Comparison

ZiNote vs Plasmid editor

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

Discover, read, and organize the latest academic papers from arXiv, PubMed, bioRxiv, medRxiv, Semantic Scholar, and OpenAlex — all in one swipe. ZiNote delivers a personalized daily feed of research papers matched to your keywords and interests. Built for PhD students, postdocs, and researchers who want to stay current without drowning in databases. Discover: Swipe through papers like a feed. Right to save, left to skip. Your daily feed learns from your reading behavior. Journal Tracker: Follow top journals — Nature, Science, Cell, PLOS, and 4,000+ more. New articles appear automatically with Impact Factor displayed. AI Summary: One-tap AI summaries in the paper's original language. Offline translation into 10+ languages powered by on-device ML. Organize: Save papers to your library. Share with colleagues. Export BibTeX citations for Zotero, Mendeley, or EndNote. Free to use. 20 papers/day. Upgrade for unlimited access. Terms of Use: https://zinote.app/terms-of-service

About

Plasmid editor

Features
Read full description

Import a SnapGene, GenBank or FASTA file. Every element is matched against the bases rather than trusted from the label, and each one is marked with how it was established: confirmed by exact sequence match, taken from the file's own annotation, or predicted from structure alone. 1. FOUR EDITS Replace the promoter. Add a gene. Remove a gene. Swap a part. Each one produces a finished construct, the Gibson assembly plan, and primers with melting temperatures. Homology arms extend until they are unique, so repeated sequence does not produce an ambiguous junction. Every design is re-assembled in silico before it is issued: if the product does not come back identical, you do not get the plan. 2. DESIGNS THAT WOULD HAVE FAILED QUIETLY A cargo in a FLEX or DIO cassette is stored antisense. Paste a normally written coding sequence into those coordinates and it goes in backwards. The app works out the required orientation from the cassette architecture and places it correctly. An annotated CDS is often only part of a longer reading frame. Replace just the annotated piece and your new gene inherits whatever sat in front of it — tags, targeting motifs, linkers - as an N-terminal fusion. The app reads upstream in frame, names what it finds, and offers to remove it. 3. PACKAGING SIZE, BEFORE YOU ORDER The ITR-to-ITR genome is measured and compared against the real limit for AAV, self-complementary AAV, lentivirus or adenovirus. When a design is too large, you get specific reductions with the base pairs each one saves and what it costs you. 4. PROMOTERS AND CAPSIDS Sixteen promoters covering neurons, astrocytes, hepatocytes, cardiomyocytes and ubiquitous expression. Each was read out of a publicly deposited plasmid map and carries the Addgene number and the exact coordinates it came from. They are exactly what that deposit contains - not sequence written from memory. A capsid guide pairs cell types with AAV serotypes, each with the caveat that matters. 5. EXPORT GenBank, SnapGene, or FASTA. Annotations, strands and topology survive the first two; FASTA is bases only, and the app says so before you pick it. 6. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION No account. No analytics. No advertising. Your vectors stay on your device. The app works offline; the one exception is an optional NCBI lookup when you type an accession, which sends nothing but that accession. 7. COMPANION APP Gene Search, free, finds genes and accessions in NCBI and hands them straight to this app. Gene Editing is a design aid. Every construct is a prediction from the sequence you supplied, and predictions can be wrong - most often because the file's own annotations were wrong. Verify every junction by sequencing before you rely on a construct.

Screenshots

ZiNote4 screens
Plasmid editor4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: ZiNote at Free against Plasmid editor's $1.99. ZiNote also leads on iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.1). Plasmid editor's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5). On 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

ZiNote is free to download; Plasmid editor costs $1.99 up front. ZiNote sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Plasmid editor asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard3 real differences · 6 level
ZiNote versus Plasmid editor: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterZiNotePlasmid editor
PriceFree — better$1.99
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 3 months—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS13.0 — better15.1
Further details — not scored
Size74 MB30 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer小双 王young-Hwan Jo

In-app purchases

5 purchases

ZiNote

Subscriptions4
  • Early Bird Pricing$4.991 Month
  • ZiNote Pro Monthly$4.991 Month
  • ZiNote Pro Yearly$29.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Early Bird Yearly$49.991 Year
One-time1
  • ZiNote Pro Lifetime$69.99
None

Plasmid editor

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ZiNote free?
ZiNote is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Plasmid editor free?
Plasmid editor costs $1.99, with no in-app purchases.
Do ZiNote or Plasmid editor have ads?
Neither ZiNote nor Plasmid editor shows ads.

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