// Blog
The Free Daylio Alternative for Android That's Open Source
Daylio is a good app. That's the starting point, because most "alternative to X" articles pretend the original is secretly terrible so their pick looks better. Daylio isn't terrible. It's polished, it's fast, its mood-and-activity model is well designed, and millions of people use it happily. If it's working for you, you don't need a replacement.
People go looking for a free Daylio alternative on Android for narrower reasons. The features you actually want sit behind Premium. You'd rather your data be provably local than trust a policy. Or you just don't want another closed-source app charging for its own upgrade tier on top of the log you're keeping. If that's you, the app I built, the SoulSync mood tracker, is a free, open-source Android tracker that keeps every feature free and every entry on your phone. Here's the comparison, including where Daylio still wins.
What people actually hit with Daylio
The complaints that send people looking aren't dramatic. They're specific.
The first is the paywall. Daylio's core is free, but the parts that make a tracker feel complete (more mood icons, more activity groups, the fuller stats) tend to live in Premium. That's a normal freemium move and Daylio is upfront about it, but if what you want is on the paid side, "free" stops being the right word for your use of the app.
The second is closed source. Daylio stores your data on-device by default, which is good. But you're trusting the store listing that it does. You can't read the code, so the privacy claim is a promise rather than something you can confirm. For a lot of people that's fine. For the ones who came here, it isn't.
The third is smaller and it's mine to admit up front: Daylio has years of design polish and a huge built-in library of activities and icons that a small open-source app hasn't matched. If that breadth is what you love, keep reading, because the alternative trades some of it away.
SoulSync versus Daylio, side by side
| SoulSync mood tracker | Daylio | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, every feature | Free tier plus paid Premium |
| Open source | Yes (GPL-3.0) | No |
| Data location | On device (local SQLite) | On device by default |
| Account required | No | No (free tier) |
| Mood scale | 10 points, high and low precision | 5 mood levels, more icons with Premium |
| Stats | Trends, day-of-week, activity correlation, Insights tab | Strong; fuller charts on Premium |
| Data export | JSON, import and export | Backup and export (some on Premium) |
| Themes | 5 included | Several, some on Premium |
| Platforms | Android | Android and iOS |
| Activity library | Smaller, fully customizable | Large and mature |
Read that table and it tells you who each app is for. Daylio wins on platform coverage (it has an iPhone app and SoulSync doesn't), on the maturity of its activity library, and on years of visual refinement. SoulSync wins on being free all the way through, on being open source so the privacy claim is checkable, and on giving you the finer 10-point scale and the full stats without a Pro tier gating your own data.
If you have an iPhone in the house, or you love Daylio's exact activity system, Daylio is the reasonable pick and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. If you're on Android and the deciding factors are "free, private, and I can verify it," that's the case for switching.
What SoulSync gives you for free
The point of an open-source alternative isn't to be a lesser free version. It's to put the features Daylio splits across free and Premium into one app with no split.
- A 10-point mood scale with high and low precision modes, so a "6 out of 10" day and a "2 out of 10" day aren't both just a frowny face.
- Activities, notes, and photos on any entry, and you can backdate an entry when you forget to log until the next morning.
- Stats that are actually useful: a mood trend with an adaptive moving average, your best and toughest days of the week, and a real with-and-without activity correlation so you can see which things track with better days.
- An Insights tab that reads your own numbers back in plain language instead of leaving you to interpret a chart.
- Five themes included, JSON export and import for backup and portability, and a single daily reminder at a time you pick. No streak mechanics engineered to make you anxious about missing a day.
All of it is free, because there's no Premium tier to move it into. And because it's GPL-3.0, the "on device, no account" claim isn't marketing. You can read the source and confirm there's no upload path.
The catch
Switching costs you three things, and you should know them before you move.
Daylio is on iOS and SoulSync is Android only, so this isn't the answer if you or your data need to live on an iPhone. Daylio's activity and icon library is bigger and more mature, so if you've built an elaborate Daylio setup you'll be rebuilding a leaner one. And there's no automatic cloud sync in SoulSync, by design, so your backup is the JSON export you run yourself rather than a server doing it silently. If those three don't apply to you, the trade is mostly upside.
FAQ
Is there a truly free Daylio alternative for Android?
Yes. SoulSync is free with no Premium tier, so mood scale, stats, correlations, themes, and export are all included. There are also several free open-source trackers on F-Droid. The distinction that matters is between "free to start, pay to complete" and "free all the way," and SoulSync is the second kind.
Is SoulSync as good as Daylio?
For the core job of logging moods and learning from the patterns, it's competitive, and its 10-point scale and correlation stats are arguably finer. Daylio still wins on iOS support, a larger activity library, and years of polish. Pick by which of those you actually need.
Can I move my Daylio data into SoulSync?
Not with a one-tap import, because the formats differ. Daylio has its own backup and export, and SoulSync imports its own JSON, so you can keep your Daylio export as an archive and start fresh in SoulSync, or transcribe key history. Nothing traps you in either app.
Is my data private in SoulSync?
It stays in a local SQLite database on your phone with no account and no cloud. Because the app is open source under GPL-3.0, that's verifiable rather than a promise. More on that in our piece on no-account, private mood tracking.
Why is it free? What's the catch?
It's an open-source project, not a business with a subscription to sell. The "catch" is the honest one: Android only, a smaller activity library than Daylio, and backups are a manual export instead of automatic cloud sync.
If you're on Android and you want a mood tracker that's free the whole way through, keeps your data on your phone, and lets you verify that in the code, SoulSync is on Google Play and open source on GitHub. If you're weighing the whole category rather than just Daylio, the best open-source mood trackers for 2026 puts it next to its closest F-Droid peers.