Comparison

Shortwave vs Stickio

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

Head to head
About

Shortwave

This AI-powered email client streamlines your inbox with intelligent assistance for writing, organizing, and scheduling. It offers real-time team collaboration, advanced search, and customizable workflows to boost productivity.

Highlights
  • AI-powered email writing and drafting
  • Intelligent inbox organization and clutter removal
  • Real-time team collaboration and email sharing
  • AI-driven meeting scheduling
  • Advanced AI-powered search and analysis
  • Customizable workflows and AI snippets
Read full description

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/

About

Stickio

Features
Read full description

Stickio is a calendar for iPhone and iPad that reads like the planner on your desk. Your appointments sit on paper pages, and the little things you need to remember go on top as sticky notes. THE WEEK IS A BOOK Monday to Wednesday on the left page, Thursday to Sunday on the right. Every day shows its appointments at a glance, with a small gauge for how full it is against your working hours. STICKY NOTES FOR EVERYTHING ELSE Stick a note on any day in one of six paper colours: Yellow, Pink, Mint, Sky, Peach or Lilac. Tick it off, turn it into an appointment, or move it to another day. A note stays on its day until you move it. DAY, WEEK AND MONTH • Day: an hour-by-hour page, so you see where the time goes. • Week: the two-page spread, with sticky notes on every day. • Month: one line per day, a grid beside the selected day, or the full grid. Every level scrolls without end into the past and the future, and the month tabs on the edge take you anywhere with your thumb. ADD THINGS WITH ONE PRESS Long-press a day and choose a new appointment or a new sticky note. Set the time, the length, the calendar and a colour, and you're done. ALL YOUR CALENDARS, TOGETHER Connect Google, Outlook and Microsoft 365, iCloud, other CalDAV calendars or a calendar link, and every calendar appears in its own colour. Add as many accounts as you like, side by side. Create, move, edit and delete appointments, answer invitations, and change one or every occurrence of a repeating event. MADE FOR IPAD, TOO On iPad the book opens flat: both pages side by side, two days as facing pages, and the month next to the selected day's agenda. WORKS OFFLINE Stickio keeps your appointments on the device. Changes you make offline are sent as soon as you're back online. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account with us, no ads, no tracking. Your appointments stay with your calendar provider. Sticky notes, colours and settings sync between your devices through your own iCloud. Nothing is sent to a server of ours. Questions or ideas? Mail info@cre8-it.nl.

Screenshots

Shortwave4 screens
Stickio4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Stickio at every 3 days against Shortwave's every 4 weeks. Shortwave's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Shortwave ships an update every 4 weeks, Stickio every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Shortwave versus Stickio: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShortwaveStickio
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (757 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews65.4% of reviews—
Number of ratings757 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 weeksEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size26 MB33 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperShortwave Communications, Inc.Cre8-it

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

Stickio

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Shortwave

No in-app purchases

None

Stickio

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Shortwave free?
Shortwave is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Stickio free?
Stickio is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Shortwave or Stickio have ads?
Neither Shortwave nor Stickio shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Shortwave or Stickio?
Shortwave ships an update every 4 weeks, and Stickio every 3 days. Most recently, Shortwave was updated on November 11, 2026 and Stickio on November 10, 2026.

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