Compare Readwise Reader and SMRY side by side on features, pricing, and the workflows each one is designed for.
A read-later app for articles, PDFs, emails, tweets, and YouTube, with deep highlights and AI features.
Free, paid from $9.99/mo
Paste an article URL, get a clean reader with AI summaries, audio, and chat.
Free, paid from $6/mo
Here's how Readwise Reader and SMRY compare across the features people actually look for. They share 7 core capabilities; the differences show up in what each tool focuses on.
| Feature | Readwise Reader | SMRY | Keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capture and save | |||
| Browser extension | Chrome, Firefox, Safari | Chrome extension captures from your authenticated session for paywalled and JS-rendered pages | Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave |
| Mobile apps | iOS, Android | ||
| Save from email | Per-user Reader address | Forward to in.keep.md | |
| Save tweets | Threads compiled as articles | ||
| Save YouTube videos | With transcript highlighting | Paste a YouTube URL to get a readable transcript, summary, and TTS | With transcripts |
| Save GitHub stars | |||
| Save PDFs | Converted to markdown | ||
| Save files (docs, spreadsheets) | PDFs, EPUBs, HTML | Word, Excel, CSV, HTML, OpenDocument | |
| Save audio files | With Whisper transcription | ||
| Save via API | |||
| Auto-sync sources | |||
| RSS auto-sync | |||
| YouTube channel sync | Via RSS | ||
| X bookmarks sync | Auto-sync on paid plans; manual import from extension export on free | ||
| GitHub stars sync | |||
| Newsletter inbox sync | |||
| Library and reading | |||
| Reader view | 11 themes, custom typography, 6 interface languages | ||
| Offline reading | Partial | ||
| Full-text search | No personal library to search across | ||
| Semantic / AI search | Ghostreader Q&A | ||
| Highlights | 5 colors, notes per highlight, syncs across devices on Pro | Highlight from the extension or from inside the reader, with optional notes; renders inline | |
| Notes | Per-highlight notes | ||
| Tags | |||
| Collections | Folders | ||
| Public sharing | Share quote links with rich social previews | Partial | |
| Full-text RSS extraction | Partial | ||
| AI and agents | |||
| Markdown export for AI agents | Manual highlight export to Markdown only, no per-item markdown URL | Per-item .md URL | |
| Bulk markdown export | Highlights export to Markdown / Notion / Obsidian on Pro, not the full article | ||
| MCP server | |||
| CLI tool | keep-markdown npm package | ||
| Claude Code skill | |||
| AI summaries | Ghostreader | Summaries in 6 languages, plus chat with the article | AI summary and AI tagging on every saved article |
| Public API | |||
| Import and export | |||
| OPML import / export | Import from and export to any OPML-compatible reader | ||
| Pocket import | ZIP, CSV, and legacy HTML exports | ||
| Instapaper import | CSV export with folders, archive, and starred state | ||
| CSV / JSON export | Via API | Highlights only, Pro feature | Export to CSV or JSON. Import plain CSV/TSV plus Omnivore, Raindrop.io, Pinboard, and Wallabag export files. |
| Send to Kindle | EPUB delivered to your Kindle email | ||
| Import Kindle highlights | Via Readwise Kindle sync (Amazon account login) | From My Clippings.txt, no Amazon login required |
Readwise Reader is free, paid from $9.99/mo and SMRY is free, paid from $6/mo. The tier that fits best usually comes down to how many items you save each month.
Free
30-day trial of Readwise Full (includes Reader). No card required.
Readwise (Full)
$9.99/mo billed annually or $12.99/mo monthly. Includes Reader, highlights sync, and export to Notion/Obsidian.
Free
20 AI summaries per day, 2 voices, basic AI model, no export, no ad-free reading. Rate limited to 6 summaries per minute per IP.
Pro
Unlimited summaries, 10 voices including a studio-quality voice, premium AI model, highlight export to Notion / Obsidian / Markdown, ad-free reading, priority support. 7-day free trial. Annual is half price ($3/mo effective).
Free
Unlimited links, browser extension, API/CLI/MCP, RSS feeds, YouTube subscriptions, and free imports from bookmark export files.
Plus
500 full-content items per cycle, X bookmarks, email inbox, GitHub sync, uploads, and AI features.
Pro
1,000 full-content items per cycle, everything in Plus.
Max
5,000 full-content items per cycle, everything in Pro.
Both tools do their category well, but the specifics differ. Here's what each one is good at and where it tends to fall short.
Readwise Reader is the reading companion to Readwise's highlight sync service. It handles articles, PDFs, EPUBs, emails, tweets, and YouTube transcripts in one inbox, with a Ghostreader AI copilot for summaries, definitions, and Q&A. Highlights sync to Notion, Obsidian, Logseq, Roam, Evernote, and Airtable. It ships as web, iOS, Android, and browser extensions, with a public REST API for scripting. Pricing is $9.99/mo billed annually (or $12.99/mo monthly) as part of the Readwise Full plan, which includes the highlight sync service. A 30-day free trial is available.
SMRY started life in late 2023 as an open-source paywall bypass tool that piped articles through archive.org and ran a ChatGPT summary on top. Two years on it has been repositioned as a full AI reading app. You paste a URL (or prepend smry.ai/ to it) and get a clean reader with 11 themes, an AI summary, text-to-speech in up to 10 voices, highlights in 5 colors, an article chat, and a YouTube transcript mode. The product is intentionally narrow. There is no personal library, no inbox, no RSS, no auto-sync from anywhere, and no mobile app. The pricing matches that scope: free with a daily summary cap, or $3 per month on annual ($6 monthly) for unlimited summaries, the premium voice, highlight export, and ad-free reading. The Chrome extension is optional and captures from your authenticated session so JS-rendered and paywalled pages render cleanly.