GleanNote vs Readwise: which is better for remembering what you read?

Readwise and GleanNote both promise that you will remember more of what you read. They get there from opposite directions. Readwise starts from highlights you have already made somewhere else and brings them back to you. GleanNote starts from the page in front of you—often a paper one—and helps you build a small, organized set of notes you actually review.

This comparison is written by the GleanNote team, so we have tried to be specific and fair. If most of your reading is on Kindle and you want highlights to sync on their own, Readwise is the stronger fit, and we say so plainly below.

What each app is for

Readwise is a highlight aggregator with a review layer. It connects to Kindle, Apple Books, Instapaper and many other sources, collects every highlight in one library, and resurfaces a few each day. Its companion, Readwise Reader, is a read-later app for articles, PDFs, newsletters and ebooks that feeds the same library.

GleanNote is an offline-first reading companion. Your library is books, chapters and notes, stored on your device first. You capture notes from paper pages with on-device OCR, or by typing and pasting, and the app brings them back through a Daily Digest, flashcards and, on paid plans, AI chat grounded in your notes.

Put simply: Readwise is strongest when your highlights already exist. GleanNote is strongest when you still have to make them.

Capture: automatic import vs the page in front of you

Readwise’s capture is mostly automatic. Once you connect Kindle or another source, new highlights arrive without you doing anything. For paper books, its mobile app can capture a passage from a photo of a page, but that is a secondary path in a product organized around imports.

GleanNote’s capture is deliberate. Photograph a page, drag to select the lines you care about, and on-device OCR turns them into text filed under the right chapter. On Android it uses the ML Kit document scanner; on iPhone and iPad, the in-app camera. You can also type or paste a highlight and add a comment about why it mattered. The free tier covers single-page capture; Premium adds batch capture of several pages in one go.

GleanNote can also import a Kindle notebook export or the My Clippings file from a Kindle e-reader, parsed on your device. But it does not sync with Kindle in the background. If automatic, ongoing Kindle sync is the main thing you want, that is Readwise’s territory.

Review: daily review vs Daily Digest and flashcards

Readwise’s daily review is its signature feature: a short session, by email or in the app, that shows a handful of highlights from across your library. You can tune how often books and favorites return, and at the time of writing you can turn highlights into simple question-style cards.

GleanNote splits review into two habits. The Daily Digest shows three of your own notes each day, chosen by a deterministic ranking that favors substantive notes, notes you commented on and books you are currently reading, and it waits before showing the same note again. Tap a card and it opens the original note in its chapter.

Flashcards are the second habit. On the free tier, decks are built on your device from your notes; Premium adds AI-generated flashcards. A session is simple: Start review, Reveal answer, then Got it or Not yet. Cards you miss come back the next day, and cards you know wait longer each time.

The difference in feel: Readwise’s review is broad and ambient, drawing on everything you ever highlighted. GleanNote’s is narrower and closer to study, because it draws from a smaller set of notes you chose on purpose.

AI: reading assistant vs Talk to your Book

Readwise Reader includes Ghostreader, an AI assistant that can define terms, summarize and answer questions about the document you are reading. It is useful while you are inside an article or PDF in Reader.

GleanNote’s AI is narrower on purpose. Talk to your Book (Premium) is a chat about one book that uses only your notes as context, so answers stay tied to what you actually captured rather than what the internet says about the title. AI Max adds Ask your library, which works across all your books. Free users get three AI questions to try it. All AI runs through GleanNote’s server; the app never holds an AI key, and there is no on-device model.

If you want AI help while reading digital text, Reader is more direct. If you want to ask “what did I note about this idea?” across the books you read on paper, grounded chat is the better fit.

Offline use, platforms and pricing models

GleanNote is offline-first. Your library lives on your device, and capture and OCR work without a connection; AI features need one, since they run on the server. Cloud backup and sync is an optional Premium feature and the only thing that needs a sign-in, so guests can keep everything local. Readwise is a cloud service by design: collecting highlights from many sources is the point, so everything starts with an account.

GleanNote is available on iPhone, iPad and Android. Readwise works on the web and on mobile, and Reader adds its own apps and browser extensions.

Readwise is a subscription, with a free trial. GleanNote is free to download with a free tier—three books, single-page capture, the Daily Digest and on-device flashcards—and Premium and AI Max are in-app purchases. We are deliberately not quoting prices for either; they change, and the current store listing is the only reliable source.

Side by side

Which one should you choose?

Choose Readwise if

• Most of your reading is on Kindle, Apple Books or the web, and you want highlights to arrive automatically
• You already use Notion, Obsidian or another vault and want highlights exported there
• You want a read-later app and a highlight library from the same company
• A broad daily review of everything you have ever highlighted sounds right

Choose GleanNote if

• You read a lot of paper books—library copies, textbooks, secondhand finds
• You would rather keep fewer, better notes under chapters than a long import feed
• You want review that feels closer to study, with flashcards alongside the digest
• You want AI answers drawn only from your own notes, in an app that works offline

Plenty of readers could reasonably use both: Readwise for the Kindle stream, GleanNote for the paper books on the nightstand. If you do, pick one as the place you review from, or neither habit will stick.

Frequently asked questions

Can GleanNote replace Readwise for Kindle highlights?

Partly. You can import a Kindle notebook export or My Clippings file, or paste the passages that matter. There is no background sync, so if you want every new Kindle highlight to appear on its own, Readwise does that and GleanNote does not.

Does GleanNote work without an account?

Yes. Guests keep everything on the device. A sign-in is only needed for cloud backup and sync, which is a Premium feature.

Does Talk to your Book know the whole book?

No. It answers from the notes you captured in that book, not from the full text or the open web. That is the point: the answers reflect what mattered to you, and they are only as complete as your notes.

Which is better for students?

For printed textbooks, GleanNote’s page capture, chapter structure and flashcards fit the way students revise. For course reading that is mostly PDFs and articles, Readwise Reader is worth a look.