I would often return to previous days’ logs to augment, modify, and rephrase what I wrote…

This is a bad habit I noticed in myself. Because hindsight would cause me to rationalize to myself: “I don’t believe that’s how I felt 2 days ago, so let me reword it more positively.”

Coincidentally(?), I saw OP’s post on reddit a while ago, and back then I noticed something interesting about Baseline: its acknowledgement that my mood is a momentary snapshot of how I feel about that day, and how its design philosophy encourages me to be completely honest about my feelings.

Most mood journaling app allows me to go back and edit previous entries. But Baseline does not, and I think this is an underrated feature.

[fattybob]

Use a notebook and a pen, make it a nice pen, and it can become a meditative / reflective moment , no concerns on who’s tracking your thoughts , security is all yours , and short of tearing out pages or something similar , it’s fixed, if you’re writing is bad enough, nobody can read it anyway !!

[johntash]

Looks pretty interesting. Can you log and track more than just mood? I used to use Nomie, and now use Bearable for something similar. Having an open source alternative would be really awesome.

Also, small feedback - it took a while to find the link to the projects github. It should probably be on the main page somewhere?

[nkalupahana]

Thanks for the feedback!

You can journal whatever you want; it's freeform text. The quantitative tracking is technically just for mood (although it's a scale from -5 to 5, so theoretically, you can track whatever you want as long as it fits on that scale).

[ciwchris]

I've never successfully established a journaling habit. I'm giving it another try with your app. Maybe if I don't have the motivation to write I'll at least take a photo to keep the habit going. I really like the discreet mood. Having the Gap Fund is impressive. Well done. Good luck!

[nkalupahana]

Thank you! I totally get it; it's a hard habit to build. I highly recommend setting a notification or two throughout the day when you know you'll be free to help remind you :)

[avinassh]

> 100% free & private.

free as in beer or freedom? How do you plan to monetize?

[nkalupahana]

baseline is licensed under AGPL-3, and is also completely free to install and use through normal channels. It's run by a nonprofit, which gets its funding from grants.