# Highlights vs Adonit One

The clearest difference is rating: Highlights at 4.5 against Adonit One's 2.7. Highlights also leads on ratings volume (1.6K vs 9). Adonit One's advantage is iOS requirement (13.4 vs 15.0). On price, review sentiment, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.

Both are free to download. Highlights sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Adonit One sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

Highlights holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 2.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Highlights has 1.6K ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 53% of Highlights's written reviews are positive against 47% of Adonit One's.

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | Highlights | Adonit One |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | **[4.5 (1.6K ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/highlights-pdf-reader-and-notes/id1498912833/reviews)** | [2.7 (9 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/adonit-one/id1528922996/reviews) |
| Number of ratings | **1.6K** | 9 |
| Positive reviews | **53.2% of reviews** | 46.7% of reviews |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Fortnightly |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Size | 37 MB | 225 MB |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | **13.4** |
| Devices | **iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac** | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | [Jonas Myren Ribe](https://appshunter.io/developer/794854096) | [Adonit Corp.](https://appshunter.io/developer/456857769) |

## What reviewers say

### Highlights

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/highlights-pdf-reader-and-notes/id1498912833)

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:** Family Sharing, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases (3)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Highlights Pro: Monthly | $4.99 | per month |
| Highlights Pro | $29.99 | per year |
| Highlights Pro: Legacy Upgrade | $29.99 | per year |

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 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

**What reviewers complain about**

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

**Reported bugs**

- 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**

- 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


### Adonit One

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/adonit-one/id1528922996)

This app offers a comprehensive space for recording and organizing various types of information. It features real-time audio and video transcription, multi-language translation, and digital note-taking with PDF signing capabilities. AI-powered tools help generate summaries and organize key points, making it a versatile mobile assistant for capturing and managing ideas.

**Highlights:** Real-time audio transcription, Video recording with transcription, Multi-language translation, Digital note-taking and sketching, PDF document signing, AI-powered smart generation

**Features:** macOS Compatibility

**In-app purchases (4)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Adonit Silver | $5.99 | per month |
| Adonit Gold | $7.99 | per month |
| Audio/Video-to-text 75 minutes | $4.99 | one-time |
| Translation 100,000 words | $4.99 | one-time |


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Highlights free?

Highlights is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Is Adonit One free?

Adonit One is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Which has better reviews, Highlights or Adonit One?

Highlights is rated higher. Highlights averages 4.5 out of 5 from 1.6K ratings, while Adonit One averages 2.7 from 9 ratings.

### Do Highlights or Adonit One have ads?

Neither Highlights nor Adonit One shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, Highlights or Adonit One?

Highlights ships an update fortnightly, and Adonit One fortnightly. Most recently, Highlights was updated on October 17, 2026 and Adonit One on September 30, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*