Matter vs Crew
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
Crew
This app provides a native iOS experience for browsing Stack Overflow content. It offers a clean, ad-free interface with powerful navigation and filtering tools for questions, answers, and comments. Enjoy a streamlined way to engage with the developer community.
- Native iOS design
- Ad-free browsing
- Powerful question filters
- Dark mode
- Real-time question previews
- Gesture navigation
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#PH daily pick 29/01/2020 "Crew brings the web service to a native app with a beautiful UI that makes browsing Stack Overflow much nicer than on the web." - MacStories "Crew isn't just an app, though. It's been designed with iOS guidelines in mind, making it look and feel every bit the native iPhone and iPad experience in a way the Stack Overflow website just can't match." - iMore Crew is a beautiful StackOverflow app built for fast navigation with powerful set of features. The delightful interface is coupled with extensive features that feel part on your device, whilst elevating your Stack Overflow experience. It’s created specifically with iOS design guidelines in mind, so it fits right at home on your device. Browse question without distraction or ads, use filter, add comments, or visit specific website areas like tags profile or badges section. You can quickly view list, tabs, inbox, notifications and more using gestures and context menu. Crew is an unofficial app, and side effects may include an incredible browsing experience. EXCITING FEATURES: - Trends and search support - All questions,answers and comments from Stack Overflow in your hands. - Search support - Rich rendering of questions - Dark mode - Beautiful iOS centric Ui - Universal app for iPhone and iPad. - Compose question with real time previews. - Powerful question filters (month, week, votes and more) It’s constatly evolving. If you have anything you’d specifically like to see, come to the Settings section and text me, I’d love to hear it! This app is not affiliated with or endorsed by Stack Overflow. Terms Of Use: https://www.danieljamestronca.com/crew/terms-of-use Privacy Policy: https://www.danieljamestronca.com/crew/privacy-policy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is ratings volume: Matter at 1.2K against Crew's 64. Matter also leads on chart position (#139 vs unranked). Crew's advantage is review sentiment (67% vs 54%) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, rating, update cadence and ads 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 and Crew sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Matter holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Matter has 1.2K ratings behind it against 64, 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 Crew's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Matter ships an update weekly, Crew every 10 days. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Matter | Crew |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (1.2K ratings) — better | 4.4 (64 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 54.0% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1.2K — better | 64 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 10 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free with in-app purchases |
| Best chart rank | #139 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 113 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Dig Wells, Inc. | Daniel James Tronca |
Customer experience
Matter
Crew
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
Crew
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
Crew
- Monthly Subscription$1.991 Month
- Yearly Subscription3 Days trial$19.991 Year
- Smoothie-sized Tip$0.99
- Sandwich-sized tip$2.99
- Buffet-sized Tip$7.99
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Deluxe-sized tip$16.99
- Lifetime Subscritpion$39.99









