Alternatives › Kinu
vs
Ciao! vs Kinu
Kinu: Remember Your People, by FRESHLAB
A private place for the little things: birthdays, stories, voice notes, and a nudge when it has been a while.
4 ratings in the App Store, September 2026. Also on Android and in a browser.
|
Ciao!
|
Kinu
|
|
|---|---|---|
| What it costs | One payment $9.99 |
€7.99 a month, €79.99 a year, or €179.99 once |
| Free tier | 3 friends | 10 people |
| Account needed | None | Yes |
| Where it runs | iPhone | iPhone, Android and the web |
| Where your notes live | Your phone and your own iCloud | Your device, with backup and sync you switch on |
| A creature for each friend | 15 animals, 6 moods | No |
| A weekly swipe deck | Yes | No |
Every row comes from Kinu’s own App Store listing and its pricing page, read on 24 September 2026. Prices are the ones its site shows in euros. Nothing here is taken from another app’s reviews.
Where Kinu wins
- •Ten people free instead of three, with every feature in the free tier.
- •It runs on Android and in a browser. Ciao! is iPhone only, so if your phone is not an iPhone, this is your answer and not Ciao!.
- •Voice notes, and a map of who feels close. Ciao! keeps notes as plain text and nothing more.
Where Ciao! wins
- •No account. Kinu keeps your notes on your device too, but you sign up to use it, and Ciao! never asks you for anything.
- •$9.99, once. The nearest thing Kinu has to that is €179.99.
- •One deck on Sunday that you swipe through, instead of a list of people to manage.
Which one should you actually get?
Kinu is the more generous of the two, and it is the right pick if you are on Android, or you want your notes open in a browser. Ciao! is for people who want it to stay on the phone, with nobody to sign up to and nothing that renews.
