Comparison

Nerdish vs Poetic

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

Head to head
About

Nerdish

Expand your general knowledge with concise, engaging articles on diverse topics like science, history, and art. Designed for busy adults, this app delivers quick, fact-checked reads in 5-10 minutes daily to foster lifelong learning and personal growth.

Highlights
  • Concise articles on science, history, art, and more
  • Daily 5-10 minute learning sessions
  • Fact-checked and well-structured content
  • Connects key ideas for deeper understanding
  • Topics include psychology, technology, and daily life
Features
Read full description

Nerdish is a learning app that helps you grow your general knowledge. The articles inside are our own — written to show you things you'd never thought to look up, feed your curiosity, and help you learn more about the world. You can read them or listen to them, and most take about ten minutes: why people like spicy food, what Nefertiti actually looked like, how the internet crosses oceans. What's inside: - Articles we write ourselves. Each one starts with a question our editors find interesting, and gets researched properly before it's written. - Topics from the life around you. Sleep, coffee, déjà vu, the internet, Nefertiti — things you pass by every day without wondering about them. - Our own writing framework. It keeps every article interesting and concise, but still genuinely educational — a lot of thought went into getting all three at once. - Built as microlearning for adults. Short chapters of a couple of minutes each, designed to fit a phone screen and a busy day. - Audio for everything. Read it, listen to it, or follow the text while it plays. - Historical photographs, archive material and artwork alongside the text, with facts and details in the margins. - A wide range of subjects, from the human body to ancient history — and the connections between them. We built Nerdish for people who: - would rather spend phone time on something better than socials. Same ten minutes, different outcome. - enjoy learning random things for no particular reason. Curiosity doesn't need a goal attached to it. - want to stay mentally sharp. Reading something unfamiliar is a small habit that keeps the mind working. - want to find their way back to reading. Short pieces are easier to start with than a book you've been meaning to open for months. - want to have more to say — about art, history, or why the sky is blue. Why it works: There's no way to measure general knowledge and no point where you have enough. But it's what you're using when you read the news, or decide whether something sounds true, or find a solution that came from somewhere unrelated. Hardly any of us sets out to work on our knowledge. Nobody ever taught us how — there's no course in general knowledge, nowhere obvious to begin. So it stays on the list of things you'd like to do. Nerdish works because the mechanism is already there. Curiosity is what built your general knowledge in the first place, and it doesn't need much — an interesting question and ten minutes. And knowledge doesn't stay in separate piles. We write science with its history in it, history with its culture, and culture with the people behind it — nothing is only about one thing. Pick a topic, read or listen, learn something you'd never thought to look up. That's how general knowledge grows. Learn with us about: - Health and the human body: sleep, memory, ageing, and how the body actually works. - History: ancient empires, revolutions, great discoveries, and the people who changed things. - Science and technology: space, evolution, physics, AI, inventions, and everyday phenomena explained properly. - Daily things: why déjà vu happens, how coffee was discovered, where common ideas come from. - Art and culture: painting, music, architecture, design, literature, and the movements behind them. - Food: where dishes come from and why we like what we like. - Famous people: the lives behind the names. Welcome to being Nerdish with us! Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Poetic

Access and enjoy thousands of classic English poems. Save your favorite verses, highlight key quotes for study, and easily share them with friends on social media.

Highlights
  • Thousands of classic English poems
  • Save favorite poems
  • Highlight quotes
  • Share poems and quotes
  • Social media sharing
Features
Read full description

Poetic is a beautifully simple reader for classic poetry - now with the entire library in your pocket and poems on your Home Screen. Enjoy more than 3,800 poems from 137 of the greatest poets in the English language - Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, Keats, Byron, Whitman, Phillis Wheatley, and many more. Completely free, and now completely offline. POEMS ON YOUR HOME SCREEN • Poem of the Day widget - a hand-picked short poem, new every morning. Free, always. • Favorites widget - your own anthology, rotating through the day. Any tip unlocks it as a thank-you. MEET THE POETS • Poet of the Day introduces you to a classic poet every day, with a short story of their life. • Browse all 137 poets and wander through their work. FIND ANY LINE • Instant search across every title, every poet, and every line of verse - even a half-remembered phrase. • Fresh picks and featured poets in Explore, every time you open it. MAKE IT YOURS • Save your favorite poems, sort them by recently added, and share them with friends. • Save quotes and share them on social media. • Studying poetry? Long-press any line to highlight it and keep it as a quote. • A gentle daily reminder, and light and dark themes. FREE, FOREVER All the poetry in Poetic is free - no subscriptions, no paywalls, ever. If Poetic brightens your days, an optional one-time tip unlocks the Favorites widget as a small thank-you, and helps keep the verses coming. Poetic requires iOS 17 or later.

Screenshots

Nerdish4 screens
Poetic4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Nerdish at 4.8 against Poetic's 3.0. Nerdish also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs every 3 months) and ratings volume (2.7K vs 2). 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Nerdish sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Poetic sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Nerdish holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Nerdish has 2.7K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of Nerdish's written reviews are positive against 50% of Poetic's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Nerdish ships an update every 5 days, Poetic every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Nerdish versus Poetic: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNerdishPoetic
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (2.7K ratings) — better3.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews60.0% of reviews — better50.0% of reviews
Number of ratings2.7K — better2
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank#81 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size63 MB20 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperNerdish OUDean Thompson

Customer experience

Nerdish

All ratings2,659 ratings
Positive96.2%
Neutral2.2%
Negative1.6%
Written reviews105 reviews
Positive60.0%
Neutral12.4%
Negative27.6%

Poetic

All ratings2 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

Bugs and requests

Nerdish

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Incomplete articles with missing content
  • Frequent app crashes and freezes
  • Subscription issues and billing problems

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add audio narration option
  • Implement bookmarking and note-taking features
  • Improve search and filtering capabilities
  • Provide more free content without ads

Poetic

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

5 purchases

Nerdish

Subscriptions5
  • Monthly Subscription14 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • Nerdish Premium Monthly$4.991 Month
  • Easy Quarterly Plan$11.993 Months
Show 2 more
  • Nerdish Annual Special$29.991 Year
  • Nerdish Premium Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year
3 purchases

Poetic

One-time3
  • Chocolate$0.99
  • Coffee$2.99
  • Coffee and Chocolate$5.99

Questions

Is Nerdish free?
Nerdish is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Poetic free?
Poetic is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Nerdish or Poetic?
Nerdish is rated higher. Nerdish averages 4.8 out of 5 from 2.7K ratings, while Poetic averages 3.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Nerdish or Poetic have ads?
Neither Nerdish nor Poetic shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Nerdish or Poetic?
Nerdish ships an update every 5 days, and Poetic every 3 months. Most recently, Nerdish was updated on October 18, 2026 and Poetic on October 13, 2026.

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