How yeerbook compares.
A few honest answers, not a sales pitch.
A photo book arranges your photos. A yeerbook captures what they meant.
Photo books are built around one thing: pictures, laid out nicely. Journaling apps are built around another: private words, just for you. Yeerbook takes a bit from each, then adds what neither offers on its own: signatures and notes from the people who were there, real end-to-end encryption, and pages you can choose to keep fully private or open up to be signed.
| Photo book | Journaling app | Yeerbook | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Photos | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Your words, while the memory is fresh | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Voice notes | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Signatures & notes from people who were there | — | — | ✓ |
| Can keep any page fully private | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Can also share specific pages to be signed | — | — | ✓ |
| End-to-end encrypted | — | — | ✓ |
| Built over a year, not in one sitting | — | ✓ | ✓ |
| Turns into a printed hardcover | ✓ | — | ✓ |
The result isn't a nicer-looking photo book, and it isn't a replacement for a private journal either. It's a book nobody else could have made, because nobody else has your reflections, your people's handwriting, or the pages you chose to keep just for yourself.
A guest book collects signatures. A yeerbook collects a year.
Guest books work for one moment: a wedding, a party, a single event. Everyone signs once, and that's the whole book.
Yeerbook is built for a much longer stretch of time. Instead of one page filled once, you get twelve months of memories, each one shareable with a different private link, each one collecting its own signatures and notes as it happens. If what you actually want is a single-event keepsake, a guest book is the right, simpler tool. If you want something that reflects an entire year, yeerbook is built for that instead.
A journaling app is for you. A yeerbook is for you and everyone in it.
Journaling apps are great at what they do: private, text-first, just for you. Yeerbook overlaps there, since you can add words, photos, and voice notes the same way, and you can keep any page fully private if that's all you want from it.
The difference shows up when you want it to. A private journal has no way to become anything else. In yeerbook, you choose which specific pages to share: generate a private link for just that memory, and the people who were there can add their own note, signature, or voice message, while the rest of your year stays exactly as private as a journal would be.
It's not trying to replace a journal. It's for people who want at least some of their reflections to end up somewhere physical, shared with the people who were actually there, without giving up the option to keep other pages just for themselves.