Comparison

PageGrain vs Inkive

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

Head to head
About

PageGrain

Features
Read full description

"Reading maketh a full man." — Most of us finish a book and walk away empty anyway. PageGrain turns your Kindle and WeChat Reading highlights into a personal knowledge base that actually works for you:AI-polished notes — scattered highlights refined into clear, readable summaries you'll actually want to revisitDaily memory drills — "Use it or lose it." Bite-sized quizzes built from your own notes, so knowledge sticks without the effortTheme clustering — similar ideas from different books, automatically connected; "collect the dots, then connect them"Instant search — browse by book or search any keyword, and find exactly what once stopped you mid-page"It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the man who hankers after more." Read less. Retain more. The measure of reading isn't how much you've read. It's how much remains.

About

Inkive

This app uses AI to automatically capture physical book highlights and quotes, organizing them into a searchable digital library. Review, edit, and export your saved passages to various formats, all while keeping your data private and offline.

Highlights
  • Automatic highlight and underline detection
  • Extracts full passages
  • Batch capture for multiple pages
  • Organizes notes by book
  • Searchable library
  • Export to Markdown, PDF, HTML
  • Offline text recognition
Features
Read full description

Capture the words you marked in a physical book—without manually selecting them. Inkive uses an on-device AI OCR model to extract the exact text you’ve underlined, highlighted, or circled. Take a photo of the page, and Inkive automatically turns your natural reading marks into searchable book quotes and organized reading notes. No manual text selection. No manual cropping. No cloud upload. KEEP READING THE WAY YOU DO When you mark a sentence in a paper book, you shouldn't have to recreate that action on your phone. Inkive acts as an intelligent book scanner that preserves your natural reading flow and removes the extra step of drawing a selection box around the text. SMART BOOK SCANNER & OCR TEXT RECOGNITION • Automatically detects underlines, highlighter marks, and circled passages • Extracts complete book quotes and paragraphs instead of isolated lines • Supports continuous batch scanning across multiple book pages • Imports existing page photos from your camera roll for quick OCR extraction • Supports English, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese—including vertical text and complex layouts PRIVATE & OFFLINE BY DESIGN • 100% on-device AI text recognition—your photos and notes never leave your phone • Works completely offline with no internet connection required • No account, login, or subscription sign-up needed to start ORGANIZE PAPER & EBOOK HIGHLIGHTS IN ONE PLACE • Organize all your book highlights, quotes, and reading notes neatly by book • Import and sync digital ebook highlights and notes from Kindle, Apple Books, WeRead, Reeden, and BOOX • Build your reading library manually or via the built-in ISBN barcode scanner • Keep the original page image snippet alongside each extracted quote • Edit passages and add your own annotations, thoughts, and book summaries • Instantly search across your entire personal library by book title, author, or text EXPORT TO NOTION, OBSIDIAN & SHARE QUOTES • Export your reading notes to Markdown, PDF, or HTML formats • Copy passages cleanly to Obsidian, Notion, Logseq, and your favorite PKM or note-taking apps • Create custom-styled Highlight Cards and shareable quote images for social media • Share the book quotes and ideas that stayed with you For everyone who still loves reading with a physical book in hand—and wants all their paper and digital reading notes in one place. Mark the page. Capture what matters. Keep the ideas worth returning to. Privacy Policy: https://stilive.app/inkive/privacy Terms of Use: https://stilive.app/inkive/terms

Screenshots

PageGrain3 screens
Inkive4 screens

Verdict

The call

PageGrain and Inkive are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. PageGrain sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Inkive sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $12.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

PageGrain ships an update every 9 days, Inkive weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
PageGrain versus Inkive: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPageGrainInkive
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (1 ratings) — better
Positive reviews—71.4% of reviews
Number of ratings—1 — better
Update frequencyEvery 9 daysWeekly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
Monetization—Free with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.217.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size135 MB226 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDu WenyuXuanwei Sheng

In-app purchases

3 purchases

PageGrain

Subscriptions2
  • 月会员$1.991 Month
  • 年会员$19.991 Year
One-time1
  • 终身会员$29.99
2 purchases

Inkive

Subscriptions1
  • Inkive Pro - Yearly$12.991 Year
One-time1
  • Inkive Pro - Lifetime$19.99

Questions

Is PageGrain free?
PageGrain is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Inkive free?
Inkive is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do PageGrain or Inkive have ads?
Neither PageGrain nor Inkive shows ads.
Which is updated more often, PageGrain or Inkive?
PageGrain ships an update every 9 days, and Inkive weekly. Most recently, PageGrain was updated on October 25, 2026 and Inkive on October 30, 2026.

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