LiquidText vs calmdocs
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
LiquidText
This app provides a dynamic workspace for reviewing and organizing information from documents and webpages. It allows users to extract key facts, connect ideas across different sources, and annotate content for research, writing, or study.
- Import documents and webpages
- Extract and organize excerpts
- Connect ideas with ink links
- Compare document sections
- Annotate PDFs, Word, and PowerPoint
- Search across all documents
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*** Named “Most Innovative iPad App of the Year” by Apple App Store *** LiquidText offers a fast, natural way to review, gather, and organize information across all your documents and webpages—then apply the results to writing reports, meeting prep, or simply studying. Pull out key facts and connect them together, squeeze a document to compare sections, draw a line to connect ideas in different documents, comment on multiple pages at once, build upon your thoughts, and much more. ► WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING: * "If you want to experience the power of going beyond paper, you can download LiquidText" – Cult of Mac * One of Macworld’s Top 24 Apps for iPad Pro * One of Time Magazine's Ten Best apps for iPad Pro * * "There's a better way to organize your research, and the app is it." – iMore, Serenity Caldwell * “All you need for deep research projects.” – Macworld, Jackie Dove * "The world changed with...LiquidText" – Law360, Paul Kiesel * "LiquidText may just be *the* app for reviewing and annotating PDFs using Apple's tablet and stylus." – CIO Magazine, James Martin * “One of the most powerful, original iPad apps I've tried in years” – Federico Viticci, MacStories.net ► LIQUIDTEXT’S COMPLETE FEATURE SET INCLUDES: (Features with * require a paid upgrade.) Import • Create a workspace and import all the documents and web pages you need • Compatible with PDF, Word, and PowerPoint document types • Import from Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Box, email, and more • Import content from webpage or send to LiquidText directly from Safari • Instant OCR to select text in scanned documents; do a full document-OCR to search as well!* • Import documents & metadata directly from reference managers (supports Zotero and Mendeley)* Interact • Pull excerpts from all the documents in your project into the Workspace area • Add your own notes (typed or written) to the Workspace area • Freely draw on your notes, or on the workspace itself* • Organize excerpts and notes into groups • Connect anything - draw live “ink links” that span pages, documents, notes, and more* • Create mind-maps by drawing “ink links” connecting your excerpts/notes to one another * • Get context - tap notes and excerpts to find original source Compare • Pinch a document to compare different distant pages side by side • Collapse text to see annotated parts side-by-side • Collapse text to view search results(s) side-by-side • Import unlimited number of documents into a project, view up to 3 at once* Annotate • Freely draw* or highlight on your document, notes, or the workspace itself • Add margin notes/comments to text, images, notes, and excerpts • Comment on two or more selections simultaneously • Replace document with a newer version (and annotations are brought to new doc)* Search • Search for keywords across all your LiquidText documents • Find keywords in title or text of your documents* • Bulk highlight, tag, or link to your search results* Realtime Collaboration • Invite colleagues into your shared projects and work together in near realtime* • Leave comments and notifications for your collaborators* • Privacy controls: set whether each workspace & document in your project is shared or private* Easy Export • Export your project as a PDF (includes your Workspace and documents) • Export your project as a Word file (converts your notes/excerpts into a linear document) • Send a full LiquidText file for those with the app. • Send files by email or to Dropbox, iCloud Drive, Zotero, and more* Sync & Backup* • Real-time, cross-platform sync • Continuous cloud backup • Multi-device display: • Use your desktop or tablet as additional display for your other device • Use your tablet for freehand inking while viewing and keyboarding on your desktop See our terms of use at https://www.liquidtext.net/terms-of-use Learn more at LiquidText.net | Better Than Paper
calmdocs
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calmdocs is file storage you control. Every save is kept and restorable, every deleted file recoverable, and everything comes back out whenever you want it — a folder as a single zip, or the whole account through a documented API. Files live in named groups on Mac, iPhone, iPad and the web, and photographs can be browsed by date, by place, or at random. No subscription, no advertising, and nothing collected that the app does not need to work. GROUPS Separate libraries, each with its own folder tree: Photos, Work, the scans, the house. You work in one group at a time rather than in a single combined drive. VERSION HISTORY Every save is kept. Open a file's history and restore any earlier version. Restoring does not discard the current one. DELETED FILES Deleting moves a file to the group's bin, not off the server. Restore it at any time. A group can also empty its own bin automatically after a set number of days. PHOTO VIEWS A group can show you: • a random photograph • the most recent • one taken on this day in an earlier year • one from this month • one taken near your current location A slideshow runs any of these full screen and keeps the display awake. PHOTO FILTERING Screenshots, photographs of documents, and blurred or badly exposed shots are excluded from the random, recent and slideshow views. This is always on and applies to every photo view. WIDGETS Home Screen, Lock Screen and StandBy widgets show photographs from a group you choose. Long-press and choose Edit Widget to change the group; two widgets can show two different groups. Tapping one opens the slideshow. A widget can read only the group it shows, and never has your sign-in. Signing out stops them. FILES OF EVERY KIND Photographs, video, audio and PDFs open in the app. Large video is converted for streaming rather than downloaded whole. Any folder can be downloaded as a single zip, and a link to that zip works for someone without the app. SEARCH By name and path, within a group. You can also browse the folder tree or list what changed most recently. ON THE MAC A menu bar app, downloaded from calmdocs.com rather than the App Store, syncs chosen folders on your disk with a group and updates itself. It is not sandboxed, which is what lets it sync folders you choose. ON THE WEB, AND FROM YOUR OWN CODE Everything is also at calmdocs.com in a browser, on the same account. There is a documented HTTP API with an OpenAPI description at calmdocs.com/api/docs. SIGNING IN An email address and a six-digit code. There is no password to reuse, leak or reset. WHAT WE HOLD Your email address, the files you upload, and what those files say about themselves: size, type, when they were taken, and for photographs the position the camera recorded. That is what the service runs on. We do not sell it and we do not track you between apps. The full policy is at calmdocs.com/privacy.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: calmdocs at none against LiquidText's 13. On price, update cadence, ads 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
Both are free to download. LiquidText sells 13 in-app purchases, starting at $5.49 per month. calmdocs asks for nothing beyond the download.
LiquidText ships an update every 2 weeks, calmdocs every 9 days. The most recent releases landed on October 16, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | LiquidText | calmdocs |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (6.4K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 49.6% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6.4K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 9 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 317 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | LiquidText, Inc. | Elaine Bevington |
Bugs and requests
LiquidText
Reported bugs
5 issues- Frequent crashes and data loss issues
- Inconsistent behavior with Apple Pencil
- Text selection and highlighting problems
- Sync issues between iPad and Mac versions
- Unexpected changes to existing annotations
Requested features
5 requests- Dark mode option
- Improved palm rejection and writing experience
- Better export and sharing options
- Thumbnail/outline view for easier navigation
- Ability to rotate and resize text/image annotations
calmdocs
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
LiquidText
- LiquidText Live, Monthly, Stu7 Days trial$5.491 Month
- LiquidText Live, Monthly, StPr7 Days trial$5.491 Month
- LiquidText Unlimited, Mo, Stu7 Days trial$10.901 Month
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- LiquidText Live, Monthly7 Days trial$10.901 Month
- LiquidText Live, Monthly, Upg7 Days trial$10.901 Month
- LiquidText Unlimited, Yr, Stu7 Days trial$19.001 Month
- LiquidText Live, Yearly, Stu7 Days trial$54.901 Year
- LiquidText Live, Yearly7 Days trial$99.991 Year
- LiquidText Live, Yearly, Upg7 Days trial$99.991 Year
- LiquidText Unlimited, Yr7 Days trial$189.991 Year
- LT Pro - For Students$19.99
- LiquidText Pro$29.99
- LiquidText Pro II$89.99
calmdocs
No in-app purchases







