Comparison

alphaXiv vs COLM

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

Head to head
About

alphaXiv

This app helps researchers stay updated with the latest AI studies from arXiv. It offers AI-powered summaries, literature reviews, and visual explanations of complex papers. Users can also annotate papers and track their research interests.

Highlights
  • Trending research feed
  • AI-powered literature reviews
  • Interactive paper reader with notes
  • AI Visual Blogs for paper explanations
  • Personalized research recommendations
Read full description

alphaXiv offers a suite of AI features built on top of arXiv that help you keep up with and quickly understand the latest research. Trending Feed Discover the most relevant AI research, curated by our community of hundreds of thousands of readers each week. See papers tailored to your specific research interests with quick informative blurbs to help you decide which papers to delve deeper. Library Bookmark favorite papers, keep track of your research and organize your work. Paper is missing on alphaXiv? Upload it into library and gain access to the same assistant and AI Overviews as the publically available papers. AI Assistant Understand the latest AI research with AI. Ask questions like 'What are the latest breakthroughs in RL fine-tuning?' and get comprehensive literature reviews with trending papers automatically included. Paper Reader View papers with highlights, personal notes, and quick access to our AI assistant. Come back anytime to a paper to see what parts you marked as important, any notes that you left for yourself, and your conversations with our assistant. AI Visual Blogs Turn any complex paper into clear visual explanations. Generate beautiful research blogs with figures, equations, and key insights from the paper with just one click. Join hundreds of thousands of weekly readers on alphaXiv to transform your research output. Whether you’re a curious undergrad or an applied research scientist, reading papers won’t ever feel the same again.

About

COLM

Features
Read full description

The official app of the Conference on Language Modeling

Screenshots

alphaXiv4 screens
COLM3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: alphaXiv at every 4 days against COLM's fortnightly. COLM's advantage is iOS requirement (15.1 vs 17.0). 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

alphaXiv ships an update every 4 days, COLM fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on October 1, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
alphaXiv versus COLM: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameteralphaXivCOLM
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (17 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings17 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 4 days — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size73 MB47 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperalphaXiv Inc.Anthony Manzo

In-app purchases

None

alphaXiv

No in-app purchases

None

COLM

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is alphaXiv free?
alphaXiv is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is COLM free?
COLM is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do alphaXiv or COLM have ads?
Neither alphaXiv nor COLM shows ads.
Which is updated more often, alphaXiv or COLM?
alphaXiv ships an update every 4 days, and COLM fortnightly. Most recently, alphaXiv was updated on October 1, 2026 and COLM on October 14, 2026.

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