Comparison

Gutenberg Project vs Dewey

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

Head to head
About

Gutenberg Project

Access over 60,000 classic books and 7,000 human-read audiobooks from Project Gutenberg. Enjoy a beautiful reading experience with synchronized audio and text, intelligent table of contents, and personalized recommendations based on user data. Export books with notes and bookmarks.

Highlights
  • Access 60,000+ classic books
  • 7,000+ human-read audiobooks
  • Synchronized read-along audio/text
  • Intelligent Table of Contents
  • Big data-driven recommendations
  • Export books with notes/bookmarks
Features
Read full description

【Premier Reader】: This app costs $6, and our users are paying for it each and every day. Why? It is the best Gutenberg Reader: beautiful images, elegant formatting, and graceful page turning. Contents live from Project Gutenberg with last-minute update, more than 60,000 most important books ever published in history. Plus more than 7,000 human-read audio books. 【Audio books】: There are more than 7,000 human-read audio books, all for the price of a cup of coffee. Alternatively you could pay $3-5 for a single audiobook as some of the "Audio app" would ask you to pay. 【Book recommendation】: Every app gives you a list of book recommendation, but where did they find the list? dreamed up in 'lala' land? We base our recommendation solidly on big data, tens of millions of pages actually read by our users. Downloading or page flipping has no effect on the ranking of our recommendation list. 【Number of Books】: No other apps have more Gutenberg books, and many competitors are missing some classic Gutenberg books, and many competitors use outdated data from Gutenberg. 【Reading】: Texts and images are presented by a sophisticated book reader: beautiful presentation, graceful page turning, and the most intelligent Table of Contents (better than any other book reader for the same book). 【Read-along】: Audio and Text are synchronized when possible. You can read, listen, or read-Along, and switch between them at will. 【Export】: Export a book together with bookmarks and the notes you inserted into the book to anyone and any device, or save it i the cloud (google drive, one drive, or iCloud). * The PAID version "Gutenberg Books" allows unlimited reading and listening.

About

Dewey

Engage in deep conversations about any book with AI personas, digitize your notes and highlights from physical pages, and build lasting reading habits. Discover your reading identity and map your literary tastes.

Highlights
  • AI-powered book discussions
  • Digitize physical book notes
  • Memory retention lessons
  • Reading habit tracking
  • Reading taste mapping
  • Discover reading identity
Features
Read full description

Dewey is the reading companion for people who want more from every book: a real conversation, a home to document what mattered, and the tools to actually remember it. TALK THROUGH ANY BOOK Ever finish a book and wish you had someone to think it through with? Choose a persona: a Literary Critic, a Professor, a well-read Friend, or the Editor (The Writing Room) and discuss any book in your library. Ask about themes and characters, push back on an argument, or take a finished book apart to see how it was built. Every conversation is shaped by the exact book you're reading and designed to fo deep on whatever sticks out to you! Beware the virtual author might disagree with you! SNAP A PHOTO-CAPTURE EVERYTHING Photograph a page and Dewey pulls your highlights and handwritten notes into clean, editable text. Save quotes and add reflections chapter by chapter. Your best thinking for all of your books for the first ever lives in one Notebook. Dewey is built to be an additive tool, we still expect you to still highlight and write margin notes in your physical book, we just centralize your ideas so they're accessible at any time. REMEMBER WHAT YOU READ You're not alone- so many times we often find ourselves saying "I can't remember anything of what I read" with most books fading within days of finishing it. Dewey's daily memory lessons teach the science of retention (i.e. the forgetting curve, spaced repetition, active recall etc.) so what you read actually sticks. MAP YOUR TASTE Rate every finished book by craft and impact and watch your whole library arrange itself on your Reading Map. BUILD A READING HABIT Track a daily reading streak, log the days you read on a calendar, and watch your year add up and see how many books you finished, pages read, genres explored etc.. DISCOVER YOUR READING IDENTITY Your habits reveal more than you think. See your Reading DNA, the themes you return to, your reading personality etc. all drawn from the books you read and the notes you take. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Gutenberg Project4 screens
Dewey4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Dewey at 5.0 against Gutenberg Project's 3.3. Dewey also leads on monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid). Gutenberg Project's advantage is ratings volume (43 vs 1) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, ads and in-app purchases 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. Gutenberg Project sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Dewey sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Dewey holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Gutenberg Project has 43 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Gutenberg Project versus Dewey: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGutenberg ProjectDewey
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.3 (43 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews40.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings43 — better1
Update frequencyEvery 2 months—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationPaidFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size26 MB61 MB
Age rating17+12+
Developerhimalaya-softGlenn Harris

Customer experience

Gutenberg Project

All ratings43 ratings
Positive53.5%
Neutral9.3%
Negative37.2%
Written reviews59 reviews
Positive40.7%
Neutral6.8%
Negative52.5%

Dewey

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

Gutenberg Project

Reported bugs

16 issues
  • 504 bad gateway errors
  • App not working at all
  • App not showing any pages
  • Search doesn't find anything but error 404
  • Stopped working, will not load catalog
Show 11 more
  • Close when attempt to open current book
  • Could not download more than four pages
  • Downloaded books became confused
  • Every time you touch the screen wrong it flips the page
  • Sets you back to page one
  • Deleted all offline books and audiobook
  • Missing offline books
  • Cannot read the description of the book
  • Books open at the end
  • Too many redirects
  • Most buttons go to an 'email a friend' page or 'Access forbidden'

Requested features

10 requests
  • Ability to choose favorite colors for reading
  • Paid premium version with custom color combinations
  • Sourcing more Gutenberg sites
  • Option to make text black on white
  • Continuous ad at bottom or top instead of full page
Show 5 more
  • Less stylized page turn option (swipe or continuous scroll)
  • One app for finding, downloading, and reading
  • Ability to search Audiobooks by Genre
  • Ability to favorite and build a library
  • Night reading mode facility

Dewey

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Gutenberg Project

One-time2
  • Unlimited Reading$2.99
  • Unlimited Listening$2.99
2 purchases

Dewey

Subscriptions2
  • Dewey Premium Monthly$5.991 Month
  • Dewey Premium Annual$59.991 Year

Questions

Is Gutenberg Project free?
Gutenberg Project is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Dewey free?
Dewey is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Gutenberg Project or Dewey?
Dewey is rated higher. Gutenberg Project averages 3.3 out of 5 from 43 ratings, while Dewey averages 5.0 from 1 ratings.
Do Gutenberg Project or Dewey have ads?
Neither Gutenberg Project nor Dewey shows ads.

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