Matter vs Longform Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Matter
Consolidate articles, newsletters, and PDFs into a single, elegant reading experience. Enjoy features like natural text-to-speech, fluid highlighting, and offline access. Sync your highlights to popular knowledge management tools.
- Save articles, newsletters, PDFs, and YouTube
- Natural text-to-speech for articles
- Fluid highlighting and note-taking
- Sync highlights to Notion, Obsidian, Readwise
- Send articles to Kindle
- Unified inbox for subscriptions
- Offline reading
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Finally, a better reading app. The internet is full of things you want to read – articles, newsletters, Twitter threads, PDFs. Matter brings them together in one place and gives you modern tools, like natural text-to-speech and fluid highlighting, to help you read more comfortably and effectively. "Matter improves vastly on earlier read-later apps like Pocket and Instapaper" – The Wall Street Journal Save anything: - Save full articles if you're within the paywall (eg. Bloomberg, NYT, WSJ) - Podcast transcriptions & synced playback - Save PDFs and YouTube Read across devices, including Kindle: - iPhone, iPad, Web - Send any article to Kindle in 2-taps Unified inbox for your subscriptions: - Sync your newsletters by connecting Gmail - Follow individual writers for their latest posts - Add any RSS feed The most elegant reading experience: - Best-in-class article parsing + readability - Available offline by default - Gorgeous night mode - Human-like text-to-speech - Fluid highlighting and note-taking Export your knowledge: - Sync your highlights to Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Readwise, and others Matter offers a free service and a Premium service. The free version of Matter includes: - Uncapped read-later library - Mobile & web extensions to save all types of content - Best-in-class parsing and readability - Unlimited tags - Full-text search - Customizable themes and fonts In addition to the free features, Matter Premium offers: - HD text-to-speech for all your articles - Seamless AI Co-Reader - Sync your newsletters, subscribe to writers, and add RSS feeds - Unlimited highlighting, note-taking, and integrations - Send to Kindle Payment for Matter Premium will be charged to your iTunes Account when you subscribe. Annual and monthly subscriptions automatically renew unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Auto-renewal may be turned off at any time by going to your settings in the iTunes Store after purchase. Manage your Matter Premium subscription by going to Matter's Settings page. Terms of Use: https://hq.getmatter.com/terms Privacy Policy: https://hq.getmatter.com/privacy
Longform Reader
Access curated long-form articles from top publications. Enjoy a clean reading experience with features like dark mode and automatic reader view for linked content.
- Access Longform.org articles
- Fast load times
- Dark Mode support
- Automatic Reader View
- Curated from top publications
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Longform Reader is an app for reading articles published on the official Longform.org website. Longform.org curates long-form articles (over 2000 words) from various publications such as The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, ESPN Magazine, etc. Features: * Fast load time * Dark Mode support * Automatic ‘Reader View’ for linked articles Because this is an unofficial app for Longform.org, we are not able to include certain features such as viewing past articles, browsing by category, podcast support, etc. If you enjoy using Longform Reader, please consider taking a moment to rate it. Thanks for your support! *We are not affiliated, associated, authorized, endorsed by, or in any way officially connected with Longform.org. The official Longform.org website can be found at: https://www.longform.org.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Matter at 4.6 against Longform Reader's 3.8. Matter also leads on ratings volume (1.2K vs 4) and chart position (#123 vs unranked). Longform Reader's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 21) and review sentiment (67% vs 54%). On price, 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. Matter sells 20 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per 7 days. Longform Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
Matter holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Matter has 1.2K ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 54% of Matter's written reviews are positive against 67% of Longform Reader's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
| Parameter | Matter | Longform Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (1.2K ratings) — better | 3.8 (4 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 54.0% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1.2K — better | 4 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #123 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 113 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Dig Wells, Inc. | Stand Up Apps, Inc. |
Customer experience
Matter
Longform Reader
Bugs and requests
Matter
Reported bugs
4 issues- Subscription issues and inability to cancel
- Delayed or missing newsletter delivery
- Syncing problems across devices
- Crashes and freezes on certain content
Requested features
5 requests- Ability to manually add blogs and RSS feeds
- Customizable highlighter colors
- Offline mode for audio playback
- Integration with more note-taking apps
- Improved search and filtering capabilities
Longform Reader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Matter
- Matter Pro Weekly$2.997 Days
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$7.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$9.991 Month
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- Matter Pro (Monthly)$12.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$13.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$14.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$15.991 Month
- Matter Premium (Monthly)$19.991 Month
- Matter Pro (Annual)1 Year trial$59.991 Year
- Matter Pro (Annual)7 Days trial$59.991 Year
- Matter Pro (Annual)$59.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)$69.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)$79.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)7 Days trial$79.991 Year
- Matter Premium1 Month trial2 variants$79.991 Year
- Matter Pro (Annual)$79.991 Year
- Matter Premium (Annual)$99.991 Year
- Matter Premium7 Days trial$99.991 Year
- Matter Patron Tier$149.99
- Matter Premium (3 years)$149.99
Longform Reader
No in-app purchases








