Comparison

Clew vs Emphasized

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

Head to head
About

Clew

Capture and organize quotes, notes, and highlights from books, articles, films, and podcasts. Discover connections between your saved content through powerful tagging and intelligent recommendations. This app acts as a digital commonplace book, synced across all your devices.

Highlights
  • Save highlights from books, web, film, TV, and podcasts
  • Organize and search saved content
  • Discover connections between saved items
  • Tagging and intelligent recommendations
  • Syncs across all devices
  • Camera scanning for book pages
Features
Read full description

Clew is the fastest, easiest way to save passages, quotes, and notes from the things you read, watch, and listen to, so you can start discovering connections between everything you save. Remember the last time you wrote in the margin of a novel, only to finish the book and never see that thought again? How many times have you clipped parts of articles, songs, and podcasts and saved them to a note somewhere, hidden and forgotten? Clew is a single place for all your highlights, clips, and favorite lines—stored, organized, and searchable in one place. It's a commonplace book that you'll always have with you, easily searchable and synced between all your devices. Clew helps you connect thoughts across sources, centuries, and media types through powerful tagging and intelligent recommendations. Start discovering connections between everything you've saved from: - Books and poems you read - Movies and TV shows you watch - Podcasts and audiobooks you listen to - Songs you love - Articles you read online or on paper Simply copy-and-paste text into the app, use the Share extension, or scan book pages and documents with your device's camera to save a new highlight. Clew makes it easy to sort and search your highlights by source (author, website, etc.), date saved, publication year, genre, keywords, and more. Build your collection, and watch as you start finding connections and patterns across books, artists, decades, genres, languages, and more. This is your new favorite place to store, sort, and share clippings from all your favorite media, whether it's a mind-blowing plot twist in a novel, a hilarious quote in a movie or play, a devastating song lyric, a grand discovery in an article, or simply a quirky adjective you can't wait to use in your own writing. This is Clew. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Emphasized

Effortlessly capture and organize important text from any webpage. Save, edit, and export your highlights as a PDF without needing an account. Boost your research and study sessions with this intuitive tool.

Highlights
  • Highlight text on webpages
  • Multiple color options
  • Auto-save highlights locally
  • Organize by webpage
  • Export highlights to PDF
  • Undo/delete highlights
  • Character and word selection modes
Features
Read full description

Whether you're cramming for a test, diving deep into research, or just collecting great quotes, this highlighter's got your back. Highlight text on any webpage—no sign-in, no fuss. Everything's saved automatically on your device and neatly grouped by page or tag, so you can always pick up where you left off. Change colors, tweak and tag highlights, and export them all when you're ready to share or review. Highlighting • Highlight text on webpages • Use multiple colors • Change the color of existing highlights • Delete highlights you no longer need • Split or merge existing highlights • Easily undo highlighted text with a single tap Tags • Create tags with custom colors to categorize your highlights • Assign or change tags on any existing highlights • Select an active tag to automatically apply it while highlighting Selection Modes • Characters: grab just the letters you want • Words: select full words even if selecting mid-word • None: disable highlighting while keeping existing highlights visible Auto-Save • Highlights are saved locally on your device • Automatically restored when you revisit the same webpage • No account or sign-in required Organized View • Browse highlights by webpage • Browse all highlights by tag across every website • Quickly find and review your saved content Exporting • Export highlights as a clean, shareable PDF • Export as plain text or JSON • Share directly via the system share sheet Other Features • Reposition the toolbar if it gets in the way • Boost productivity with keyboard shortcuts for highlighting and switching tags (requires physical keyboard) • See your active highlight settings, all keyboard shortcuts, and support links in the Settings page Works on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

Screenshots

Clew4 screens
Emphasized4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Clew at Free against Emphasized's $2.99. Clew also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.0) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 4 months). Emphasized's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3). On ratings volume, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

Clew is free to download; Emphasized costs $2.99 up front. Clew sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Emphasized asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Clew holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3 and 4 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Clew ships an update every 3 weeks, Emphasized every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and September 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Clew versus Emphasized: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterClewEmphasized
PriceFree — better$2.99
Rating5.0 (3 ratings) — better4.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings34 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS18.017.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size33 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperThomas TwardzikAlgirdas Gridziuska

Customer experience

Clew

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Emphasized

All ratings4 ratings
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Clew

One-time3
  • Small Tip - $0.99$0.99
  • Generous Tip - $2.99$2.99
  • Super Tip - $9.99$9.99
None

Emphasized

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Clew free?
Clew is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Emphasized free?
Emphasized costs $2.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Clew or Emphasized?
Clew is rated higher. Clew averages 5.0 out of 5 from 3 ratings, while Emphasized averages 4.0 from 4 ratings.
Do Clew or Emphasized have ads?
Neither Clew nor Emphasized shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Clew or Emphasized?
Clew ships an update every 3 weeks, and Emphasized every 4 months. Most recently, Clew was updated on September 24, 2026 and Emphasized on September 8, 2026.

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