Paperpile vs Quartzy
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.
Quartzy
Manage your lab's inventory with this mobile tool. Track stock, submit requests, and scan items to ensure supplies are always available, preventing experimental delays. Generate unique barcodes directly from your account.
- Track inventory in real-time
- Submit supply requests
- Scan and receive items
- Print unique barcodes
- Up-to-date stock view
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Quartzy Mobile App allows everyone in the lab to track inventory, creating a more up-to-date view of what is available in your lab, so supplies can be ordered in time and no experiment is delayed. Track and update inventory Submit supply requests Scan and receive items into inventory Print unique barcodes right from your Quartzy account
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Paperpile at 72% against Quartzy's 25%. Paperpile also leads on rating (4.5 vs 3.3) and ads (none vs shown). Quartzy's advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 2 months). On price, in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Paperpile holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Paperpile has 129 ratings behind it against 16, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 72% of Paperpile's written reviews are positive against 25% of Quartzy's.
Paperpile ships an update every 2 months, Quartzy monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Paperpile | Quartzy |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (129 ratings) — better | 3.3 (16 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 71.6% of reviews — better | 25.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 129 — better | 16 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free — better | Ad-supported |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 242 MB | 39 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Paperpile LLC | Quartzy, Inc. |
Customer experience
Paperpile
Quartzy
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
Quartzy
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Paperpile
No in-app purchases
Quartzy
No in-app purchases
