The Syntopi.com vs Underscore
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Syntopi.com
Access a free liberal arts education with digital versions of Great Books. Explore ideas, authors, and thinkers through interactive visualizations and AI-powered tutors. Listen to narrated passages, generate quizzes, and compare arguments.
- AI-powered tutors
- 3D Galaxy of Ideas visualization
- Side-by-side thinker argument comparison
- Audio narration and offline playback
- Auto-generated quizzes
- Curated reading paths
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A free, open liberal arts education in the palm of your hand. The Syntopi.com brings the Great Books project of the 20th century into the 21st with digital design and AI tutors. Browse by idea, topic, or author. Explore the Galaxy — a 3D visualization of all 102 great Ideas. Listen to passages narrated. Generate quizzes. Talk to an AI tutor about any text. Compare two thinkers' arguments side-by-side. Don't know where to start? Try one of ten curated reading paths. Sign in with Apple or Google to save passages, sync your library across devices, download audio for offline listening, and get notifications about new editorial essays. Library & content - 11,000+ public-domain passages from 64 of the greatest thinkers of the western world - 102 great Ideas indexed - "Galaxy of Ideas" — every Idea visually linked to other authors and ideas - "Astrolabe" to guide you through the galaxy of ideas. Three ways to browse - Index — A-Z / Most Cited list of all 102 Ideas - Galaxy — 3D nautilus-spiral visualization of every Idea - Seminar — paired-thinker hub with suggested starting points Reading - Mobile-friendly passages - Listen and download audio to any passage - Lock-screen playback with Now Playing tile, AirPlay, Bluetooth (iOS) AI features - Talk to an AI Tutor about any passage - Quiz Me — auto-generated multiple-choice quizzes - Compare — two thinkers' arguments side-by-side - Join the Discussion — community comments thread per passage
Underscore
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One line. Sometimes that's enough. Underscore brings you a single line from the classics each day. No feed, no infinite scroll, no catching up. You open it, you read a line, you close it. HOW IT WORKS A new line waits every morning: Goethe, Woolf, Dostoyevsky, Kafka, Wilde, Poe, Austen, Dickens, Hugo, Shakespeare, Chekhov, Tolstoy, Cervantes, Nietzsche, Rilke — 28 authors in all. When a line reaches you, you underline it. You drag your finger across the words, a red pencil stroke follows, and the line moves into your Notebook. That's the whole interaction — the thing you already do with a pencil, turned into a gesture. A LIVING ARCHIVE The Anthology holds 404 lines and opens as you read: every daily line you have seen stays readable there for good. Your archive grows by one line a day. YOUR OWN LINES You can add a sentence from the book in your hands. Photograph the page, the app reads the text on your device, you fix it and save it to your Notebook. The photo never leaves your phone. YOUR LITERARY PROFILE What you underline becomes a reading character: a figure from the classics, drawn from the themes of your lines, changing as you read. It exports as a shareable card. SHARE CARDS Any line can become a 1080x1920 card — ten backgrounds, all free. The widget puts today's line on your Home Screen or Lock Screen. One quiet notification a day. One. Not a feed. IN YOUR LANGUAGE Underscore opens in your device language: Turkish, English, German, French, Spanish. When a work was written in your language you read the original, not a translation — Hugo in French, Goethe in German, Cervantes in Spanish. The rest are Underscore's own translations, and every line credits its author and work. NO ACCOUNT There is nothing to sign up for. Your notebook, your lines and your streak stay on your device. No ads, no tracking. FREE Everything is free: today's line, the complete Anthology with search, an unlimited Notebook, every card design and the widget. No subscription, no in-app purchases. ABOUT THE QUOTES Every line comes from a work first published in 1929 or earlier, in the public domain in the United States and the European Union. Translations into other languages are Underscore's own. The author and work are named on every line and every card. Privacy Policy: https://underscore.day/privacy/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Additional terms: https://underscore.day/terms/ Support: https://underscore.day/support/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: The Syntopi.com at none against Underscore's 3. The Syntopi.com also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). Underscore's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Underscore sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. The Syntopi.com asks for nothing beyond the download.
The Syntopi.com ships an update every 3 weeks, Underscore every 2 months. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.
| Parameter | The Syntopi.com | Underscore |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Ad-supported | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | THOMAS ROBERT COHEN | GOEKHAN IBRIKCI |
In-app purchases
The Syntopi.com
No in-app purchases
Underscore
- Plus Monthly$4.991 Month
- Plus Yearly3 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Plus Lifetime$59.99









