Nous vs Excerpta
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Nous
This app helps you actively track your reading by taking notes, capturing highlights, and organizing your library. It offers features for reflection, goal setting, and seamless integration with other services to enhance your reading experience.
- Real-time reading notes and thoughts
- Book library organization
- Highlight capture via typing or OCR
- Reading session reflection and summary
- Goal setting and streak tracking
- Sync with Obsidian and Kindle
- Homescreen widgets
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TRACK READING THOUGHTS IN REAL TIME • Read actively by taking notes and thoughts during a session • Type or dictate your session book notes, and capture mid-session thoughts without breaking flow • Add highlights and book quotes by typing or scanning the book with OCR • Struggle to remember what you read? Actively recall previous reading sessions to enhance memory YOUR LIBRARY • Organize your books: includes TBR, Next, Reading, Finished, Paused, and Did Not Finish (DNF) • Search by title or author, scan an ISBN, or library import from other apps • Track print by pages, ebooks by percentage location, audiobooks by listening time • Categorize books with personal tags • Sync your library on iCloud — access on all your devices • Connect to Kindle for seamless highlight capture DON'T JUST RECORD — REFLECT • Each book has a session history so you can see progress over time • Finishing a book opens a reflection: rate it, write a summary or book review, and see your reading pace charted over time • Half-star ratings supported • Weekly, monthly, and yearly views show what you've actually read • Search highlights and session notes to look back on your thinking ENHANCE MOTIVATION AND REACH YOUR READING GOALS • Keep your daily streak going — or don't — streaks are optional • Set daily or yearly reading goals: build a consistent habit and hit yearly book challenges • Track your focus and energy levels over time • Homescreen widgets: streaks, yearly reading, and reading goal INTEGRATE AND EXPORT YOUR NOTES • Sync with Obsidian to upload book notes, session summaries, and highlights to your vault • Export sessions immediately after they occur • Save all your sessions and export as a whole book, all your notes and reflections • Backup and restore: make sure your notes are always safe. Includes optional iCloud backup Terms of Service: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Excerpta
Track your reading progress, journal your thoughts, and save favorite quotes from any book. Capture text with your camera, organize your library, and visualize your reading habits over time. Discover new books and sync your progress across devices.
- Capture quotes via camera, photos, or typing
- Journal notes, page numbers, and reading moods
- Organize books by shelves, authors, and series
- Track reading progress and set yearly goals
- Analyze reading statistics and visualize habits
- Discover new books and import from other platforms
- Sync across devices with iCloud
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Excerpta is a book tracker that doubles as a reading journal. Every book gets its own timeline: the lines that stopped you, the notes you wrote, the pages you read each day, and how it all felt. Point your camera at a page to keep a quote. It keeps the rest too: your shelves, where you left off, and how your year in reading is going. KEEP THE WORDS – Capture quotes with the camera, from photos (a few pages at once), or by typing. The text is read right on your phone. – Tap a paragraph to keep it whole, or drag the highlighter across just the words you want. – Pick one of six highlight colors, add a note, and mark the page or chapter. – Tag the character who said it and add how it made you feel. Your moods can go to Apple Health too. – Quotes that don't belong to any book land in your Commonplace book. READ YOUR EPUBS Add an EPUB to any book and read it right here, with search, six themes, and your own font and margins. Highlight a passage to keep it as a quote, and the reader logs your reading for you. HOWEVER YOU READ Print, e-book, or audiobook. Owned, borrowed, or gifted. They all share the same shelves. – Add books by searching, scanning the barcode, or typing them in yourself. – Browse by book, author, character, or series. Series fill themselves in, or build your own. – Make as many shelves as you like. A book can sit on several. – Rate in half or quarter stars, write a review, and start a reread with a fresh timeline. – Add a new release as Upcoming and get a note the day it's out. KNOW WHERE YOU LEFT OFF – Start the reading timer, or set your page, your percent, or the time left in an audiobook. – Give a book a finish date, or your whole year a goal. – The Calendar shows each day you read as a cover, ringed by your mood, with your streak up top. SEE HOW THE YEAR IS GOING Stats shows what your reading actually looked like: Books Read, Pages Read, Days Read, Genres, Ratings, Mood, Top Authors, and Time to Finish. Reading Nooks gathers the photos you took and maps the places you read. Pick the cards, then look at a month, a year, or all time. FIND THE NEXT ONE Discovery brings in the NYT Bestsellers lists. Connect Hardcover to add what's trending, the most anticipated books, Vibes, and lists and prompts from other readers, plus each book's moods and similar books. BRING YOUR BOOKS ALONG – Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph, Kindle highlights, Kobo, Apple Books, or a spreadsheet. – Sync between your devices with iCloud. – Sync your library and shelves both ways with Hardcover, and your progress with KOReader. – Export any time, as one Markdown file per book, ready for Obsidian, Bear, or Notes. Export is always free. AROUND YOUR PHONE – Widgets for a quote, your current book, and your reading calendar, on the Home Screen and Lock Screen. – Screen Saver plays your quotes on a slow loop while your phone charges. – Capture a quote from Shortcuts or the Action button. – Share a quote as an image card, or send a friend a link to a book. – Ten reading fonts, and an app icon in your favorite highlight color. YOURS TO KEEP Your library lives on your phone and in your own iCloud. Open the app and add your first book. That's the whole sign-up. Excerpta is made by one person and one corgi. Your next favorite quote is waiting to be remembered. EXCERPTA UNBOUND Excerpta Unbound opens up everything above. Try it free for 7 days with the yearly plan, go monthly, or pay once and keep it for good. If your plan ends, your library stays readable and export stays free. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Any unused part of a free trial ends when you buy a subscription. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://excerpta.ink/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Nous at 5.0 against Excerpta's 3.5. Nous also leads on iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.2). Excerpta's advantage is monetization model (free vs freemium). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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
Both are free to download. Nous sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month and Excerpta sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Nous holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively.
Nous ships an update weekly, Excerpta every 6 days. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | Nous | Excerpta |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | 3.5 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | — | 66.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 2 — better |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 6 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 — better | 26.2 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 31 MB | 65 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Caelan Mitchell | Trevor Tarakjian |
Customer experience
Nous
Excerpta
In-app purchases
Nous
- Nous Plus — Monthly$3.991 Month
- Nous Plus — Yearly7 Days trial$29.991 Year
Excerpta
- Excerpta Unbound Monthly$1.991 Month
- Excerpta Unbound Yearly7 Days trial$14.991 Year
- Excerpta Unbound Forever$49.99









