Comparison

Craft vs Highlights

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

Head to head
About

Craft

This app helps you organize your thoughts, manage tasks, and boost productivity with an AI assistant. Create structured documents, plan your day, and connect with other tools for a seamless workflow across all your devices.

Highlights
  • AI Assistant for research and writing
  • Structured document creation
  • Native task management system
  • Daily notes and calendar view
  • Offline access and sync
  • Integrations with other tools
Features
Read full description

Unleash your creativity and take control of your plans with Craft, a productivity app that transforms how you write, organize, and get things done. Create structured documents, manage tasks, organize your knowledge with Collections, and chat about it all with the AI Assistant. With seamless sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web, your workspace is always ready, online or offline. WRITE ANYWHERE, ANYTIME Your best ideas don’t wait for an internet connection. Work seamlessly offline with full access to all features, then let your changes sync automatically when you reconnect. Whether you’re on iPhone, iPad, or Mac, Craft keeps your writing experience consistent and powerful. AI ASSISTANT IS THERE TO HELP For seamless research, text editing, or searching across your entire knowledge base, Craft’s AI Assistant keeps you in flow on every device you use Craft on. Powered by advanced large language models, it finds any note, answers questions based on your content, and helps you stay on top of your knowledge without making you maintain a strict organizational system. BUILT-IN TASK MANAGEMENT Turn your ideas into action with our native Tasks system. Capture tasks as they emerge in your notes, manage them in a dedicated Inbox, and access them from any page with the Assistant’s help. Set target dates, due dates, and reminders to stay on track. With a unified tasks view, it’s the perfect balance between AI-powered fluidity and a dedicated, always-available space. STAY ON TOP OF YOUR DAY Make daily planning effortless with Daily Notes. Capture quick thoughts, plan your schedule, track tasks, or maintain your personal journal, all in one dedicated space. Switch to the calendar view to visualize your progress, reflect on your week, and understand how your days are shaping up. CONNECT YOUR DOCS TO OTHER TOOLS Turn Craft into the home for your whole workflow. Connect your documents to popular AI chat tools and productivity apps using deep integrations and APIs. Save conversations into Craft, pull in tasks, events, or other content from your existing tools, or even use your Craft documents as a CMS for powering a blog or website. EVERYTHING YOU NEED - Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web - Markdown and keyboard shortcuts - Link sharing and web publishing - Version history - Fast, reliable sync - Advanced integrations and API support - AI-powered Assistant - Incredible customer support WHAT’S NEW Craft Assistant: your smart partner to brainstorm, research, and write. It can help you find your notes across your space, rewrite and summarize documents, all while keeping you in the flow. MCP & API: connect Craft to AI models and other tools in your productivity stack, turning it into an organizational layer and live memory. Whiteboards: turn thoughts into visuals with a spacious canvas for sketching ideas, mapping projects, and collaborating creatively. QUESTIONS? Contact us on X at @craftdocs or email feedback@craft.do SUBSCRIPTION DETAILS If you purchase a Craft subscription, you’ll be charged via the payment method associated with your Apple ID. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours of the end of the current period. You can turn off auto-renewal at any time in your account settings on the App Store. Craft subscriptions are available as one-month and 12-month packages. Prices may vary depending on country and are subject to change without notice. Current subscriptions cannot be canceled during the active subscription period. If you don’t choose to purchase a Craft subscription, you can continue using Craft for free. Terms of service: https://www.craft.do/terms Privacy policy: https://www.craft.do/privacy

About

Highlights

This app is a fast and lightweight PDF reader designed for research. It allows users to read, highlight, and annotate documents, and then extract this information into organized notes. Advanced features include table data extraction, text recognition, and smart copying of annotations into various formats.

Highlights
  • Read and browse PDF documents
  • Highlight, underline, and strikethrough text
  • Add comments and sticky notes
  • Extract annotations into organized notes
  • Convert table data and recognize text
  • Smart copy annotations to various formats (CSV, BibTex)
  • Lookup citation metadata and DOI links
Features
Read full description

"... an app that students, academics, and anyone who does substantial amounts of PDF-based research should try" - Macstories.net "It’s the novel approach to PDF annotation that makes this app a cut above the rest"- TapSmart.com *** "App of the Day" - App Store, US *** USE HIGHLIGHTS FOR FREE Highlights is a fast and lightweight PDF reader (under 10MB) packed with features to help you do your best research. Free users have access to standard PDF reader features including document browsing, reading and annotating. There are NO ADS, time limits or tracking. READ PDF DOCUMENTS • Open PDF documents from anywhere • Browse files using the familiar document browser • Open PDFs in Single Page or Two Page scroll mode • Double tap to Smart Zoom in on a paragraph or figure • Scrub smoothly to the desired page • Search the entire document in an instant • Navigate using any connected keyboard or mouse STORE YOUR FILES WHERE YOU WANT • Full support for "Open In Place" lets you make edits to the file where it is • Access your files from iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive or Box using the document browser • Or keep them privately on device only HIGHLIGHT AND ANNOTATE FASTER • Select text with your finger, Apple Pencil or mouse pointer • Highlight, underline, strikethrough text and make image selections • Add comments to annotations or as individual sticky notes • Annotate with fewer taps using context aware popovers • Default annotation colors prevents you from having to repeatedly setting the color for the same type of annotation every time TURN ANNOTATIONS INTO NOTES • As you markup text and images the contents are extracted and sorted into notes • Customize the formatting and contents of your notes • Sort the annotations chronologically or create your own color coding EXTRACT TABLE DATA AND RECOGNIZE TEXT • Convert images containing text or tables to actual text and tables using machine learning - letting you get to the underlying data with a single tap SMART COPY Copy annotations to the desired format with one tap: • Text markup as text • Image selections as images • Tables as CSV • Citations as BibTex LOOKUP CITATIONS • Highlights will fetch DOI-links and metadata • Markup any reference and tap the link icon to look it up • If you have read the work already or have it in your reference manager library, Highlights will link you to it EXPORT ANYWHERE • Save or share your notes as portable files: Markdown, TextBundle, HTML, WebArchive or PDF • Share them to your favorite notes app: Apple Notes, Bear, Craft, Evernote, DEVONThink, Keep It, MindNode, Notion, Obsidian, Roam Research or Ulysses • Or send them to a colleague via mail. It's your notes, you decide where they go MUCH MORE • Dark mode • Multi-window support on iPadOS • Keyboard shortcuts and navigation • Support for system Copy and Undo gestures • Alternative app icons • Custom accent colors • Apple Pencil double-tap gestures • Power annotation tools For a full list of features see: highlightsapp.net/features HIGHLIGHTS PRO The Highlights Pro subscription unlocks advanced features on your iPhone, iPad and Mac: • Export options for other apps and easily editable formats • Extract information using table and text recognition • Customize accent colors and alternative app icons • Power annotation tools • Citation lookups • Smart Copy Highlights Pro includes a 14-day free trial. You can cancel your subscription at any time. The subscription will automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off within 24-hour prior to the end of of the current period. Payments will be charged to your iTunes account and your account will be charged within 24-hours prior to the end of the current period. Any unused portion of a free trial period will be forfeited when you purchase a subscription. For more information about Highlights Pro: highlightsapp.net/pro Privacy Policy: highlightsapp.net/privacy Terms of Use: highlightsapp.net/terms

Screenshots

Craft4 screens
Highlights4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Craft at 85% against Highlights's 53%. Craft also leads on rating (4.8 vs 4.5) and ratings volume (6.6K vs 1.6K). Highlights's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 17.0). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Craft sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month and Highlights sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Craft holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6.6K and 1.6K respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 85% of Craft's written reviews are positive against 53% of Highlights's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Craft ships an update every 10 days, Highlights fortnightly. Both last shipped on September 28, 2026.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
Craft versus Highlights: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCraftHighlights
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (6.6K ratings) — better4.5 (1.6K ratings)
Positive reviews84.7% of reviews — better53.3% of reviews
Number of ratings6.6K — better1.6K
Update frequencyEvery 10 days — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision ProiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac
Requires iOS17.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size314 MB37 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperCraft Docs LimitedJonas Myren Ribe

Customer experience

Craft

All ratings6,610 ratings
Positive97.1%
Neutral1.0%
Negative1.9%
Written reviews1,631 reviews
Positive84.7%
Neutral6.1%
Negative9.2%

Highlights

All ratings1,610 ratings
Positive88.2%
Neutral3.7%
Negative8.1%
Written reviews465 reviews
Positive53.3%
Neutral15.3%
Negative31.4%

User reviews

Craft

From 6.6K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Absolutely amazing
  • 👍 Beautiful, clean, simple, increasingly powerful
  • 👍 Fantastic Essential App
  • 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
  • 👍 Seamless sync between devices

Room to improve

  • 💰 Expensive subscription
  • 🐛 Crashes after recent update
  • 🔍 Lack of customization options (e.g. font size)
  • 🔍 Inconsistent and confusing UI conventions
  • 🔍 Lack of basic features like tags and tables

Highlights

From 1.6K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Great for highlighting and annotating PDFs
  • 🔍 Effective for research and note-taking
  • 📚 Useful for academic and professional work
  • 👍 Clean and intuitive user interface
  • 🔗 Good integration with other apps and cloud storage

Room to improve

  • 💰 Subscription model is too expensive
  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and bugs
  • 🔍 Limited search functionality
  • 🔒 Lack of customization options
  • 🔧 Poor customer support and unresponsive developers

Bugs and requests

Craft

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes when using voice control dictation
  • Inconsistent behavior when rearranging notes
  • Exporting to PDF creates blank first page

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for tables and columns
  • Implement tagging system for better organization
  • Improve text editing and formatting options
  • Integrate with more third-party apps and services
  • Add graph view for visualizing note connections

Highlights

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Highlights and annotations randomly disappearing
  • Text selection issues, especially with footnotes
  • Compatibility problems with certain PDF files
  • Syncing issues across devices
  • Export functionality not working as expected

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add handwriting and freeform annotation support
  • Implement a table of contents or bookmarking feature
  • Allow editing of notes directly in the app
  • Provide a one-time purchase option instead of subscription
  • Improve search capabilities with visual results and navigation

In-app purchases

9 purchases

Craft

Subscriptions9
  • Plus Monthly Subscription1 Month trial$9.991 Month
  • Legacy - Monthly Subscription$10.991 Month
  • Family Monthly Subscription1 Month trial$17.991 Month
Show 6 more
  • Team Monthly Subscription$59.991 Month
  • Plus Annual Subscription1 Year trial$95.991 Year
  • Legacy - Annual Subscription$99.991 Year
  • Family Annual Subscription1 Year trial$179.991 Year
  • Business Monthly Subscription2 variants$299.001 Month
  • Team Annual Subscription$599.001 Year
3 purchases

Highlights

Subscriptions3
  • Highlights Pro: Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Highlights Pro14 Days trial$29.991 Year
  • Highlights Pro: Legacy Upgrade1 Year trial$29.991 Year

Questions

Is Craft free?
Craft is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Highlights free?
Highlights is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Craft or Highlights?
Craft is rated higher. Craft averages 4.8 out of 5 from 6.6K ratings, while Highlights averages 4.5 from 1.6K ratings.
Do Craft or Highlights have ads?
Neither Craft nor Highlights shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Craft or Highlights?
Craft ships an update every 10 days, and Highlights fortnightly. Most recently, Craft was updated on September 28, 2026 and Highlights on September 28, 2026.

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