Comparison

AI Text Expander vs Lumen

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

Head to head
About

AI Text Expander

Read full description

Type a few letters. Insert the full message. SmartType is an intelligent iOS keyboard built around powerful text expansion. Turn short abbreviations into complete messages, email replies, links, addresses, contact details, and any other text you type often. Save your text once, then reuse it wherever you type. SmartType shows relevant inline suggestions as you enter an abbreviation, so the text you need is always ready without switching apps or searching through notes. TEXT EXPANSION Create reusable text templates for everyday conversations and workflows. Add short abbreviations, organize your templates into folders, and find any saved item with instant search. Use SmartType to: • Reply to common questions • Write emails faster • Share links and contact details • Enter addresses and other repeated information • Reuse complete messages with only a few taps Your saved text stays available directly from the keyboard in any app that supports third-party iOS keyboards. CLIPBOARD HISTORY Keep useful copied text close at hand. SmartType helps you find and reuse recent clipboard items without repeatedly switching between apps or copying the same content again. AI COMMANDS Use AI commands when you need more than a saved reply. Rewrite, improve, summarize, translate, or generate text directly from the keyboard. AI features run only when you explicitly select a command. Your ordinary typing and messages are not sent to external AI providers. BUILT FOR EVERYDAY TYPING Whether you are messaging friends, answering customers, working, or studying, SmartType helps you spend less time typing the same text again. Create your shortcuts once. Use them wherever you type. Type less. Say more. The app offers a SmartType Pro auto-renewable subscription that unlocks: • Unlimited AI Writing • Rewrite & Translate with AI • Unlimited Collections & Folders • Unlimited Snippets Privacy Policy: https://luckybeans.app/smarttype/privacy-policy Terms of Use: https://luckybeans.app/smarttype/terms-of-use

About

Lumen

This app acts as a browser that remembers what you read, building a personal knowledge base from engaged pages. It allows you to ask questions in plain English about your reading history, with answers generated by an on-device AI. All your data remains private and offline.

Highlights
  • On-device AI knowledge base
  • Plain English questioning
  • Automatic content organization
  • Private and offline browsing
  • Tracker blocking
  • Source citation for answers
Read full description

Lumen is a browser with a memory. Most browsers forget the second you close a tab. Lumen does not. As you read, it quietly builds a personal knowledge base from the pages you actually engage with, and then lets you ask questions about any of it in plain English, answered by an AI model that runs entirely on your device. Nothing you read, nothing you ask, and nothing Lumen learns about you ever leaves your phone. WHAT IT DOES Lumen reads along with you. It distinguishes between pages you genuinely read and pages you opened and swiped away, and it extracts the meaningful content from the ones that stuck. That content gets summarized, embedded, and organized into a searchable knowledge base, all on-device. Later, when you want to find something, you do not have to dig through history or remember which tab it was in. You just ask: "What did I read about sourdough starters last week?" "Summarize that article about the new M-series chips." "What were the main arguments in that piece I read on Tuesday?" Every answer cites the pages it came from, so you can jump straight back to the source. AUTO-ORGANIZED Your reading sorts itself into a clean hierarchy: Topics, Websites, and Pages. Each level carries its own AI-generated summary, so you can scan what you have been learning at a glance. No tagging, no folders to maintain. Lumen handles it in the background. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT Lumen has no server. There is quite literally nothing to send. On-device LLM: a quantized Llama 3.2 model runs locally through Apple's MLX framework. Local SQLite storage: your reading history, summaries, and embeddings never leave the device. Built-in privacy: tracker blocking, third-party cookie blocking, and fingerprint resistance. Secure: HTTPS-only by default, with mixed-content blocking. No strings attached: no accounts, no sync, no telemetry, no ads. The AI weights download once on first launch (~700 MB). After that, everything works fully offline: browsing, reading, asking, answering. BUILT FOR iOS Lumen is written from scratch in Swift and SwiftUI, designed specifically for iPhone and iPad. It uses Apple's own frameworks wherever it can: NLEmbedding for semantic search, WKWebView for browsing, SQLite with FTS5 for full-text queries, and MLX Swift for on-device inference. Zero third-party trackers. Zero external services. WHO IT'S FOR While most browsers treat the web as a feed to scroll past, Lumen treats it as a library worth keeping. If you read a lot online and constantly think "I know I saw something about this recently but I cannot find it again," Lumen is for you. Researchers, students, writers, developers, and lifelong learners. You do not need to change how you browse. Browse normally, and Lumen takes care of the rest. REQUIREMENTS iOS 18 or later. iPhone with Apple Silicon recommended for the fastest on-device AI performance.

Screenshots

AI Text Expander4 screens
Lumen4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Lumen at none against AI Text Expander's 2. Lumen also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs monthly). On price, 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

Both are free to download. AI Text Expander sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Lumen asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

AI Text Expander ships an update monthly, Lumen every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 1, 2026 and September 28, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
AI Text Expander versus Lumen: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAI Text ExpanderLumen
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (4 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings—4 — better
Update frequencyMonthlyEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPad — betteriPhone
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size74 MB28 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperOleksandr MomotiukDaniel Kosukhin

In-app purchases

2 purchases

AI Text Expander

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Pro Access$4.991 Month
  • Yearly Pro Access3 Days trial$29.991 Year
None

Lumen

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is AI Text Expander free?
AI Text Expander is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Lumen free?
Lumen is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do AI Text Expander or Lumen have ads?
Neither AI Text Expander nor Lumen shows ads.
Which is updated more often, AI Text Expander or Lumen?
AI Text Expander ships an update monthly, and Lumen every 2 weeks. Most recently, AI Text Expander was updated on October 1, 2026 and Lumen on September 28, 2026.

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