Comparison

ZiNote vs alphaXiv

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

Head to head
About

ZiNote

Access and organize academic papers from top research databases. Get personalized daily feeds, AI summaries, and journal tracking. Save, share, and export citations for your research library.

Highlights
  • Personalized daily research feed
  • Swipe to discover papers
  • AI summaries with offline translation
  • Journal tracking for 4,000+ publications
  • Save, share, and export citations
  • Organize papers in a personal library
Features
Read full description

ZiNote helps you discover, read and save academic research from arXiv, PubMed, Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex and academic journals. Explore scholarly paper titles, authors, abstracts and links in a personalized feed. DISCOVER RESEARCH Choose research topics, keywords and a year range to find relevant papers. Swipe right to save a paper to Liked, or left to skip it. FOLLOW JOURNALS Find journals in your field, follow them and browse their latest articles. READ AND UNDERSTAND Read abstracts, request AI summaries and translate paper titles and abstracts into 8 supported languages. Open the original paper and share papers with colleagues. START AS A GUEST Use guest mode, or sign in with Apple or an email verification code. ZINOTE PRO The free plan includes a daily paper allowance. Pro provides higher daily limits and expanded research features. Pro is available as an auto-renewing monthly or yearly subscription, or as a one-time lifetime purchase. Prices and plan details are shown in the app before purchase. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. Monthly and yearly subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Manage or cancel subscriptions in your App Store account settings. Restore purchases from the paywall or Profile membership section. Terms of Use: https://zinote.app/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://zinote.app/privacy-policy

About

alphaXiv

This app helps researchers stay updated with the latest AI studies from arXiv. It offers AI-powered summaries, literature reviews, and visual explanations of complex papers. Users can also annotate papers and track their research interests.

Highlights
  • Trending research feed
  • AI-powered literature reviews
  • Interactive paper reader with notes
  • AI Visual Blogs for paper explanations
  • Personalized research recommendations
Read full description

alphaXiv offers a suite of AI features built on top of arXiv that help you keep up with and quickly understand the latest research. Trending Feed Discover the most relevant AI research, curated by our community of hundreds of thousands of readers each week. See papers tailored to your specific research interests with quick informative blurbs to help you decide which papers to delve deeper. Library Bookmark favorite papers, keep track of your research and organize your work. Paper is missing on alphaXiv? Upload it into library and gain access to the same assistant and AI Overviews as the publically available papers. AI Assistant Understand the latest AI research with AI. Ask questions like 'What are the latest breakthroughs in RL fine-tuning?' and get comprehensive literature reviews with trending papers automatically included. Paper Reader View papers with highlights, personal notes, and quick access to our AI assistant. Come back anytime to a paper to see what parts you marked as important, any notes that you left for yourself, and your conversations with our assistant. AI Visual Blogs Turn any complex paper into clear visual explanations. Generate beautiful research blogs with figures, equations, and key insights from the paper with just one click. Join hundreds of thousands of weekly readers on alphaXiv to transform your research output. Whether you’re a curious undergrad or an applied research scientist, reading papers won’t ever feel the same again.

Screenshots

ZiNote4 screens
alphaXiv4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: alphaXiv at none against ZiNote's 5. alphaXiv also leads on update cadence (every 4 days vs every 6 weeks) and ratings volume (17 vs 2). ZiNote's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price, 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. ZiNote sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. alphaXiv asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

ZiNote holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: alphaXiv has 17 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ZiNote ships an update every 6 weeks, alphaXiv every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
ZiNote versus alphaXiv: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterZiNotealphaXiv
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better4.7 (17 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings217 — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 weeksEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS13.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size72 MB61 MB
Age rating4+12+
Developer小双 王alphaXiv Inc.

Customer experience

ZiNote

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

alphaXiv

All ratings17 ratings
Positive94.1%
Neutral0.0%
Negative5.9%
Written reviews9 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

5 purchases

ZiNote

Subscriptions4
  • ZiNote Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Early Bird Pricing$4.991 Month
  • ZiNote Pro Yearly$19.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Early Bird Yearly$49.991 Year
One-time1
  • ZiNote Pro Lifetime$69.99
None

alphaXiv

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ZiNote free?
ZiNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is alphaXiv free?
alphaXiv is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, ZiNote or alphaXiv?
ZiNote is rated higher. ZiNote averages 5.0 out of 5 from 2 ratings, while alphaXiv averages 4.7 from 17 ratings.
Do ZiNote or alphaXiv have ads?
Neither ZiNote nor alphaXiv shows ads.
Which is updated more often, ZiNote or alphaXiv?
ZiNote ships an update every 6 weeks, and alphaXiv every 4 days. Most recently, ZiNote was updated on October 30, 2026 and alphaXiv on November 5, 2026.

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