Comparison

ScholarSide vs Calcium Text Calculator

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

Head to head
About

ScholarSide

Features
Read full description

ScholarSide turns a pile of papers into a reading plan. It's a focused reading system for researchers, grad students, and anyone who reads academic papers with purpose β€” not another PDF dump, but a way to decide what to read, how deeply, and what you got out of it. Add a paper by arXiv link, arXiv ID, or DOI and ScholarSide fills in the title, authors, venue, and abstract for you. Every paper gets a card built around one simple idea: a reason you saved it. No more folders of mystery PDFs. TRIAGE, DON'T HOARD β€’ A pipeline board from Inbox to Finished, with drag-and-drop and one-at-a-time triage β€’ Give every paper a reason: background, method, baseline, to implement, assigned, or just curious β€’ Flags for meeting prep, relevance, and how well you actually understand it READING MODES Not every paper deserves a deep read. Pick a mode and ScholarSide guides you with a timed checklist: β€’ 5-minute skim β€” should I read this at all? β€’ 20-minute structured read β€” understand the contribution β€’ 60-minute deep read β€” own the method and the math β€’ Implementation read β€” extract everything needed to reimplement STRUCTURED NOTES Capture a paper the way you think about it: problem, method, key equations, algorithm, experiments, results, limitations, and open questions β€” plus a confusion tracker, so "I don't get this part" becomes a to-do instead of a dead end. PROJECTS & REVIEW β€’ Group papers into research projects with a reading order and open questions β€’ A weekly review that surfaces stale papers, unresolved confusions, and what to read next β€’ Lab-meeting prep built from your own notes OPTIONAL AI ASSIST (BRING YOUR OWN KEY) Add your own Anthropic API key and Claude can draft a summary, fill in the structured notes, or explain a paper at the level you choose β€” always as an editable draft that sits beside your own notes, never replacing them. Your key stays in the device Keychain and usage is billed to your account. The app is fully functional without it. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT No account. No ads. No tracking. Everything lives on your device. Export notes to Markdown and your library to BibTeX any time.

About

Calcium Text Calculator

Features
Read full description

Calcium is a text editor that updates math results as you type. Use `=>` to compute expressions. It supports all kinds of units. Best of all, it's free and open source!

Screenshots

ScholarSide4 screens
Calcium Text Calculator2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Calcium Text Calculator at 17.0 against ScholarSide's 26.5. On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS

CostPrice Β· In-app purchases Β· Ads Β· Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

Scorecard1 real difference Β· 5 level
ScholarSide versus Calcium Text Calculator: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterScholarSideCalcium Text Calculator
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyβ€”Every 5 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac β€” better
Requires iOS26.517.0 β€” better
Further details β€” not scored
Size4 MB3 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNeel RoyTwarge LLC

In-app purchases

None

ScholarSide

No in-app purchases

None

Calcium Text Calculator

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is ScholarSide free?
ScholarSide is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Calcium Text Calculator free?
Calcium Text Calculator is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do ScholarSide or Calcium Text Calculator have ads?
Neither ScholarSide nor Calcium Text Calculator shows ads.

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