Comparison

PaperSpan vs ReadKit

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

PaperSpan

Save articles from the web to read or listen to later, even offline. Organize your content with smart filters and track your reading habits. Send articles to your Kindle for a seamless reading experience.

Highlights
  • Save articles from web
  • Offline reading and listening
  • Smart search and filters
  • Reading habit tracking
  • Send to Kindle
  • Text-to-speech functionality
  • Highlighting and notes
Features
Read full description

Your articles ready for you to read or listen - while you wait, commute, walk, cook, whenever. No ads, no suggestions. Add articles of your own interest, the app should help finish reading them. Carefully designed search, sort, and filters to easily pick the article you need. Choose a category matching your mood. Interested in health articles now? Choose Health. You don't have to assign the category in advance, the app does this for you. Take up on your pending reads by opening Unread articles alone. Short waiting time? Pick those short articles by reading time. • READ COMFORTABLY: Save from your phone or desktop. Read them in a clean and comfortable view. Nothing gets in the way of your reading. • OFFLINE: Read, listen, and manage those articles even if your device is offline. App will auto-sync when your device is back online. • HIGHLIGHTS: Highlight those important phrases as you read. Keep the essence of your reading and refer whenever you need. • TRACK YOUR READING HABITS: Know how many articles you read or yet to read, and how long you spent reading them. Know your current interests with a beautiful word cloud out of your articles. Track & improve your reading routine! • SEND TO KINDLE: Love the Kindle reading experience? Send articles to your Kindle device (or app) and read at your own pace. • SEARCH & COMFORT: Search & Sort to quickly find an article. Organize with folders. Adjust your reading experience with dark/light theme, fonts, brightness, and more! • NOTES: Capture the gist out of an article you just read - your summary of lessons learned, thoughts you got out of an article. Keep the record to re-read yourself anytime or share to your notes app. • LISTEN: Listen to articles while you walk, cook, or commute with in-app text to speech. Even offline. You don't have to trade your productive time for your web reading. --- Upgrade to Premium for a fully featured powerful experience --- • ADVANCED SEARCH: Pull out an article with what you remember. Search by full-text, author, notes, and more! Skip the hassle of finding from list, start reading the article you have in mind. • PLAYLIST: Listen to your articles with no interruption in between. Perfect while you drive, run, or doing daily chores. • ADVANCED STATISTICS: Get insights into your reading routine. You read rate, daily peak reading time, categories you read, your popular sites and more to help plan and enhance your reading. • MULTIPLE ARTICLES TO KINDLE: Send multiple articles at once to your Kindle device (or app). You will receive them as a kindle book, carefully crafted. Read them with your Kindle experience. • LIMITLESS OFFLINE: Perform actions (add/remove highlights, notes, Send to Kindle) even while offline. App will automatically sync when your device is back online. Ad-free reading experience. PaperSpan is free to download and use. PaperSpan Premium gives a more powerful experience for $8.99 a year through an auto-renewing subscription. Price may vary by location. Subscriptions will be charged to your credit card through your iTunes account. Your subscription will automatically renew unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You will not be able to cancel a subscription during the active period. You can manage your subscriptions in the Account Settings after purchase. (Reference: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039) Our Terms of Use: https://www.paperspan.com/terms Our Privacy Policy: https://www.paperspan.com/privacy

About

ReadKit

Consolidate your news feeds and saved articles into one streamlined reading experience. Enjoy offline access, customizable interfaces, and powerful search capabilities. Offers a free tier with optional premium features for enhanced functionality.

Highlights
  • All-in-one reading hub
  • Cross-platform support (iOS, macOS)
  • iCloud RSS and Read Later sync
  • Offline article access
  • Enhanced reader mode
  • Customizable interface
  • Powerful search and filtering
Features
Read full description

Your All-in-One Reading Companion ReadKit is a powerful, all-in-one read-later and RSS client that brings together your favorite news, articles, and feeds. With major providers and built-in iCloud RSS and Read Later sync, ReadKit lets you save and read articles later, providing a distraction-free reading experience anytime and anywhere. KEY FEATURES • All-in-One Reading Hub: Access all your accounts in one place with multi-account support. • Cross-Platform: Universal app with full feature parity on iOS and macOS. • iCloud RSS and Read Later: Built-in services with iCloud sync. • Flexible Syncing: Sync with major RSS aggregators and read-later services. • Advanced Organization: Manage feeds, folders, tags and automatically updated smart folders. • Smart Folder Actions: Mark items read or starred and filter content. • Offline Access: Read articles offline with cached images. • Enhanced Reading Experience: Built-in reader mode extracts full article content, with options for automatic activation. • Wide Gesture Support: Navigate, mark articles read and perform quick actions. • In-App Browser: View links and references without leaving the app. • App Badge Preferences: Customize the badge to display the count of unread items. • Mark as Read Options: Mark articles read while scrolling, by pulling up, or in one tap. • Contextual Marking: Quickly mark articles as read above or below directly from the context menu. • Customizable Interface: Choose themes, light or dark mode, and app icons to suit your style. • Powerful Search: Search articles by content, title, or source. • Filter Articles: Easily filter articles by read or starred status. • Background Syncing: Always stay updated with background sync. • Content Sharing: Use the share extension to save articles from Safari and other apps for later reading. • Email Articles: Send articles directly via email to share with others. • Share via Apps and Services: Share articles through the share sheet. • YouTube Channel Support: Subscribe to YouTube channels and playlists through RSS feeds. • Full Keyboard Support: Optimized for hardware keyboards on macOS and iPad. • Feed Import/Export: Import or export subscriptions via OPML files. • Application Settings Export: Export and import appearance, reading, general behavior and gesture preferences. Enjoy ReadKit’s essential features completely free — no ads, no data mining. Unlock additional features with ReadKit Premium, available via a universal subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase for iOS, macOS, or both. A free trial is also available. PREMIUM FEATURES • Multi-Account Support: Manage multiple accounts simultaneously. • Unlimited Smart Folders: Create and customize more than one smart folder per account. • Enhanced Reader Mode: Extract full-text content from articles, even when missing from the feed source. • Article Summary: summarize articles using AI on supported devices (requires ReadKit Premium, Apple Intelligence and iOS 26). • Unlimited Feeds: Remove the 20-feed limit for the built-in RSS service. • Advanced Organization Tools: Organize feeds and articles into folders or tags. • Image Caching: Enjoy offline reading with cached images. • Themes & Custom Icons: Unlock exclusive themes and choose custom app icons. • Full OPML Support: Import and export feed subscriptions with ease. • Account and Smart Folder Export: Export account settings with smart folders and import them individually. • Early Access: Enjoy upcoming premium features as they're released. SUPPORTED SERVICES • Built-in RSS and Read Later services with iCloud sync. • News Reader Services: BazQux, Feedbin, Feedly, Fever, FreshRSS, Inoreader, Miniflux, NewsBlur, The Old Reader, Tiny Tiny RSS • Read Later & Bookmarking Services: Instapaper, Wallabag and Pinboard Privacy Policy: https://readkit.app/privacy Terms of Use: https://readkit.app/terms-of-use

Screenshots

PaperSpan4 screens
ReadKit4 screens

Verdict

The call

PaperSpan and ReadKit both sit at 4.4 stars, but that hides the real split: 56% of ReadKit's written reviews are positive against 20% of PaperSpan's. ReadKit also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 3 months). PaperSpan's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. ReadKit sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. PaperSpan asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.4 for PaperSpan against 4.3 for ReadKit. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 76 and 128 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 20% of PaperSpan's written reviews are positive against 56% of ReadKit's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PaperSpan ships an update every 3 months, ReadKit fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 12, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
PaperSpan versus ReadKit: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPaperSpanReadKit
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (76 ratings) — better4.3 (128 ratings)
Positive reviews20.0% of reviews56.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings76128 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFreemiumFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS13.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size35 MB45 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperSravan KumarBalazs Varkonyi

Customer experience

PaperSpan

All ratings76 ratings
Positive82.9%
Neutral0.0%
Negative17.1%
Written reviews15 reviews
Positive20.0%
Neutral6.7%
Negative73.3%

ReadKit

All ratings128 ratings
Positive84.4%
Neutral3.1%
Negative12.5%
Written reviews128 reviews
Positive56.3%
Neutral19.5%
Negative24.2%

Bugs and requests

PaperSpan

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

ReadKit

Reported bugs

12 issues
  • Persistent toolbars blocking distraction-free reading
  • Background refresh not working reliably
  • Wallabag sync errors and failures
  • App crashes when integrating multiple services
  • Reading articles not marking as read automatically
Show 7 more
  • Embedded tweets not displaying in web view
  • Favicon and headline display issues in article list
  • Thumbnail images not showing in article list
  • Text overlap with underline formatting
  • Inconsistent behavior between iOS and iPadOS versions
  • Sync errors preventing account setup
  • Partial feature support without clear disclosure

Requested features

19 requests
  • iCloud sync support for feeds and data
  • Raindrop read-later service integration
  • Sepia background option for light mode
  • Widgets support
  • Automatic reader view option
Show 14 more
  • Push notifications for new articles
  • Import Smart Folders from previous versions
  • Sync Smart Folders across all devices
  • Additional read-later service integrations (GoodLinks, etc.)
  • Mark all as read button
  • Pinboard API key login support
  • Article position sync for read-later services
  • More article list view customization options
  • Highlight and annotate text functionality
  • Built-in annotation and newsletter management
  • Podcast playing capability
  • Automatic full article text loading
  • Quick article opening in Safari
  • Image zoom and preview functionality

In-app purchases

None

PaperSpan

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

ReadKit

Subscriptions2
  • Premium Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Premium Annual7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time3
  • Premium Lifetime macOS$19.99
  • Premium Lifetime iOS$19.99
  • Premium Lifetime Universal$29.99

Questions

Is PaperSpan free?
PaperSpan is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is ReadKit free?
ReadKit is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, PaperSpan or ReadKit?
PaperSpan is rated higher. PaperSpan averages 4.4 out of 5 from 76 ratings, while ReadKit averages 4.3 from 128 ratings.
Do PaperSpan or ReadKit have ads?
Neither PaperSpan nor ReadKit shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PaperSpan or ReadKit?
PaperSpan ships an update every 3 months, and ReadKit fortnightly. Most recently, PaperSpan was updated on November 11, 2026 and ReadKit on November 12, 2026.

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