Comparison

Papyrus vs Open Hub

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

Head to head
About

Papyrus

This native research workspace allows users to read, annotate, organize, and cite PDFs. It offers features for writing directly on pages with Apple Pencil, taking notes beside sources, and organizing research into themed notebooks. The app facilitates turning reading into writing by grouping papers for manuscripts and managing projects.

Highlights
  • Read and annotate PDFs
  • Write on pages with Apple Pencil
  • Take Markdown notes beside sources
  • Organize research into themed notebooks
  • Group papers for manuscript projects
  • Search full text and annotations
  • Import PDFs and BibTeX/RIS files
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

Open Hub

Features
Read full description

OpenHub turns all your cloud storage and local files into one native media box for iPhone and iPad. Connect your own accounts, browse every folder as a drive, and stream, download, and organize — fast and native, with no ads and no account required. YOUR CLOUDS, ONE APP Add the storage you already use and browse it side by side: • Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, pCloud, MEGA • FTP and HTTP servers on your own network • Files stored right on your device OpenHub only opens storage you own or are authorized to access — there is no built-in catalog. REAL VIDEO PLAYBACK Powered by VLCKit, OpenHub plays the formats other apps choke on — MKV, AVI, MOV and more — with multiple audio and subtitle tracks, and it resumes where you left off. MORE THAN VIDEO Open PDFs, photos, and documents too. Pin favorites with bookmarks and search your files right on the device. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • Secure Share Info — share a folder or a login as a sealed, self-expiring code; the real path stays hidden. • Local lock — keep photos, videos, and documents behind a passcode that never leaves your device. • Credentials are stored in the device Keychain. OpenHub has no account and collects no personal data. MAKE IT YOURS Switch between a clean modern look and a playful retro theme. WAYS TO USE IT • Share a public link as a code that expires on its own. • Turn a folder on your computer into a home media hub over your own network. • Lock away private files behind an on-device passcode. • Run a time-limited hub and hand out sealed codes that expire. OpenHub is part of vuba.one. Free on iPhone and iPad.

Screenshots

Papyrus4 screens
Open Hub4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Papyrus at none against Open Hub's 1. On price, ads, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Open Hub sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Papyrus asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Papyrus versus Open Hub: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPapyrusOpen Hub
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyWeekly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size30 MB54 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperZhenda FuVu Bach

In-app purchases

None

Papyrus

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Open Hub

One-time1
  • Buy Me a Coffee$0.99

Questions

Is Papyrus free?
Papyrus is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Open Hub free?
Open Hub is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Papyrus or Open Hub have ads?
Neither Papyrus nor Open Hub shows ads.

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