Best Readwise alternatives in 2026 (for book highlights and notes)

Readwise earned its reputation by fixing one annoying problem: highlights scattered across Kindle, Apple Books, read-later apps and PDFs, each locked inside its own silo. It pulls them into one library and shows you a handful again every day. For a lot of readers, that is exactly enough.

But “best Readwise alternative” is a search that hides several different jobs. Some people want the same sync with less commitment. Some read mostly paper books and never had digital highlights to sync in the first place. Some want real spaced repetition, not a review email. This guide sorts the alternatives by the job they actually do, so you can pick one without switching tools twice.

What Readwise does well

Readwise is a mature product, and its core loop is well designed:

• Highlight syncing — it connects to Kindle, Apple Books, Instapaper and a long list of other sources, so highlights arrive without copy and paste
• Daily review — a short email or in-app session resurfaces a few highlights each day, and you can tune how often books and favorites come back
• Export — highlights flow on to Notion, Obsidian, Roam and other note tools, which suits people who already live in a vault
• Readwise Reader — a separate read-later app for articles, PDFs, newsletters and ebooks, feeding the same library, with an AI assistant built in

If most of your reading happens on a Kindle or in a browser, and you like the idea of highlights quietly collecting themselves, Readwise is a strong default.

Why readers look for an alternative

The reasons people give are usually practical rather than dramatic:

• It is subscription-only. There is a free trial but no permanent free tier, so it is a standing cost for something you may use a few minutes a day.
• It is built around importing digital highlights. That is its superpower and also its shape: the product assumes your reading already produces highlights somewhere else.
• Paper books are a side door. Readwise can capture a passage from a photo of a page, but print reading is not the main entrance.
• Sync is not the same as thinking. A tidy pipeline can still produce a large pile of highlights you never comment on, group or test yourself on.

Readwise alternatives at a glance

“Paper books” means capturing text from a printed page inside the app; “brings notes back” means the app resurfaces your saved material without you going looking for it.

Alternatives for digital highlights and read-later

Kindle Notebook

If you read only Kindle books bought from Amazon, you already have a free, lightweight version of Readwise. Every highlight and note you make shows up in the Notebook inside the Kindle app and in the notebook view of Amazon’s Kindle web reader, grouped by book. You can export a book’s notebook from the app and copy passages out.

What you do not get is a review loop, export to other tools, or anything outside Amazon’s store. Documents you sideload generally do not appear in the web notebook, and publishers can limit how much of a book you can export. For a single-ecosystem reader who mostly wants to find a quote again, it is often enough.

Matter

Matter is a read-later app with a polished reading view for articles and newsletters. You highlight as you read, and at the time of writing highlights can be exported to other note tools. It is a good fit if what you really want to replace is Readwise Reader rather than the book-highlight side of Readwise. Check its current plans and integrations; read-later apps change quickly.

Instapaper

Instapaper is one of the longest-running read-later services: save an article, read it in a clean view, highlight what matters. The free version has historically capped highlights, with more on the paid plan. It is a calm choice for web reading, but it does not try to be a book-notes system.

Glasp

Glasp is a browser extension for highlighting web pages, with a social layer: you can follow other readers and see what they highlighted. It suits people who learn in public and read mostly on the web.

Alternatives for spaced repetition and DIY systems

Anki

Anki is the reference point for spaced repetition: open-source, free on desktop and Android, a one-time purchase on iPhone, and endlessly configurable. If your goal is exam-grade recall of specific facts, nothing on this list is more rigorous.

The cost is authorship. Every card is something you write, format and maintain, and readers who try to turn every chapter into cards often stall by the third book. Anki works best for the slice of your reading that truly needs drilling, not as the home for all of your notes.

RemNote

RemNote combines an outliner-style notes app with flashcards you create inline, so a note can become a card without a separate deck-building step, and it supports reading and annotating PDFs. It suits students who want notes and spaced repetition in one tool and are willing to learn its conventions. It has a free tier and paid plans.

Notion or Obsidian templates

Plenty of readers skip dedicated apps and build a book-notes template: a database of books, a page per book, a heading per chapter. Obsidian keeps everything as local Markdown files; Notion gives you databases and views. Community plugins and templates can add Kindle imports or even spaced repetition.

The trade-off is that you become the product manager. Intake from paper is manual, review only happens if you build it, and the system tends to grow faster than the notes inside it. If you already love your vault, keep it as the long-term home and put a lighter capture tool in front of it.

Alternatives for paper books

This is the gap most highlight tools leave open. If your best reading happens in print—library books, textbooks, secondhand paperbacks—there is nothing to sync. You need an app that starts from the page.

Highlighted

Highlighted is built around one job: photograph a page, mark the passage, keep it as a quote. It is focused and quick, which is its appeal. Check its store listing for your platform and its export options before you commit a library to it.

Bookly and Basmo

Both are reading trackers first: time your sessions, set goals, see your stats. Bookly lets you keep quotes and thoughts alongside each book. Basmo adds a reading journal and, at the time of writing, can capture text from a page with the camera. Choose one of these if the habit and the numbers motivate you, and treat the notes as a journal rather than a study system.

GleanNote

GleanNote is our app, so weigh this section accordingly. It is an offline-first reading companion built around the paper page: photograph a page, select the lines you want, and on-device OCR turns them into a note filed under the book and chapter. You can also type or paste a highlight with a comment, or import a Kindle notebook export or My Clippings file when you choose to.

Review is built in. The Daily Digest resurfaces three of your own notes each day, and flashcards on the free tier are built on your device from your notes. On Premium, Talk to your Book answers questions about one book using only the notes you captured.

What it does not do: sync automatically from ebook stores in the background, or replace Anki for people who drill thousands of cards. The free tier covers three books.

How to pick by use case

• Digital highlight syncing — mostly Kindle and the web, and you want highlights to arrive on their own: Readwise, or Kindle Notebook if you do not need review or export
• Paper books — GleanNote or Highlighted; add Bookly or Basmo if tracking time and goals matters to you
• Read-later — Matter or Instapaper for articles; Glasp if you like sharing what you highlight
• Spaced repetition — Anki or RemNote, fed only with what genuinely needs drilling
• An existing vault — Notion or Obsidian as the archive, with a capture app in front

Mixed readers are the common case. A realistic setup is one capture tool that matches where you read most, plus one place where your notes live long-term. Two tools you actually open beat five you set up once.

Frequently asked questions

Is there a free alternative to Readwise?

For Kindle-only readers, Kindle Notebook is free and already there. Anki is free on desktop and Android. GleanNote has a free tier covering three books, with the Daily Digest and on-device flashcards included. Most other tools here have free tiers with limits, so check each one’s current plans.

What is the best Readwise alternative for physical books?

Pick an app that starts from a photo of the page and lets you select just the lines you want. GleanNote and Highlighted are both built for that; reading trackers like Basmo and Bookly treat quotes as a secondary feature.

Can I use Readwise and another app together?

Yes, and many people do: Readwise for digital highlights, a separate app for paper books or for drilling. The risk is fragmentation, so decide which app is the one you review from.

Does any alternative sync Kindle highlights automatically?

Readwise is the best-known option for automatic Kindle sync. Kindle Notebook shows your highlights without sending them anywhere. GleanNote can import a Kindle notebook export or My Clippings file when you choose to, but it does not sync in the background.