Comparison

Lumen vs Tertiary Scanner

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

Head to head
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.

About

Tertiary Scanner

Features
Read full description

Scanner is a clean, fast, fully-offline document scanner. Point your camera at a page and it auto-detects the edges, corrects perspective, and crops for you — A4, Letter, receipts, business cards, notes, or whiteboards. Scan multiple pages into one document, then enhance each page with filters: Auto, White Document, Black & White, Denoise, Brighten, Sharpen Text, and Receipt mode. Export as a single- or multi-page PDF or as high-quality JPGs, and save straight to Photos, Files, or iCloud Drive. Built-in OCR recognises the text on every page so you can copy it, export it, and search your whole library by content. Share to AirDrop, Mail, Messages, WhatsApp, or print — all from the native iOS share sheet. Everything runs on-device: no account, no cloud, no tracking.

Screenshots

Lumen4 screens
Tertiary Scanner1 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Lumen at every 2 weeks against Tertiary Scanner's every 5 weeks. On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Lumen ships an update every 2 weeks, Tertiary Scanner every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on June 28, 2026 and September 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Lumen versus Tertiary Scanner: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLumenTertiary Scanner
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings4 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB1 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperDaniel KosukhinAlfred Ang

In-app purchases

None

Lumen

No in-app purchases

None

Tertiary Scanner

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Lumen free?
Lumen is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Tertiary Scanner free?
Tertiary Scanner is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Lumen or Tertiary Scanner have ads?
Neither Lumen nor Tertiary Scanner shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lumen or Tertiary Scanner?
Lumen ships an update every 2 weeks, and Tertiary Scanner every 5 weeks. Most recently, Lumen was updated on June 28, 2026 and Tertiary Scanner on September 10, 2026.

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