Comparison

Vaia vs Plasmid editor

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

Head to head
About

Vaia

Transform your lecture slides, PDFs, and notes into a personalized study guide. Utilize AI to generate flashcards, summaries, and receive explanations for complex topics. Practice and track your progress for homework, midterms, and finals.

Highlights
  • AI-generated flashcards and summaries
  • Personalized learning paths
  • Homework help and explanation
  • Practice quizzes and exams
  • Spaced repetition for retention
  • Study planner and progress tracking
  • Shareable study materials
Features
Read full description

Your notes can do more than sit in a folder. Turn lecture slides, PDFs, and class notes into a personal study path with Vaia. Use AI to create flashcards and summaries, get help understanding tricky topics, and practice what you need for homework, midterms, and finals. YOUR MATERIALS, MADE FOR LEARNING A stack of slides and no idea where to start? Upload your materials and build a study guide around your own course. • Break down your material with explanations and summaries • Generate AI flashcards to practice key ideas • Follow a learning path with chapters, lessons, and questions Go from collecting notes to actually working through them. HOMEWORK HELP THAT BUILDS UNDERSTANDING Stuck on a topic while doing homework? Ask Vaia's AI assistant questions about your study materials and get explanations to help you move forward. Use the homework scanner to capture a problem as input. Then put your understanding to work with flashcards and practice questions. Get help with today's material and build knowledge you can use on your next test. FLASHCARDS THAT FIT YOUR COURSE Generate flashcards from your notes, create your own cards, or explore sets shared by other students. Practice definitions, formulas, and vocabulary by recalling the answer before you flip the card. Use spaced repetition to revisit material over time. Fit in a few cards between classes or settle into a longer study session. A STUDY PLANNER WITH A CLEAR NEXT STEP Your course becomes a structured learning path. Work through chapters, read explanations, and practice with interactive questions. See your progress and pick up where you left off. From biology to economics, keep your study materials and your next lesson together in one place. FIND THE GAPS BEFORE EXAM DAY That topic looked familiar. Could you explain it without your notes? Find out with quizzes, exercises, and practice tests. • Check your understanding with multiple-choice and fill-in-the-blank questions • Try practice exam mode and review your results afterward • Revisit the topics that need more work before your midterm or final GIVE YOUR NOTES A VOICE Create study podcasts from your materials and listen on the go. Review a topic on your commute or switch things up when you need a break from reading. SHARE THE WORK. KEEP LEARNING. Explore shared flashcards, study notes, and summaries to complement your own materials. Share your sets with classmates and bring useful resources together for your course. From high school homework to college finals, Vaia helps you turn your materials into something you can learn from. Download Vaia, upload your first notes, and start your first chapter. Terms of Use: https://www.vaia.com/en-us/terms/ Privacy Policy: https://www.vaia.com/en-us/privacy/

About

Plasmid editor

Features
Read full description

Import a SnapGene, GenBank or FASTA file. Every element is matched against the bases rather than trusted from the label, and each one is marked with how it was established: confirmed by exact sequence match, taken from the file's own annotation, or predicted from structure alone. 1. FOUR EDITS Replace the promoter. Add a gene. Remove a gene. Swap a part. Each one produces a finished construct, the Gibson assembly plan, and primers with melting temperatures. Homology arms extend until they are unique, so repeated sequence does not produce an ambiguous junction. Every design is re-assembled in silico before it is issued: if the product does not come back identical, you do not get the plan. 2. DESIGNS THAT WOULD HAVE FAILED QUIETLY A cargo in a FLEX or DIO cassette is stored antisense. Paste a normally written coding sequence into those coordinates and it goes in backwards. The app works out the required orientation from the cassette architecture and places it correctly. An annotated CDS is often only part of a longer reading frame. Replace just the annotated piece and your new gene inherits whatever sat in front of it — tags, targeting motifs, linkers - as an N-terminal fusion. The app reads upstream in frame, names what it finds, and offers to remove it. 3. PACKAGING SIZE, BEFORE YOU ORDER The ITR-to-ITR genome is measured and compared against the real limit for AAV, self-complementary AAV, lentivirus or adenovirus. When a design is too large, you get specific reductions with the base pairs each one saves and what it costs you. 4. PROMOTERS AND CAPSIDS Sixteen promoters covering neurons, astrocytes, hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes and ubiquitous expression. Each was read out of a publicly deposited plasmid map and carries the Addgene number and the exact coordinates it came from. They are exactly what that deposit contains - not sequence written from memory. A capsid guide pairs cell types with AAV serotypes, each with the caveat that matters. 5. EXPORT GenBank, SnapGene, or FASTA. Annotations, strands and topology survive the first two; FASTA is bases only, and the app says so before you pick it. 6. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION No account. No analytics. No advertising. Your vectors stay on your device. The app works offline; the one exception is an optional NCBI lookup when you type an accession, which sends nothing but that accession. 7. COMPANION APP Gene Search, free, finds genes and accessions in NCBI and hands them straight to this app. Gene Editing is a design aid. Every construct is a prediction from the sequence you supplied, and predictions can be wrong - most often because the file's own annotations were wrong. Verify every junction by sequencing before you rely on a construct.

Screenshots

Vaia4 screens
Plasmid editor4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Vaia at Free against Plasmid editor's $1.99. Vaia also leads on update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months) and ratings volume (1.6K vs 1). Plasmid editor's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). On 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Vaia is free to download; Plasmid editor costs $1.99 up front. Vaia sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Plasmid editor asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Plasmid editor holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Vaia has 1.6K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 81% of Vaia's written reviews are positive against 100% of Plasmid editor's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Vaia ships an update weekly, Plasmid editor every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Vaia versus Plasmid editor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterVaiaPlasmid editor
PriceFree — better$1.99
Rating4.7 (1.6K ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews81.4% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.6K — better1
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size261 MB30 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperStudySmarter GmbHyoung-Hwan Jo

Customer experience

Vaia

All ratings1,568 ratings
Positive93.9%
Neutral2.1%
Negative4.0%
Written reviews684 reviews
Positive81.4%
Neutral7.6%
Negative11.0%

Plasmid editor

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Vaia

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Flashcard review progress not saving correctly
  • Inability to delete individual flashcards from a set
  • Syncing issues between mobile app and web version
  • Inconsistent behavior of AI-generated quiz questions

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add more language options
  • Improve PDF and note-taking editor functionality
  • Implement nested subsets within study sets
  • Provide more customization options for colors and themes
  • Integrate study timers and task management features

Plasmid editor

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Vaia

Subscriptions10
  • Premium Plan$2.991 Month
  • Premium Plan (1 month)7 Days trial$6.491 Month
  • Premium Plan (1 month)7 Days trial$8.991 Month
Show 7 more
  • Premium Plan (1 month)$19.991 Month
  • Premium Plan (1 year)7 Days trial$31.991 Year
  • Premium Plan (1 year)7 Days trial$43.991 Year
  • Premium Plan (1 year)1 Month trial$59.991 Year
  • Premium Plan (1 year)7 Days trial$63.991 Year
  • Premium Plan (1 year)7 Days trial$89.991 Year
  • Premium Plan (1 year)1 Month trial$89.991 Year
None

Plasmid editor

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Vaia free?
Vaia is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Plasmid editor free?
Plasmid editor costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Vaia or Plasmid editor?
Plasmid editor is rated higher. Vaia averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.6K ratings, while Plasmid editor averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Vaia or Plasmid editor have ads?
Neither Vaia nor Plasmid editor shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Vaia or Plasmid editor?
Vaia ships an update weekly, and Plasmid editor every 2 months. Most recently, Vaia was updated on November 11, 2026 and Plasmid editor on November 10, 2026.

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