Bionic Reading® vs Beresta
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bionic Reading®
This app enhances reading speed and comprehension by highlighting the most concise parts of words. It offers customizable reading modes to aid users with reading difficulties and improve focus for all.
- Text revision for faster reading
- Customizable reading modes
- Save reading position across platforms
- Bookmarks for favorite pages
- Upload files, text, or websites for conversion
- Export to EPUB, PDF, WORD
- Light and Dark Mode
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All 6 Bionic Reading® Apps are available as a free or a Premium version – 6 for 1 Price. The one and only from Switzerland is a “Life Changer” for Lisa, a “Game Changer” for Tommy and “Absolutely Mind Blowing” for Kelly. Bionic Reading® Faster. Better. More focused. Reading. Bionic Reading® for Apple iOS, iPadOS, macOS, other platforms and web. We offer you the free version “Discover” and the subscriptions “Premium” and “Premium Plus”. BIONIC READING® IN NUMBERS. • 882+ Million: TikTok search results • 1+ Billion: Mentioned in communities • 233 Countries: Where our users come from • 5.9 Million: Website visitors • 3 Platforms: With viral posts • 50+ Viral posts: From our users Bionic Reading® revises texts in such a way that the most concise parts of the words are highlighted. This guides the eye over the text and the brain remembers words already learned more quickly. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. The Bionic Reading® reading mode can be individually adapted to the needs of all readers. This flexibility allows Bionic Reading® to provide maximum customization for all users. YOU GET. • Save precious time. • Gain advantages. • Learn new things faster. • Expand your knowledge. • Improve your skills. • Noise-free with more focus. • Less distraction. FEATURES. • Download as Word file. • You can now smoothly continue your reading experience with “Bionic Reading® Reader” across platforms, as the last reading position is now saved. • Bookmarks now allow you to mark your favorite pages. • Advanced Bionic Reading® Settings with Part of speech. • Bionic Reading® Reader for your reading experience. • Bionic Reading® Library for your favourites. • Synced content. • Fixation, Sccade, Opacity. • Fixation via Letters or Syllables. • Details. • Colors. • Light Mode. Dark Mode. • Upload File, Text or Website, convert and read in the Apps. • File Conversion. • Text Conversion. • Website Conversion. • Send to Amazon® Kindle. • Download as EPUB, PDF, WORD. • Carefully selected Fonts. • Designed for the Latin alphabet. +15% HAVE READING DIFFICULTIES. More than 15% of the population has great difficulty reading and understanding texts (ADHD, dyslexia). We have received feedback from people with ADHD that thanks to Bionic Reading® they immediately understood the content of various texts the first time they read them, which was impossible without Bionic Reading®. COMMENTS AND FEEDBACK. Jessica: “Having ADHD and processing issues means that I read very slow because my brain can’t focus on the words enough to both read them and process what they mean at a decent pace. Using Bionic Reading® has allowed me to feel functional and productive when I’m reading something lengthy – it’s such a GAME CHANGER!” Lisa: “I have not read fiction for 20 years. I read what I have to read. It almost hurts my brain to read regular type. But now I will be reading fiction again! Bionic Reading® works for me and I can read 2–3 times faster! AMAZING! This is a LIFE CHANGER! Thank You!” Patrick: “OK, Bionic Reading® is the real deal. I already read quickly and this doubled it.” Reaction from Daniel: “Holy smokes you’re not kidding!” Carla: “WOW! I could read quickly and fluently using Bionic Reading®. Doing this helped me understand the context of the paragraph much better than when I have to squint and focus on each word, which tires me out and I lose focus. Bionic Reading® is brilliant!” Nestor: “Your tool is gorgeous, It’s helping me a lot. My sight is reduced because one of my transplanted corneas has become opaque and Bionic Reading® is helping me a lot to read easier and comprehend faster.” TYPOGRAPHY. DESIGN. SWITZERLAND. With over 26 years of experience in typography, we know how important it is to get text right. It’s the small details that matter enormously to make you read better. INTERNATIONAL AWARDS FOR BIONIC READING®. • German Innovation Award 2023: Gold (highest distinction) • German Design Award 2023: Gold (highest distinction)
Beresta
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Beresta keeps what you read and what you took from it: books, articles, highlights — and the notes they turn into. BOOKS STAY FILES Opens EPUB, FB2, PDF, MOBI and plain text. Importing copies: the file you brought stays where it was. Any book comes back out as a file under its real name through Share; on the Mac, "Save a copy of the library…" lays the whole library out as Author/Title folders. A book may hold several files at once — the reader picks the one that reads best, and you can pick another by hand. HIGHLIGHTS YOU CAN TAKE WITH YOU A quote, your own thought beside it, tags, bookmarks. On iPad, ink over PDF pages with Apple Pencil. All of it exports into an Obsidian vault as ordinary Markdown files rather than "our format": a person edits the note, not the program, and the next export will not overwrite what you wrote. There is a separate Obsidian plugin, open source. SYNC WITHOUT SOMEONE ELSE'S SERVER Beresta has no server of its own and no account. Devices exchange through a place you choose. To Backblaze B2 and WebDAV everything travels sealed: the key is derived from your passphrase on the device itself and stays with you. Through a folder — your own, a shared one, or one inside iCloud Drive — the files travel as they are: there the storage protects them, not Beresta, so pick a folder you trust. A LIBRARY, NOT A FILE LIST Authors, series, tags, nested shelves. Search by title and author everywhere; search inside the book you are reading, too; full-text search across the whole library on the Mac. Reading statuses and a reading log. On the Mac, import from Calibre brings covers and your own highlights along, and import from Zotero brings articles and notes. ARTICLES FROM THE WEB RSS subscriptions deliver articles straight into the library and store them the way books are stored: text, images and the original source. On the Mac a page can be clipped with the Safari extension — it ships inside the app, nothing to install. ON ALL YOUR DEVICES One purchase covers Mac, iPhone and iPad. Widgets: continue reading, and quote of the day. A nearby device offers to continue the book you started; if that is too much, one switch in settings turns it off. WHAT BERESTA DOES NOT DO No account. No analytics, no telemetry, and nothing leaves your device on its own. If something goes wrong, "Diagnostics" in Settings builds a report, shows it to you in full before anything is sent, and you decide whether to send it at all. No ads. It does not decide for you where your books live. Keeping your own files is not about distrusting clouds. It is about libraries taking years to build, and apps living shorter lives than that. A year of updates is included. After that you can extend for new features — or stay with what you bought: the app keeps working.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Bionic Reading® at Free against Beresta's $19.99. Bionic Reading® also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 26.0). Beresta's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 weeks). On ads, in-app purchases, chart position 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
Bionic Reading® is free to download; Beresta costs $19.99 up front. Bionic Reading® sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $2.95 per month and Beresta sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Bionic Reading® ships an update every 3 weeks, Beresta every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bionic Reading® | Beresta |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $19.99 |
| Rating | 2.4 (155 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 26.3% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 155 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Best chart rank | #155 | #69 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 52 MB | 41 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Bionic Reading AG | Dmitriy Laukhin |
Bugs and requests
Bionic Reading®
Reported bugs
3 issues- App crashes or freezes
- Subscription issues (unable to upgrade, cancel, or get refunds)
- Conversion errors and failed file uploads
Requested features
3 requests- Integrate with more platforms (Kindle, web browser)
- Offer one-time purchase option instead of subscription
- Improve customer support and communication
Beresta
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Bionic Reading®
- Bionic Reading® Premium$2.951 Month
- Bionic Reading® Premium Plus$12.991 Month
- Bionic Reading® Premium$30.491 Year
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- Bionic Reading® Premium Plus$128.991 Year
Beresta
- Supporter$5.99
- Updates for 12 months$9.99
- Updates after a break$14.99
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- Believer$24.99
- Evangelist$59.99









