Workflowy vs Author
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Workflowy
Capture ideas, manage tasks, and organize your thoughts with an infinitely nestable system. This app offers AI assistance for summarization and brainstorming, along with collaborative features and robust search capabilities. It syncs across devices and works offline, making it a powerful tool for personal and team productivity.
- Infinitely nested lists
- AI summarization and brainstorming
- Kanban boards for task management
- Real-time collaboration and sharing
- Global search and filtering
- Offline access and cross-device sync
- Tagging and mentions
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Workflowy is a simple, distraction-free app for capturing notes, managing tasks, and organizing your thinking. Infinitely nestable, surprisingly powerful - it helps you manage all the information in your life. With Workflowy you can: • Capture notes and ideas in an instant • Organize complex thinking with infinite nesting • Ask AI to summarize, rewrite, or brainstorm with your notes • Plan and manage tasks with kanban boards • #Tag and @assign items to stay on top of things • Link items across lists - edit once, update everywhere • Share and collaborate in real-time • Upload photos, files, and embed videos • Search and filter your entire Workflowy in seconds Workflowy syncs across all your devices and auto-saves everything. No more missing notes or lost files. Trusted by teams and thinkers at: Atlassian, Slack, The New York Times, and thousands of entrepreneurs, writers, engineers, scientists, and students worldwide. Feature highlights: • Infinitely nested lists • Workflowy AI (chat with notes, AI nodes, quick actions) • Calendar • Kanban boards • Mirrors (live synced copies) • #Tags and @mentions • Date organization with /date shortcuts • Global text search and filtering • Simple sharing and permissions • Works offline • Syncs with desktop and web • One-swipe task completion • File uploads and image attachments • Highlight text and color tags • Item starring • YouTube and X embeds • MFA (Multi-factor authentication) • Expand and collapse lists • Mobile keyboard shortcuts Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/appstore/dev/stdeula/
Author
This app serves as a companion to its macOS counterpart, offering a minimalist and powerful writing experience on iOS devices. It allows users to create and manage their written content seamlessly across platforms.
- Minimalist writing interface
- Powerful writing tools
- iOS companion app
- Syncs with macOS version
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The iOS companion to Author macOS.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Workflowy at Free against Author's $19.99. Workflowy also leads on rating (4.8 vs 3.0) and update cadence (weekly vs every 2 months). On ads, in-app purchases, monetization model 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
Workflowy is free to download; Author costs $19.99 up front. Workflowy sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $8.99 per month and Author sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Workflowy holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Workflowy has 8.2K ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of Workflowy's written reviews are positive against 72% of Author's.
Workflowy ships an update weekly, Author every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 1, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Workflowy | Author |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $19.99 |
| Rating | 4.8 (8.2K ratings) — better | 3.0 (5 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 88.0% of reviews — better | 71.5% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 8.2K — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 147 MB | 4 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | FunRoutine INC | The Augmented Text Company LTD |
Customer experience
Workflowy
Author
User reviews
Workflowy
From 8.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Best way to organize thoughts
- 🔒 Secure and reliable
- 👍 Simple and intuitive
- 👍 Excellent for productivity and organization
- 👍 Versatile for various use cases
Room to improve
- 🐛 Occasional data loss issues
- 🐛 Offline mode not always reliable
- 🔋 Can be slow on mobile devices
- 👎 Limited customization options
Author
From 5 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- ✨ Clean, minimalist interface design
- 💡 Innovative concept mapping and mind mapping features
- 📚 Excellent citation and reference management
- ⌨️ Useful keyboard shortcuts and productivity features
- 🎯 Powerful outlining and document folding capabilities
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and data loss issues
- 📱 iOS/iPad app severely broken and non-functional
- 🔄 Syncing problems between devices
- 🎨 Limited formatting and customization options
- 📊 Poor image handling capabilities
Bugs and requests
Workflowy
Reported bugs
3 issues- Cursor sometimes gets stuck
- Syncing issues between web and mobile versions
- Inability to delete items consistently
Requested features
4 requests- Add ability to attach files and documents
- Improve mobile app experience
- Implement better notification and reminder system
- Add more formatting options (e.g., font styles, colors)
Author
Reported bugs
20 issues- App crashes frequently, causing data loss
- iOS app shows blank screen and won't open documents
- iPad app completely non-functional
- Text disappears or becomes greyed out during iCloud saves
- Vision OS app lacks cursor for text input
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- Ask AI feature shows infinite loading spinner
- Unexpected Russian pricing text displayed to US users
- App doesn't launch or open on some systems
- Files not detected in Downloads folder
- Cannot open documents created in desktop version on iOS
- Automatic file conversion to Liquid format breaks iOS compatibility
- Text rendering issues (white text on white background)
- Table function broken - cannot write in cells
- App lags and deletes lines when typing quickly
- Highlight feature not working
- Citations not resolving automatically
- Markdown export only exports preamble
- Copy-paste functionality issues
- French localization not working despite being advertised
- App not compatible with iOS 18 and latest macOS versions
Requested features
20 requests- iPad and iOS app that actually works
- Typewriter scrolling mode
- Variable screen width for large displays
- Complete LaTeX export with full file support
- Markdown support
Show 15 moreShow fewer
- Better image handling and integration
- Find and replace functionality
- Dark mode for older macOS versions
- Inline predictive text support
- Nested list creation and editing
- Paragraph indentation options
- Photo support on macOS version
- Keyboard shortcut reference guide
- Table editing improvements
- Integration with reference management software (Zotero, EndNote)
- Local AI endpoints or BYOK (Bring Your Own Key) for privacy
- Better onboarding and UI guidance for new users
- Typeface options (Courier, American Typewriter, serif fonts)
- Line spacing options (1.5, double spacing)
- Color themes and dark mode options
In-app purchases
Workflowy
- Workflowy Pro - Monthly$8.991 Month
- Workflowy Pro - Yearly$79.991 Year
Author
- Export & AIFree
- Eng$1.99









