Glow vs StoryWorth

StoryWorth is built to turn a loved one's stories into a printed book. Glow is a private app for your family's whole living story: the childhood you're capturing now, a grandparent's life told in their own voice, the photos in the shoebox, and the memories you gather after someone dies. If you want a finished hardcover of a parent's stories, StoryWorth is made for that. If you want a place the whole family keeps adding to, across generations, that's what Glow is for.

Both are good at what they do. This page lays out the differences honestly, so you can pick the one that fits the story you're trying to keep.

How StoryWorth works

StoryWorth sends a storyteller a question each week by text or email, drawn from a library of more than 500 questions, or questions you write yourself. They answer in writing and add photos as they go; every plan includes unlimited stories and photos and one hardcover book, designed from those stories. Plans start at $59, and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. The stories stay private and can be downloaded at any time.

Some things are upgrades rather than part of every plan. Telling stories over the phone, through guided interviews or speech-to-text, is an upgrade, and so is collaborating on a book with family and friends. StoryWorth Unlimited adds unlimited storytellers and two colour books, so several relatives can each answer their own questions toward a book.

It's a simple, proven rhythm: a question a week, a storyteller answering, and a book at the end.

How Glow works

Glow starts from what your family already has. Scan old prints, album pages and letters with your phone camera; Glow finds the edges, flattens them, and splits several prints from one shot. As the family confirms who's in each photo, face suggestions get better, and the people you name become a living family tree with a year slider and a year-by-year timeline.

Then the family adds the stories. A grandparent can tell their life out loud, in a guided conversation with the family's own photos as memory joggers, in English, Hebrew or French. Those conversations become a biography in their own words. Parents can save the little years as they happen: photos, voice notes and the things kids say. Children can play the "who's in this?" family game and learn the faces and names of the people who came before them.

Everyone can add their piece. Family members comment by text, voice or video, and a relative who will never make an account can still add a story to a photo through a guest link.

The main differences

Many storytellers, or one shared story

On StoryWorth's standard plans there's one storyteller per book; StoryWorth Unlimited allows unlimited storytellers, each answering their own questions toward a book. Glow works the other way round: many people add to the same photos and the same stories. Grandma tells how she met Grandpa, your uncle adds what he remembers from that wedding, and a cousin names the faces in the background, all on one photo, from the toddler's first words to a great-grandmother's childhood.

A book, or a story that keeps going

StoryWorth is shaped around a book: the stories are gathered, designed and printed. Glow has no finish line. The story keeps growing as children grow up, as older relatives remember more, and as the family adds what they know.

Questions first, or photos first

StoryWorth is strongest for people who like to answer a question in writing, with a phone interview available as an upgrade. Glow is strongest when the memories live in photos: a shoebox of prints, a parent's phone, an album nobody has labelled. The photos become the prompts.

Real voices, kept as they are

In Glow, a grandparent can tell their story out loud and their real voice is kept, exactly as they gave it, with their consent and under the family's control. Recording a story by voice is part of Glow, not an add-on. We'll never fake their voice, and Glow never speaks as the person.

A printed book

If a printed book is the whole point, StoryWorth is built for exactly that: one hardcover is included in every plan. Glow is a living space you open on a phone, a tablet, or as a photo frame that plays the family's photos on its own.

Which one should you choose?

• Choose StoryWorth if a parent or grandparent enjoys answering a weekly question and you'd love a hardcover book of their stories.
• Choose Glow if your family's memories are spread across photos, phones and people, and you want one private place the whole family can keep adding to, for the years you're living now and the ones you don't want to lose.

Some families use both: StoryWorth questions for Grandpa and a book at the end, and Glow for the photos, the grandchildren, and everything that comes after.

A first step

Pick one photo this week that only an older relative can explain. Ask them who's in it and where it was taken, and record the answer. Whichever tool you choose, that one story is the start.