Comparison

Scollr vs PubMinder

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

Head to head
About

Scollr

Features
Read full description

Scollr is a personalized feed for discovering research papers from journals, preprint servers, and academic repositories. Follow the topics, authors, and journals that matter to you. Scollr learns from the signals you give it - what you follow, save, and read - to build a research feed that fits your interests. PERSONALIZED RESEARCH FEED See papers shaped by your topics, authors, journals, bookmarks, and reading signals. Two researchers in the same field can get meaningfully different feeds based on what they care about. FOLLOW TOPICS, AUTHORS, AND JOURNALS Track broad fields, niche topics, specific researchers, journals, and preprint sources. Refine your follows anytime as your projects change. PLAIN-LANGUAGE PAPER SUMMARIES Many papers include short TLDR summaries so you can quickly decide what deserves a deeper read. SAVE PAPERS TO COLLECTIONS Organize papers by project, theme, class, lab meeting, or read-later list. Keep collections private or share them publicly. DISCUSS RESEARCH Comment on papers, ask questions, and point other readers to related work. FOLLOWING, DISCOVER, AND LATEST Use Following for personalized papers, Discover for broader recommendations, and Latest for new arrivals in your fields. BUILT FOR SCHOLARS AND CURIOUS READERS Scollr is for PhD students, researchers, clinicians, engineers, students, and anyone who wants a better way to keep up with academic papers. Scollr indexes millions of papers from OpenAlex across disciplines, journals, preprints, and repositories. New papers are added daily. Free to use. No paywall. No ads.

About

PubMinder

Features
Read full description

PubMinder is an AI-powered research feed for scientists, students, and curious minds. It aggregates the latest preprints and journal articles from bioRxiv, medRxiv, arXiv, and PubMed โ€” then summarizes each one in 2โ€“3 plain-English sentences using Apple Intelligence (on-device) or Groq's free AI. WHAT IT DOES Fetches the newest papers from the subjects you care about Summarizes every abstract automatically โ€” no reading walls of text Opens papers in a built-in reader, so you never lose your place Lets you save and share papers with one tap Search your saved papers and sort by date, title, or source Supports keyword filtering so only relevant papers reach your feed ORGANIZE YOUR LIBRARY (PRO) Add tags and notes to any saved paper Group papers into collections and browse by project Export your library to BibTeX, RIS, or CSV โ€” import straight into Zotero, EndNote, or Mendeley, with authors, year, and journal included SOURCES INCLUDED bioRxiv โ€” biology and life sciences preprints medRxiv โ€” medical and clinical preprints arXiv โ€” physics, mathematics, and computer science preprints PubMed โ€” peer-reviewed journal articles via NCBI E-utilities AI SUMMARIZATION On Apple Intelligence-capable devices (A17 Pro, A18, or M-series chips, iOS 26+), summaries run entirely on-device โ€” no internet, no API key needed. On other devices, PubMinder uses Groq's free cloud AI. A free Groq API key takes about 2 minutes to set up at console.groq.com. PRO AI summaries and your saved library are free. A single one-time purchase (no subscription) unlocks tags, notes, collections, unlimited subjects, and library export. PRIVACY PubMinder does not collect personal data, require an account, or track you. API keys are stored in the iOS Keychain, not in plain text.

Screenshots

Scollr4 screens
PubMinder4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Scollr at none against PubMinder's 1. Scollr also leads on update cadence (fortnightly vs every 5 weeks) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. PubMinder sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Scollr asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Scollr ships an update fortnightly, PubMinder every 5 weeks. Both last shipped on November 5, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 3 level
Scollr versus PubMinder: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterScollrPubMinder
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyFortnightly โ€” betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo โ€” betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod โ€” betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.1 โ€” better18.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size32 MB8 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperChris ColpittsBRANDI LYNN CANTAREL

In-app purchases

None

Scollr

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

PubMinder

One-time1
  • Preprint Sources Unlock$4.99

Questions

Is Scollr free?
Scollr is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is PubMinder free?
PubMinder is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Scollr or PubMinder have ads?
Neither Scollr nor PubMinder shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Scollr or PubMinder?
Scollr ships an update fortnightly, and PubMinder every 5 weeks. Most recently, Scollr was updated on November 5, 2026 and PubMinder on November 5, 2026.

Other comparisons