A social magazine that curates stories from publishers, creators, and your network.
Free
- Beautiful magazine-style reading UI
- Deep publisher partnerships
- Social features for following creators and curators
Flipboard vs Readwise Reader
Compare Flipboard and Readwise Reader side by side on features, pricing, and the workflows each one is designed for.
Readwise Reader
A read-later app for articles, PDFs, emails, tweets, and YouTube, with deep highlights and AI features.
Free, paid from $9.99/mo
- Fastest, most polished app in the read-later category
- Rich highlighting with Readwise sync to note apps
- Handles articles, PDFs, newsletters, tweets, YouTube in one inbox
Feature comparison
Here's how Flipboard and Readwise Reader compare across the features people actually look for. They share 4 core capabilities; the differences show up in what each tool focuses on.
| Feature | Readwise Reader | Keep | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capture and save | |||
| Browser extension | Bookmarklet | Chrome, Firefox, Safari | Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave |
| Mobile apps | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | |
| Save from email | Per-user Reader address | Forward to in.keep.md | |
| Save tweets | Partial | Threads compiled as articles | |
| Save YouTube videos | Partial | With transcript highlighting | With transcripts |
| Save GitHub stars | |||
| Save PDFs | Converted to markdown | ||
| Save files (docs, spreadsheets) | PDFs, EPUBs, HTML | Word, Excel, CSV, HTML, OpenDocument | |
| Save audio files | With Whisper transcription | ||
| Save via API | |||
| Auto-sync sources | |||
| RSS auto-sync | Partial | ||
| YouTube channel sync | Via RSS | ||
| X bookmarks sync | Auto-sync on paid plans; manual import from extension export on free | ||
| GitHub stars sync | |||
| Newsletter inbox sync | Partial | ||
| Library and reading | |||
| Reader view | |||
| Offline reading | Partial | Partial | |
| Full-text search | Partial | ||
| Semantic / AI search | Ghostreader Q&A | ||
| Highlights | Highlight from the extension or from inside the reader, with optional notes; renders inline | ||
| Notes | |||
| Tags | |||
| Collections | Magazines | Folders | |
| Public sharing | Public magazines | Partial | |
| Full-text RSS extraction | Partial | ||
| AI and agents | |||
| Markdown export for AI agents | Per-item .md URL | ||
| Bulk markdown export | |||
| MCP server | |||
| CLI tool | keep-markdown npm package | ||
| Claude Code skill | |||
| AI summaries | Ghostreader | AI summary and AI tagging on every saved article | |
| Public API | |||
| Import and export | |||
| OPML import / export | Import from and export to any OPML-compatible reader | ||
| Pocket import | ZIP, CSV, and legacy HTML exports | ||
| Instapaper import | CSV export with folders, archive, and starred state | ||
| CSV / JSON export | Via API | Export to CSV or JSON. Import plain CSV/TSV plus Omnivore, Raindrop.io, Pinboard, and Wallabag export files. | |
| Send to Kindle | EPUB delivered to your Kindle email | ||
| Import Kindle highlights | Via Readwise Kindle sync (Amazon account login) | From My Clippings.txt, no Amazon login required |
Pricing
Flipboard is free and Readwise Reader is free, paid from $9.99/mo. The tier that fits best usually comes down to how many items you save each month.
- Free
Free
All features free; ad-supported.
Readwise Reader
- Free
Free
30-day trial of Readwise Full (includes Reader). No card required.
- $9.99/mo
Readwise (Full)
$9.99/mo billed annually or $12.99/mo monthly. Includes Reader, highlights sync, and export to Notion/Obsidian.
Keep
- Free
Free
Unlimited links, browser extension, API/CLI/MCP, RSS feeds, YouTube subscriptions, and free imports from bookmark export files.
- $10/mo
Plus
500 full-content items per cycle, X bookmarks, email inbox, GitHub sync, uploads, and AI features.
- $20/mo
Pro
1,000 full-content items per cycle, everything in Plus.
- $50/mo
Max
5,000 full-content items per cycle, everything in Pro.
Strengths and weaknesses
Both tools do their category well, but the specifics differ. Here's what each one is good at and where it tends to fall short.
What Flipboard does well
- Beautiful magazine-style reading UI
- Deep publisher partnerships
- Social features for following creators and curators
- Works entirely for free
Where it falls short
- Not a read-later app; you cannot reliably save arbitrary articles
- Heavy algorithmic curation with little user control
- No tagging, highlighting, or structured export
- Ads throughout the reading experience
What Readwise Reader does well
- Fastest, most polished app in the read-later category
- Rich highlighting with Readwise sync to note apps
- Handles articles, PDFs, newsletters, tweets, YouTube in one inbox
- Ghostreader AI summarises and explains highlights
Where it falls short
- Expensive compared to simpler read-later apps
- Dense UI can overwhelm casual readers
- API returns HTML, not markdown (no AI-agent-ready export)
- No MCP server or Claude Code skill
About Flipboard
Flipboard is a free social news app, not a power-user reading tool. It curates stories from major publishers and independent creators into magazine-style feeds, with public Flipboard 'magazines' users can create and share. iOS, Android, and web only, no browser extension beyond a bookmarklet, no public API. In recent years Flipboard has leaned into Mastodon and fediverse integration, making it one of the few mainstream apps that speaks ActivityPub. The reader experience is beautiful. The power-user experience is not the point.
About Readwise Reader
Readwise Reader is the reading companion to Readwise's highlight sync service. It handles articles, PDFs, EPUBs, emails, tweets, and YouTube transcripts in one inbox, with a Ghostreader AI copilot for summaries, definitions, and Q&A. Highlights sync to Notion, Obsidian, Logseq, Roam, Evernote, and Airtable. It ships as web, iOS, Android, and browser extensions, with a public REST API for scripting. Pricing is $9.99/mo billed annually (or $12.99/mo monthly) as part of the Readwise Full plan, which includes the highlight sync service. A 30-day free trial is available.