MarginNote 4 vs ReadFlow
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MarginNote 4
This app integrates reading, note-taking, mind mapping, and flashcards into a unified study environment. It supports active learning with features like study sets, book compilation, and dual-article views. Enhance your understanding with visual learning tools and AI-powered content extraction for long-term memory retention.
- Integrated reading, note-taking, mind mapping, and flashcards
- Quick Extend Note and Handwriting Layers for annotation
- Study Set for organizing PDFs, EPUBs, videos, and audio
- Mind Map and Concept Diagram for visual learning
- AI Content Detection for formula and chart extraction
- FSRS spaced-repetition algorithm for reviews
- iCloud sync across Apple devices
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MarginNote is the PDF study tool for deep readers. One excerpt is a PDF highlight, a mind map node, and a flashcard — one capture, three places. This is the Card Axis architecture, so you stop ferrying content between a PDF reader, a notes app, and a flashcard tool. A decade of iteration. 188K+ App Store ratings. 【Four Featured Mechanics】 ▸ Card Axis — One excerpt, three renders. Document highlight, mind map node, and flashcard are the same card seen from three angles. ▸ Title Link — Old notes auto-surface in new documents. When a familiar concept appears in what you're reading, your past annotation lights up on the page. ▸ Extended Note — Long-press anywhere on a PDF to open writing space. No anchored text required; three display modes (inline / margin / collapsed). ▸ Immersive Mode (4.4) — Three-state toggle: Read / Write / Recall. UI folds away. Recall blurs excerpts with Gaussian blur — tap to reveal only after you've actually recalled. 【AI Capabilities (introduced in 4.2)】 AI book breakdown · AI OCR templates · AI translation · AI Q&A · AI flashcard generation Our stance is AI as assistant, not replacement — every suggestion can be saved as your own thinking node, never thinking for you. 【Apple Intelligence (iOS 26+)】 Recall Mode hints can run on-device via Apple Intelligence — pick "Apple AI" or "cloud LLM" in Settings. With Apple AI selected, three tiers of help — Neighbor Coordinate · Reasoning Prompt · Key Distinction — are generated by Apple Foundation Models right on your device: no network calls, no AI credits used, your notes never leave your device. Even if you've selected cloud LLM, going offline auto-falls back to Apple Intelligence (provided your device supports it) — so libraries, planes, and exam-day silent rooms never break your hint loop. 【Full Workflow】 Fast OCR · Study Sets (PDF / EPUB / video / audio) · direct read from Zotero / cloud drives / USB · 10 mind map styles · book recomposition · dual-document compare · concept maps · handwriting layers 【FSRS Spaced Repetition】 Built on the open-spaced-repetition project's algorithm (paper accepted by ACM SIGKDD; Anki has used FSRS as its default scheduler since v23.10). Push short-term memory into long-term. 【Built For】 Anyone re-reading a single document until it sticks — med school (USMLE / MCAT) · law school (LSAT / bar exam) · grad prep (GRE / GMAT / CFA) · researchers · language learners (IELTS / TOEFL) · serious readers. 【All Apple Platforms】 iPhone + iPad + Mac under one Apple ID. iCloud syncs Study Sets, notes, and review progress. Native Apple Pencil support on iPad. — Questions? Email service@marginnote.com Terms: https://dist.marginnote.com/MarginNote_Terms_and_Conditions.pdf Privacy: https://dist.marginnote.com/MarginNote_Privacy_Policy.pdf
ReadFlow
This app transforms PDF documents into a comfortable reading experience on small screens. It offers text reflow, customization options for fonts and themes, and iCloud sync for seamless access across devices. Enjoy reading PDFs as easily as other ebook formats.
- PDF text reflow for mobile
- Customizable fonts and themes
- Import custom font files
- iCloud sync
- PDF file cropping
- Metadata editing
- Generate and share reflowed text
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Designed for mobile reading! Readflow is a reading app specially designed for small screens. The text reflow feature is elaborately designed to solve the problem that PDF documents are difficult to read on mobile devices, such as text that is too small and the scan is not clear, and obtain a reading experience consistent with EPub, txt and other formats. Key features include: - PDF text reflow, supporting multiple languages¹ - Custom font family, font size, line height, etc - Importing font files² - Reading themes, switching automatically - iCloud sync, supporting on-demand download to save storage space and cellular data - PDF file cropping - PDF file metadata editing and saving - Reflow text generating and sharing for a whole PDF file³ - More detailed features: favorites, searching, etc. - Purchase once, use everywhere⁴ --- ¹ Currently supported: English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Ukrainian ² Supported file formats: otf, ttf ³ txt format ⁴ iOS / iPadOS universal app Term of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula Privacy policy: https://is.gd/TgnFzI
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: ReadFlow at 100% against MarginNote 4's 59%. ReadFlow also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 3 weeks) and rating (4.8 vs 4.5). MarginNote 4's advantage is ratings volume (716 vs 5). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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. MarginNote 4 sells 12 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and ReadFlow sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
ReadFlow holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: MarginNote 4 has 716 ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 59% of MarginNote 4's written reviews are positive against 100% of ReadFlow's.
MarginNote 4 ships an update every 3 weeks, ReadFlow every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 19, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MarginNote 4 | ReadFlow |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (716 ratings) | 4.8 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 58.8% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 716 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 330 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Beijing Yunsi Software Technology Co., Ltd | 实 许 |
Customer experience
MarginNote 4
ReadFlow
Bugs and requests
MarginNote 4
Reported bugs
3 issues- Disappearing annotations when using extend function
- Inability to restore accidentally deleted mind maps
- Inconsistent behavior with PDF file management
Requested features
4 requests- Improved iCloud/cloud sync reliability
- More intuitive and user-friendly interface
- Better support for external document libraries
- Ability to disable auto-excerpt selection
ReadFlow
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MarginNote 4
- Subscription to MAX (Monthly)7 Days trial$1.991 Month
- Subscription to MAX (3 months)7 Days trial$4.993 Months
- Subscription to MAX (6 months)7 Days trial$7.996 Months
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- Subscription to MAX (Annually)1 Month trial$12.991 Year
- MarginNote Max Annual1 Month trial$16.991 Year
- 14 days Free Trial2 variantsFree
- Upgrade to PRO from MN3(iOS)$4.99
- Unlock PRO Forever (New)$12.99
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- Upgrade to MAX from MN3(macOS)$19.99
- Unlock MAX based on PRO$39.99
- Unlock MAX based on PRO (New)$40.00
- Unlock MAX Forever (New)$51.99
ReadFlow
- ReadFlow Pro 1x$0.991 Month
- ReadFlow Pro 12x$9.991 Year
- ReadFlow Pro ∞$19.99









