What is the difference in one paragraph?
Storyworth and Remento are organized by question and end in a book. Here My Story is organized by place and ends in a map. With the memoir services, the storyteller does the work alone over a year, prompted by email or text. With a memory map, you usually do it together in an afternoon, with a map open between you, and the result is free to make and read.
How do they compare?
| Storyworth | Remento | Here My Story | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Organized by | A question each week | A prompt each week | Places on a map |
| How stories are told | Written by email or on the web, or recorded by phone | Spoken; recordings become written stories | Typed onto a pin, by the storyteller or by you as they talk |
| What you end up with | A hardcover book | A hardcover book with QR codes to the recordings | A map and a journal by year, read in a browser |
| Price | From $69 | $99 for a year and one book | Free |
| A map of the stories | No | No | Yes |
| A printed book | Yes | Yes | No |
| Voice recordings | Answers can be recorded by phone | Yes, linked from the book | No |
When is Storyworth or Remento the better choice?
- You want a book. A bound book on a shelf is a different thing from a web page, and for many families it is the point.
- Your parent likes to write, or to talk, by themselves. A weekly prompt suits someone who will sit down with it.
- You want their voice kept. Remento is built around recordings.
- You live far apart and can't easily sit down together.
When is a memory map the better choice?
- The weekly emails went unanswered. Some parents never get around to writing. Most will talk for an hour if you sit beside them with a map of their hometown.
- The stories are about places: the farm, the old neighborhood, the towns the family moved through.
- You want something free that the whole family can open on a phone.
- You want to keep adding after the first year, with no book deadline.
Can you use both?
Yes, and they suit each other. A weekly prompt produces a story, and most stories happened somewhere. When an answer comes in, put a pin on the place and paste in the best paragraph. At the end of the year you have the book, and a map showing where each chapter took place.
It works the other way round too. An afternoon with a map will raise more stories than there is time to type, and those are good candidates for the weeks when a prompt doesn't inspire much.
Common questions
Is there a free alternative to Storyworth?
Here My Story is free, but it is a different kind of tool. It is a memory map: you pin a parent's stories to the places they happened and the family reads them in a browser. It doesn't send weekly prompts and it doesn't print a book. If you want questions to ask, there is a free list of 60 questions about places on this site.
How can I record my parents' life stories for free?
Sit down with them and a map. Ask about one place at a time, starting with the house they grew up in, and type what they say onto a pin at that spot with the year. Here My Story is a free memory map for doing this. To keep their voice as well, StoryCorps offers a free recording app.