CurateLit vs Nerdi
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side β with what reviewers say about each.
CurateLit
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- CurateLit helps researchers and learners discover and manage academic papers from arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv. - Browse like cards: swipe left to skip, right to save; view multiβday collections, filter by keywords, batch manage.
Nerdi
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Read real research papers from across science β a fresh handful every day, with original abstracts and PDFs. Papers come from OpenAlex, an open catalog of scholarly research. Each entry has the paper's actual title, authors and original abstract, plus a link to the source β usually a PDF, sometimes a publisher's page. The catalog is a curated, growing selection of recent papers across twelve fields β a few hundred new ones arrive each week β rather than the whole of OpenAlex. It is meant to let you read carefully, not to be a search engine. There are no AI-generated summaries: what you read is the paper's own abstract, unmodified. You do not need an account. Open the app and the day's picks are there. Save a paper, keep your place in it, and hide ones you are not interested in β all of that works entirely on your device if you never sign in. Signing in with Apple is optional. With Nerdi Plus, your saved papers, your reading position in each, your notes and collections, your hidden list and your interests follow you between devices. Apple's private relay address works fine if you would rather not share your real one. Nerdi Plus is an optional auto-renewing subscription, weekly, monthly or annual. It gives you an unlimited library (free readers can save 5 papers), notes and collections for your papers, offline PDFs, BibTeX and RIS export of your library, adding any paper by pasting a DOI, arXiv, PubMed or OpenAlex link, and sync across your devices. Reading, the daily picks, search and filters stay free, and nothing you saved is removed if Plus ends. Payment is charged to your Apple ID. The subscription renews automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Worth knowing before you start: PDF links come from publishers, and like any link on the open web some will be slow, paywalled or broken. An "open access" label reflects the source's claim, not a guarantee. There is no highlighting inside PDFs, and no notifications. No ads and no cross-app tracking. Nothing is sold and nothing goes to data brokers. Nerdi Plus is an optional auto-renewing subscription; everything else is free. Usage sharing is on by default with a switch in Settings; it records a handful of interaction events β opening a paper, a PDF loading or failing, saving something, tapping a daily pick β and never what you searched for or the contents of what you read. Requires iOS 17 or later. iPhone only.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: CurateLit at none against Nerdi's 3. CurateLit also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). On price and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Nerdi sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per 7 days. CurateLit asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | CurateLit | Nerdi |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | β | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No β better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod β better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 β better | 17.0 |
| Further details β not scored | ||
| Size | 38 MB | 55 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | ζθ΄ θ°’ | KORAY OZCAN |
In-app purchases
CurateLit
No in-app purchases
Nerdi
- Nerdi Plus Weekly$1.997 Days
- Nerdi Plus Monthly$4.991 Month
- Nerdi Plus Yearly7 Days trial$29.991 Year









