Comparison

Novelist vs Concise

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

Head to head
About

Novelist

This app provides a comprehensive suite of tools for authors to write, organize, and plot their novels. It offers features for scene creation, story structuring, goal setting, and manuscript export. The platform is designed to support the entire novel-writing process, from initial ideas to the final draft.

Highlights
  • Plotting with customizable story elements
  • Scene writing with rich formatting
  • Story organization into acts and chapters
  • Word count goals and deadline scheduling
  • Manuscript export in EPUB, ODT, HTML
  • Autosave and version history
  • Companion web app
Features
Read full description

Join over 200k authors writing their next masterpiece with Novelist! Novelist is the all-in-one app for writing your novels—completely free with no ads or in-app purchases. We give you the freedom to create without limits. Whether you're plotting, outlining, organizing, or scheduling, Novelist provides powerful tools to help bring your story to life. Key Features: ▪ Plot: Organize your story elements like on a board. Easily edit, move, merge, reorder, and add notes, tags, metadata, or images. Everything is customizable. ▪ Write: Craft scenes directly in the app. Annotate or write with rich formatting tools. ▪ Organize: Structure your story into acts, chapters, or any format you like. ▪ Schedule: Set word count goals or deadlines to stay on track. Advanced Tools: ▪ Autosave, find/replace, add comments, and restore previous versions from history ▪ Mention story items directly in your text for quick reference ▪ Split your screen with reference panels to inspect items while writing ▪ Track your progress daily with detailed stats ▪ Real-time preview without leaving the app ▪ Export and share your manuscript in EPUB, ODT, or HTML formats ▪ Enjoy an interface optimized for large screens ▪ Write on any browser with the companion web app ▪ Create templates for book series to streamline your workflow ▪ Backup and restore locally or with Google Drive ▪ Switch to dark mode for comfortable writing during long sessions Your story, your way—with Novelist.

About

Concise

Enhance your writing with private, on-device analysis. Get instant feedback on readability, sentence structure, passive voice, and word choice to create clearer, sharper text.

Highlights
  • On-device writing analysis
  • Readability grade and reading time
  • Detection of hard sentences and passive voice
  • Suggestions for adverbs and complex words
  • Highlights wordy phrases
  • Local saved drafts
  • Offline analysis
Read full description

Concise helps you write clearer, sharper, easier-to-read text. Paste or type your writing and get instant private feedback on readability, hard sentences, passive voice, adverbs, complex words, wordy phrases, and weak qualifiers. Core writing analysis runs fully on-device, so your writing stays private. No account or internet connection is required for the core clarity checks. Use Concise for essays, emails, posts, notes, drafts, reports, captions, and any text you want to make cleaner before sharing. Features: - Readability grade - Word count, sentence count, and reading time - Hard sentence and very hard sentence detection - Passive voice detection - Adverb and weak word detection - Complex word suggestions - Wordy phrase highlights - Highlighted writing preview - Local saved drafts - Copy and reuse your edited text - Light and dark mode - Offline writing analysis Concise Pro Lifetime is an optional one-time purchase with no subscription. It adds local projects and folders, version history and comparison, smart fixes, six readability formulas, custom writing profiles, Markdown/RTF/PDF file tools, and batch analysis. Purchase and restore checks use the App Store and RevenueCat; writing and document content are not sent to them. Concise is built for fast, focused writing clarity. It is not a full grammar keyboard, AI chat app, or cloud writing assistant. It is a private editor that helps you spot the parts of your writing that may slow readers down. Privacy Policy: https://concise-clarity.netlify.app/privacy Terms Of Service(EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Novelist4 screens
Concise3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Concise at 5.0 against Novelist's 4.4. Concise also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 79%). Novelist's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4) and ratings volume (214 vs 2). On price, update cadence, ads 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. Concise sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Novelist asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Concise holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Novelist has 214 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 79% of Novelist's written reviews are positive against 100% of Concise's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Novelist ships an update every 6 weeks, Concise monthly. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Novelist versus Concise: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNovelistConcise
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (214 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews79.5% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings214 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksMonthly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size54 MB48 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAlessandro RiperiStarter Studio, Inc.

Customer experience

Novelist

All ratings209 ratings
Positive84.2%
Neutral6.7%
Negative9.1%
Written reviews219 reviews
Positive79.5%
Neutral10.5%
Negative10.0%

Concise

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Novelist

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Backup/restore process can lead to data loss
  • Cursor and text editing issues
  • Crashes and freezes on some devices
  • Syncing problems between devices

Requested features

7 requests
  • Ability to import/export in various formats (PDF, Markdown, etc.)
  • Improved syncing and cloud integration
  • More font and formatting options
  • Ability to add images/illustrations to the book
  • Collaboration/co-writing features
Show 2 more
  • Spell check and grammar tools
  • Customizable keyboard in dark mode

Concise

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Novelist

No in-app purchases

4 purchases

Concise

Subscriptions3
  • Concise Pro+ Weekly$4.997 Days
  • Concise Pro+ Monthly$9.991 Month
  • Concise Pro+ Yearly$39.991 Year
One-time1
  • Concise Pro Lifetime$14.99

Questions

Is Novelist free?
Novelist is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Concise free?
Concise is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Novelist or Concise?
Concise is rated higher. Novelist averages 4.4 out of 5 from 214 ratings, while Concise averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Novelist or Concise have ads?
Neither Novelist nor Concise shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Novelist or Concise?
Novelist ships an update every 6 weeks, and Concise monthly. Most recently, Novelist was updated on November 3, 2026 and Concise on October 31, 2026.

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