Comparison

Papyrus vs Celestis

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

Head to head
About

Papyrus

Organize, annotate, and cite research papers within a native Apple ecosystem. This workspace allows you to import PDFs and citation records, take notes, and manage your reading collections as structured projects. It offers local-first storage with optional cloud sync and various export formats.

Highlights
  • Read and annotate PDFs
  • Organize citation records
  • Take Markdown notes
  • Search entire library
  • Create structured projects
  • Local-first storage
  • Optional iCloud/WebDAV sync
Features
Read full description

Papyrus is a native research workspace for reading, annotating, organizing, and citing PDFs — built for iPad, iPhone, and Mac. READ AND ANNOTATE Open a paper in a fast built-in reader. Highlight, underline, and mark up pages, and every highlight stays searchable and linked back to its source. Bookmark a page as you go, and pick the paper up later from a Reading card that remembers where you stopped. On iPad, a References tab looks up the open paper's reference list and related work, so you can follow a citation trail and add what matters to your library without leaving the page. WRITE ON THE PAGE WITH APPLE PENCIL Mark up a PDF directly on iPad — annotate a proof, sketch beside a figure, work a derivation out in the margin. Your ink belongs to the paper and travels with it, encrypted, to your other devices. NOTES BESIDE THE SOURCE Keep Markdown notes next to each paper: headings, tables, code blocks, LaTeX math, and [[note]] cross-references. Notes stay with the paper and export as PDF when you need to share them. NOTEBOOKS Gather notes from across your library onto themed shelves — a topic, a chapter you're drafting, a reading group. Filing a note copies nothing and moves nothing: it still belongs to its paper, still says which paper that is, and one tap takes you there and back. A note can sit on several shelves at once. Fill a new shelf from what you've already written, search it by a note's text or by the paper behind it, order it four ways — including oldest paper first, which reads your own notes forward through the literature — and export a whole shelf as one Markdown document. All Notes lists everything you've written in one place, filed or not. ORGANIZE THE WAY YOU THINK Folders — a paper can live in several — plus tags, star ratings, and seven colored flags you can name yourself, each with its own shape so they stay tellable apart at a glance. Smart Collections keep themselves current from rules you set, including flag rules. Review Duplicates finds look-alike papers and merges each set after you confirm, combining tags, folders, projects, notes, and highlights. FIND ANYTHING Search titles, authors, notes, and highlights — or the full text inside your PDFs. TURN READING INTO WRITING Projects are where a reading pile becomes a manuscript. Group the papers behind a chapter or article, give each one a role, and capture evidence — claims, quotes, and your own interpretation — tied back to the source paper and page. Write the project note from a template (related work, method comparison, experiment plan, thesis chapter, reviewer response), keep its revision history, and run a preflight that catches missing citation keys and metadata gaps before you export. Export a bundle with Markdown, a BibTeX bibliography, and the PDFs. IMPORT AND CITE Bring in PDFs, whole folders, or BibTeX and RIS files — including libraries exported from Mendeley and Zotero. Papyrus looks up metadata by DOI or arXiv ID and fills in the details. Save papers straight from Safari with the included extension. Copy citations in the style you write in, and export BibTeX or RIS whenever you need them. READ ANYWHERE Paste an arXiv link, a DOI, or a PDF URL and Papyrus imports it, looks up the details, and fetches the PDF. Add a paper to Read Later and its PDF downloads ahead of time, so a flight or a commute doesn't need a signal. Ask Siri, or search from the Home Screen, to pick up the paper you were last reading on the page you left it. YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR DEVICES Your library syncs over iCloud across iPad, iPhone, and Mac. No account to create, no tracking, no ads. Free to download and use — every feature included, no in-app purchases, no subscription.

About

Celestis

This AI assistant empowers professionals with private, on-device intelligence for document analysis and knowledge retrieval. It offers offline capabilities, custom AI models built from your data, and supports various AI providers for ultimate flexibility and data sovereignty.

Highlights
  • On-device AI with Apple Intelligence
  • Offline AI capabilities
  • Private Capsules for custom AI models
  • Support for multiple AI providers
  • Near 100% accurate, sourceable answers
  • Document ingestion from various formats
Features
Read full description

Celestis: Private AI for Your Documents Your Knowledge. Your Data. Your AI. Celestis is an intelligent AI platform built for professionals who demand accuracy, privacy, and the freedom to work anywhere. Whether you're on a factory floor, aboard an aircraft, in a maintenance bay, or off the grid, Celestis brings full AI power to the edge and even completely offline. Celestis doesn't just chat. It understands your documents, learns from your knowledge, and delivers near 100% accurate, sourceable answers powered by an Adaptive-RAG engine. AI to the Edge: Offline. Anywhere. Always. Celestis Mobile supports on-device AI powered by Apple intelligence, letting you take your AI-powered knowledge completely offline. Get instant, accurate answers no matter where you are. - Maintenance technicians accessing service manuals in remote facilities - Factory workers querying procedures on the shop floor - Airline crews referencing documentation at 35,000 feet - Field engineers troubleshooting without a data connection Your knowledge travels with you. No Wi-Fi. No cell signal. No problem. Private Capsules: Your Data, Your Environment Capsules are the heart of Celestis. Each one is a self-contained, domain-specific AI built from your own documents. Private Capsules go further, running entirely in your environment for total data sovereignty. - Upload PDFs, Word docs, spreadsheets, presentations, CSVs, images, Markdown, and more - Combine Capsules into Pods for cross-domain AI with intelligent routing - Add custom instructions and guardrails per Capsule or Pod - Schedule automatic re-ingestion to keep your AI current Celestis never trains on your data. Your documents are never shared or retained beyond what you authorize. Choose Your AI Provider: Zero Vendor Lock-In Celestis ships ready to use with leading AI models, no API key required or bring your own. - Built-in: Celestis, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok - Open source: Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint - Local LLMs: Ollama and any locally-run model for complete privacy with zero cloud dependency Mix and match providers per Capsule. What Sets Celestis Apart - Near 100% Accuracy: Adaptive-RAG blends semantic and keyword search so every answer is precise and sourceable - On-device AI with Apple Intelligence - Powered by Apple Silicon in the cloud and green datacenters - Reader Mode: Read documents while asking questions in a seamless split view - Super AI: Augment Celestis with your Capsules to create a personalized AI that knows your domain - Simple Credit Pricing: No token math. Credits per action type, in the app or via API - Replicas Marketplace: Publish your Capsules, earn credits when others use your knowledge, creators keep 70% - Connectors: Source knowledge from Gmail, Google Drive, Notion, Slack, or any REST API Key Features - Chat with Celestis AI, always free to start - Domain-specific AI Capsules built from your documents - Offline AI Bundles for full AI access with no internet - Private Capsules running entirely in your environment - Audio Conversations and Text-to-Speech - Bring Your Own Model: ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Ollama, and more - Capsule Collections with intelligent cross-domain routing - Reader Mode for side-by-side document reading and querying - Image generation and transformation - Live search and deep research - Connectors that connect to your MCP Servers, providing limitless data sources - Team collaboration with shared Capsule pools - Full API access for custom integrations - Analytics for Capsule performance, credit spend, and replica earnings Terms of Service: https://celestis.ai/terms-of-service Privacy Policy: https://celestis.ai/privacy-policy

Screenshots

Papyrus4 screens
Celestis4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Celestis at none against Papyrus's 2. Papyrus's advantage is iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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. Papyrus sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Celestis asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Papyrus against 5.0 for Celestis. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 4 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Papyrus ships an update weekly, Celestis every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 23, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Papyrus versus Celestis: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPapyrusCelestis
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews—100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings24 — better
Update frequencyWeekly — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size25 MB3.0 GB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperZhenda FuCelestis Ai Inc

Customer experience

Papyrus

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Celestis

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Papyrus

One-time2
  • Papyrus Lifetime Unlock$3.99
  • Papyrus Lifetime Unlock$5.99
None

Celestis

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Papyrus free?
Papyrus is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Celestis free?
Celestis is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Papyrus or Celestis?
Papyrus and Celestis are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 2 and 4 ratings respectively.
Do Papyrus or Celestis have ads?
Neither Papyrus nor Celestis shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Papyrus or Celestis?
Papyrus ships an update weekly, and Celestis every 2 weeks. Most recently, Papyrus was updated on October 12, 2026 and Celestis on October 23, 2026.

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