BeeLine Reader vs Obsidian
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BeeLine Reader
This app uses eye-guiding color gradients to help you read faster and more easily. It's particularly beneficial for individuals with dyslexia, ADD, or vision impairments, and can be used with articles saved from Safari or browsed directly within the app on select websites.
- Eye-guiding color gradients
- Improved reading speed
- Enhanced reading ability
- Safari Action Extension integration
- Article saving via Share Extension
- In-app browsing on select sites
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Read faster and more easily with our digital reading technology, which has has won awards from Stanford and United Nations! Here's how it works: instead of using plain black text, we display text using eye-guiding color gradients. These gradients flow from the end of one line to the beginning of the next, so that when you move your eyes from right to left, they're automatically drawn to the appropriate line. Vision, literacy, and medical experts agree that BeeLine Reader improves reading speed and reading ability for readers of all ages and skill levels. It is particularly helpful for readers with dyslexia, ADD, or vision impairments—some readers are able to read over 50% faster with BeeLine. Find out how much it will help you by taking the BeeLine Reading Challenge on our website: www.BeeLineReader.com. Included app functionality: Read with BeeLine in Safari using our BeeLine Action Extension; save articles for later using the BeeLine Share Extension; and browse the web with BeeLine on select popular websites (AP News, Reuters, and Medium.com) within the BeeLine app. Never used an extension before? Find out how: http://bit.ly/1vaQaOf IAP: Add premium news sites to your reading list and read Kindle books with BeeLine (iPad only). Have epub files you want to read with BeeLine? Grab the ReadMe! app, which supports DRM-free EPUB files.
Obsidian
Organize your thoughts and ideas with a powerful knowledge base that utilizes local Markdown files. This app acts as your personal second brain, accessible on your mobile device for seamless note-taking and idea connection.
- Local Markdown file storage
- Customizable toolbar
- Graph view for connections
- Community plugins
- Themes
- iCloud sync
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Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. It is a second brain, for you, forever. Now available on the go for iOS! Features include: - Customizable toolbar - Pull down quick actions - Graph view - Community plugins - Themes - Sidebar pinning for tablet - iCloud vaults
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Obsidian at Free against BeeLine Reader's $4.99. Obsidian also leads on rating (4.5 vs 2.3) and in-app purchases (none vs 6). BeeLine Reader's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.6). On 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
Obsidian is free to download; BeeLine Reader costs $4.99 up front. BeeLine Reader sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Obsidian asks for nothing beyond the download.
Obsidian holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 2.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Obsidian has 2.7K ratings behind it against 20, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 38% of BeeLine Reader's written reviews are positive against 62% of Obsidian's.
BeeLine Reader ships an update every 5 months, Obsidian every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and October 1, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BeeLine Reader | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 2.3 (20 ratings) | 4.5 (2.7K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 38.3% of reviews | 62.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 2.7K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 5 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | — | #154 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 16 MB | 38 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | BeeLine Reader, Inc. | Dynalist Inc. |
Customer experience
BeeLine Reader
Obsidian
Bugs and requests
BeeLine Reader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Obsidian
Reported bugs
3 issues- Sync issues leading to data loss
- Freezing and crashing on mobile devices
- Editing bugs and text input issues
Requested features
5 requests- Improved sorting and organization options
- WYSIWYG editing on mobile
- Better integration with other cloud storage services
- More intuitive onboarding process for new users
- Native mobile widgets and share sheet integration
In-app purchases
BeeLine Reader
- BeeLine News Lite$0.99
- BeeLine News Pro$3.99
- BeeLine News Pro$4.99
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- BeeLine Email & Social Pro$4.99
- BeeLine PDF Reader$9.99
- eBooks Pro$19.99
Obsidian
No in-app purchases
