Paperpile vs Labscope
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Paperpile
Organize and manage your research papers effortlessly. Collect, read, and annotate PDFs from millions of academic journals. Beat paper chaos with a tidy digital library.
- Search millions of academic papers
- Collect PDFs with one tap
- Organize with folders and labels
- Read and annotate PDFs
- Highlight and add notes
- Browser integration for saving
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Get a head start for you research and finally beat the paper chaos on your desk. With Paperpile you have all your research PDFs in one place — nice and tidy. Paperpile makes it easier than ever to collect, manage, read, and annotate your papers. FIND & COLLECT - Search millions of papers from 20,000+ academic journals right in the app. - Add new papers to your collection with one tap and the PDF will be downloaded automatically. - Save directly from your browser to your Paperpile library - User your university's off-campus proxy access to get restricted content behind paywalls. MANAGE & ORGANIZE - Bring structure to your library with folders and subfolders - Organize your library visually with colored labels - Mark important papers with stars. - Search your library to find the paper you need fast. READ & ANNOTATE - Read like on paper with a fast and slick PDF viewer experience - Highlight important sections in different colors - Add notes and never forget an important idea. - Add hand-drawn annotations - with your fingers or your Apple Pencil The Paperpile App requires a Paperpile account.
Labscope
Transform your ZEISS microscope into a WiFi-enabled imaging system. Capture images and videos of microscopic samples, add annotations, and generate reports. Ideal for laboratories, universities, schools, and hobbyists, it facilitates digital learning and easy sharing.
- WiFi-enabled microscope imaging
- Image and video capture
- Annotations and report creation
- Image processing
- Network and direct sharing
- Digital classroom system
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With Labscope, you transform your ZEISS microscope and camera into a WiFi-enabled imaging system. Be it in the laboratory, university, school or even for your hobby - Labscope snaps images and records videos of your microscopic samples, easier than ever. You can create annotations and reports, do image processing and save the files to your Windows network, or simply share them with anyone. Anywhere. Moreover, with Labscope you can easily create a high-quality digital classroom system, showing students a fun way of learning. Benefit from more than 160 years of experience in microscopy and explore the freedom of mobile digital imaging. Easy. Precise. Efficient. Download Labscope and test all features with the built-in virtual microscope! For more information visit www.zeiss.com/labscope Intended use - Labscope Labscope for iOS is a microscope software for control, image acquisition, image processing and image analysis. Typical application fields of the software are general tasks and applications in microscopy or image acquisition, among others for education, routine and research. The software is not intended to directly or indirectly produce medical diagnostic results.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Paperpile at 4.5 against Labscope's 3.4. Paperpile also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 6) and ratings volume (131 vs 5). Labscope's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 72%). On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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
Both are free to download. Labscope sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Paperpile asks for nothing beyond the download.
Paperpile holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paperpile has 131 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 72% of Paperpile's written reviews are positive against 100% of Labscope's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Paperpile ships an update every 2 months, Labscope every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 23, 2026 and October 22, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Paperpile | Labscope |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (131 ratings) — better | 3.4 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 71.6% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 131 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 242 MB | 296 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Paperpile LLC | Carl Zeiss AG |
Customer experience
Paperpile
Labscope
Bugs and requests
Paperpile
Reported bugs
12 issues- App crashes frequently on iPad and iOS devices
- Highlighting disappears when revisiting papers
- Overlapping annotations delete together when removing one
- Sync failures requiring logout/login cycles
- Annotations not syncing between iPad and web versions
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- PDF metadata recognition failures when adding papers
- Settings reset when returning to previously edited files
- App incompatible with older iOS versions (iOS 12)
- Login authentication errors with university accounts
- App crashes without reliable internet connection
- Search functionality broken after updates
- Annotations not saving/loading on iOS 14.4.2
Requested features
17 requests- Dark mode implementation
- Edit citation metadata on mobile app
- Change PDF file functionality
- Save to downloads feature
- Dictionary/lookup function for reading
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- Cite while you write feature
- BibTeX export capability
- Ability to upload PDFs directly from mobile app
- Support for Safari and other browsers
- Desktop application version
- Shared library access in mobile app
- Advanced sorting options (by title, author, date)
- Custom color options for annotations
- Paste images into PDFs
- Shape snapping for drawing tools
- University email authentication
- Paper rating system beyond stars
Labscope
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Paperpile
No in-app purchases
Labscope
- Multi Channel (Free Trial)Free
- AI Cell Confluency(Free Trial)Free
- AI Cell Counting(Free Trial)Free
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- Multi Channel$449.99
- AI Cell Counting$499.99
- AI Cell Confluency$499.99









