While a digital pen isn't the same as a stylus, which allows you to draw or write direct to a tablet, it is still an incredibly smart piece of technology, and can be more accurate and useful day-to-day.

It makes the purchase feel a little more personal, and definitely makes me want to go back to their brand.
Leuchtturm1917: From the outside, the Leuchtturm1917 line of planners looks quite similar to Moleskine. While the Leuchtturm is more affordable for the hard cover version, it is (to date) very difficult to find in stores, and so you’re almost certainly paying the difference in shipping costs. It’s yanks that turn out most of the idiotic flash out there.Well, maybe I am biased, but I spend a lot of time in my day job researching companies and from my perspective most of the flash is used by European companies. The Leuchtturm 1917 and the Moleskine soft cover retail at very similar prices online, however the Moleskine hard cover option is a little bit more expensive. Here are a the extra features that each notebook comes with.The Leuchtturm has a couple of promo booklets, one with similar products that you might find useful, and the other telling you about the history of the company.

Moleskine's Smart Writing Set Notebook with Smart Pen is a creation imbued with ambition, but certain flaws in execution prevent it from reaching its full potential.

Draw your artwork, capture it with the CC Moleskine app and voilà, it turns into an editable JPEG image! However, I get that brush lettering isn’t everyone’s jam As I’m sure you can tell from the picture, the Leuchtturm definitely has a higher page density (about 80 gsm) than the Moleskine.It is ridiculously difficult to scout out the actual density of the Moleskine paper, but according to Steve DeLong of A dog’s garden of versus, it is most likely Back to the point, although both notebooks boast ink-proof paper, it is pretty obvious that one of these (You’ve probably seen the Stabilo Boss pastel highlighters around Instagram.A post shared by Bullet Journal and Stationery (@bulletingbird) on They make for some amazing flatlays, and create beautiful pastel accents full of unicorns and baby bunnies across your page, right?
I’ll have to take a look.

I’ve had the privilege of owning and playing with equivalent notebooks from both brands, and I’m here to tell you the bare truth, and nothing but the truth.I’ve used the regular LT1917 and the Bullet Journal Edition, both in size medium with a hard cover and dotted pages. Black ink is notorious for all of the above, and so I tested four black pens:And this is what it looked like. Moleskine® Store is a site owned by Moleskine Srl a socio unico, viale Piceno 17 20159 Milano P.IVA and R.E.A. I’m sure they ship.They are available in cool black, subtle blue or hard to lose red.Thanks! Two historic brands going head to head to please you, the bullet journal enthusiast. Get your tinfoil hats on, y’all, cause I think that Moleskine coat their paper with some form of waxy, hydrophobic sealant that makes it relatively bleed-proof!Right so now that we’ve tested out all the hard stuff, let’s talk about the more basic differences between the two notebooks.The first and biggest difference is that the Leuchtturm 1917 comes with not one, but two bookmarks. Another Moleskine Alternative Jeremy Wagstaff over at Loosewireblog.com has an interesting post about an alternative notebook to the Moleskine. To the left, you see the front and back of the Leuchtturm test page, and to the right is the Moleskine test page.A couple of non-pen-related differences that I noticed immediately were that a) the dots on the Moleskine paper were a lot less visible than the ones on the Leuchtturm paper, and b) the Leuchtturm paper is a brighter white (almost Ivory) than the Moleskine paper (which verges on Cream).The first and most obvious difference is that, due to its narrower pages, the Moleskine is definitely not suited for brush lettering with a larger brush pen like the Tombow ABT. What interests me specifically was the mention about how thin the Moleskines are – they don’t hold as much writing, and thus preserve a shorter record in a single book.Not sure where you are but I buy them at Barnes and Noble in the US. This definitely gives Leuchtturm some bonus points!The Moleskine comes with a little booklet about the history of the company, which again is a nice little read. WRONG. OH no.

While the Leuchtturm is more affordable for the hard cover version, it is (to date) very difficult to find in stores, and so you’re almost certainly paying the difference in shipping costs.While both the Leuchtturm and the Moleskine come in various colours, I find that the Leuchtturm has a wider (and generally nicer) colour selection.So finally, to sum up, here’s a table. However, the paper quality is better. However, to make this a fair comparison, I will only talk about the regular, non-BuJo-y edition.At this point, it is obvious that the Leuchtturm is made for longevity (way more pages), and a decent amount of wear (large, hard cover).

The best extra, however, is the sheet of labels.

07234480965 Share capital entirely paid in: 2.181.513,42 Euros. The Moleskine, on the other hand, has been crafted for portability (smaller, fewer pages) and unstructured use (no page numbers).The LT1917 and the Moleskine are both premium notebooks, which means they are quite up there in price, as far as plain notebooks go.

I tested all 4 of the pastel Stabilo Boss highlighters on both test pages, and the results were strangely surprising!Again the Leuchtturm is on the left (just in case you didn’t notice the page number). I think that’s quite nifty – spending three years in Bristol has totally made me pro-recycling, and this definitely appeals to the green part of my brain.Based on the extras alone, the Leuchtturm seems to expect a recurring buyer (hence the archive labels), whereas the Moleskine expects an exclusive, one-off purchase (hence the excellent quality control).Alright, I know you’re getting antsy to find out which one works better in realistic terms, so I bring to you the ultimate pen test.I tested one page of each notebook for feathering, bleed through and ghosting (which is when you can see a shadow of the writing on the other side of the page). It also comes with a little thank you card, which I think is really nice to have as a buyer.