Shortwave vs Basis
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Shortwave
This AI-powered email client streamlines your inbox with intelligent organization, writing assistance, and team collaboration tools. It helps you manage emails, schedule meetings, and turn messages into actionable tasks, all while learning your unique style.
- AI-powered email writing and drafting
- Intelligent inbox organization and clutter removal
- Real-time team collaboration and email assignment
- AI-assisted meeting scheduling
- Email to-do list conversion
- Customizable AI prompts and automations
- Management of multiple Gmail accounts
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AI-NATIVE EMAIL FOR BUSINESS "The AI revolution is coming for your email" – Business Insider "This app is like ChatGPT for your email, and it changed my life" – Digital Trends "The Google Inbox successor I’ve been waiting for" – The Verge YOUR AI EMAIL ASSISTANT Supercharge your productivity with advanced AI & real-time team collaboration. Write emails, improve drafts, schedule meetings, analyze threads, translate text, and more using Shortwave’s powerful AI Assistant. ORGANIZE YOUR INBOX WITH AI With 1-tap, Shortwave’s AI Assistant can identify urgent emails, group threads into todos, and sweep away the remaining clutter so you can get to inbox zero with zero effort. SHARE & DISCUSS EMAILS WITH YOUR TEAM Get the right people involved and bring everyone up to speed fast with private team comments and live thread sharing. Assign emails to teammates to delegate next steps. WRITE EMAILS WITH AI Write personalized emails with AI in seconds, or use instant AI replies to get full drafts in just one tap. Shortwave learns your unique writing style and even facts about you from the emails you send. IMPROVE AND PROOFREAD DRAFTS Complete your drafts, adjust length and tone, translate into other languages, and more with a built-in AI editor. SEARCH AND FIND ANSWERS Use AI-powered search to find emails fast, or to analyze your entire team's emails & attachments for the answers you need SCHEDULE MEETINGS WITH AI Spend less time juggling calendars with AI-powered scheduling features. Create events, send AI-generated scheduling emails, accept calendar events with one click, and more. GET ORGANIZED WITH SPLITS AND BUNDLES Focus your time & attention by dividing your inbox into tabs for important emails, specific senders, labels & even custom queries. Use bundles for fast triage of promotions, newsletters, updates, and other automated emails. TURN EMAILS INTO TODOS Transform your overflowing inbox into an organized list of action items. Group, rename, prioritize, and add notes, right in your inbox. SET DELIVERY SCHEDULES Avoid interruptions by deferring when emails arrive in your inbox, so you only receive emails when you want them. VIEW READ STATUSES See when people read your emails to get the context you need to prioritize your time and write effective follow-ups. Close more deals and collaborate better with your team. SCREEN UNWANTED SENDERS Guard your inbox from noise with one-click block and unsubscribe. FINE-TUNE PUSH NOTIFICATIONS Granular push controls let you minimize distractions with personalized alerts for specific senders and types of emails. CUSTOMIZE EVERYTHING Customize AI prompts and automate your team’s work with AI Snippets & AI Automations. Adjust tons of details in settings, and make Shortwave yours with custom colors and beautiful light & dark modes. MANAGE MULTIPLE ACCOUNTS Organize all of your Gmail accounts from one app and seamlessly switch between them in a single swipe. SYNCS WITH GMAIL Migrate seamlessly to Shortwave from your existing Gmail or Google Workspace account with all of your labels, filters, and other settings imported. If you have questions or want to learn more about Shortwave and best practices, you can find resources here: https://www.shortwave.com/docs/
Basis
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Basis is a personal productivity tool that holds your tasks, notes, and reference material in one calm workspace. No more switching between a task app and a note app. One system for everything you want to do, remember, and save. WHY BASIS Your brain doesn't split "reply to Mike" from "the article I want to save" from "the recipe to try later." Different apps do, and every context switch is a tax on focus. Basis holds active tasks, captured notes, and your reference library in one place. Everything's cleanly organized, but nothing's walled off just because it happens to be a task versus a note. FEATURES - Tasks and notes in a unified interface - Reference library for articles, PDFs, photos, meeting notes - Notebooks to organize what you save, or leave things loose - Natural language capture: type "buy milk tomorrow p1 @errands" and Basis prioritizes, schedules, and tags it - Focus section to curate what you're working on today - Rich text editor with tables, lists, and inline images - Full keyboard support for power users DESIGNED FOR CALM Most productivity apps get louder over time. More badges. More features begging for attention. Basis takes the other path. Every design choice is against the noise, so your work stands out, not the app. WHO IT'S FOR For anyone who keeps their tasks in one app and their notes in another. Basis brings both together in one calm workspace.
Screenshots
Verdict
Shortwave and Basis are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
| Parameter | Shortwave | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (710 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 65.4% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 710 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 — better | 15.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Shortwave Communications, Inc. | Lance Hackney |
Bugs and requests
Shortwave
Reported bugs
3 issues- Unreliable email bundling and threading
- Inconsistent performance and stability issues
- Bugs with email forwarding and attachment handling
Requested features
5 requests- Add support for more email providers
- Improve iPad and tablet optimization
- Enhance customization options for labels and actions
- Integrate with more productivity apps and services
- Provide better transparency around data usage and privacy
Basis
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Shortwave
No in-app purchases
Basis
No in-app purchases









