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article2audio VS Readmill

Compare article2audio VS Readmill and see what are their differences

article2audio

article2audio.app is an article narration service for publishers and for readers who would rather listen. It turns an HTML post - including its images, tables, code blocks, and footnotes - into a script a person would read aloud, then into audio.

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Paid Free trial $19 / Monthly (Writer, 10 posts a month)
Alternatives Is it good?
Readmill

A beautiful e-book reader for iPhone, iPad and Android

Rating
0 reviews
Alternatives Is it good?
Grapple
Do-It-Yourself Data Analytics & Business Intelligence, Powered by AI sponsored

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, article2audio seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 1 time since March 2021.

social mentions
1 vs 0
AI popularity
72% vs 28%
alternatives listed
23 vs 13

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

article2audio
Readmill
Website article2audio.app readmill.com
Pricing
Paid Free trial $19 / Monthly (Writer, 10 posts a month) Official pricing
—
Company Startup from Ukraine · 2023 —
Listed in
Content Marketing Podcast AI A/B Testing +1
Tech Text To Speech AI Productivity +1

About article2audio and Readmill

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

article2audio
Readmill

article2audio narrates blog posts and articles for the people who publish them. Give it the URL of an HTML post and it produces audio that sounds like a person read the piece aloud, rather than a voice reading the raw text off the page: Narrates the prose of an HTML post Summarises tables instead...

Read more about article2audio

No description of Readmill yet.

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

article2audio 4 features
Readmill 4 features
  • Tables summarised, not read cell by cell
  • Code blocks explained in spoken language
  • Images described in the audio
  • Languages
    English only, two American voices
  • Social Reading Features
    Readmill offers social features that allow users to share their reading progress, notes, and highlights with friends, enhancing the overall reading experience.
  • Cross-Platform Synchronization
    The app syncs across devices, allowing users to pick up reading from where they left off on any supported device.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    Readmill provides an intuitive and clean interface, making it easy for readers to focus on their books without distractions.
  • Highlighting and Note-Taking
    Users can easily highlight passages and take notes, which can be saved and shared, promoting active reading.

Possible disadvantages

  • Limited eBook Support
    Readmill supports only a limited number of eBook formats, which may restrict users who have books in unsupported formats.
  • Closed in 2014
    The service was discontinued in July 2014, making it unavailable for new users or those looking for updates.
  • Dependency on Internet
    Many of its social features rely on an active internet connection, which can be a limitation for offline reading.
  • Lacking Advanced Features
    Compared to other contemporary eBook apps, Readmill lacks some advanced features like text-to-speech or extensive customizability.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

article2audio
Readmill

No analysis of article2audio yet.

Overall verdict

  • Readmill was a well-designed social e-reading platform beloved for its clean interface and reading community, but it shut down in 2014 after being acquired by Dropbox, so it is no longer available as a functioning service.

Why this product is good

  • Featured an elegant, minimalist reading interface that many users praised
  • Offered strong social features like sharing highlights, comments, and following other readers
  • Synced reading progress across devices seamlessly
  • Built a passionate community around the shared experience of reading

Recommended for

  • Readers who enjoyed discovering books through a social community (historically)
  • Users who valued highlighting and sharing passages with others
  • Note: it is now discontinued, so current readers should consider alternatives like Goodreads, Bookly, or Apple Books

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100
article2audio
Readmill
72% 72%
AI
28% 28%
0% 0%
Productivity
100% 100%
100% 100%
Podcast
0% 0%
0% 0%
Tech
100% 100%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing article2audio and Readmill.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

article2audio's answer

People who publish writing on the web - newsletter writers, blog owners and small publications - who want an audio version of each post without recording it themselves every week.

The second audience is readers who would rather listen than read. That is who the app was originally built for, and it is still the reason it exists.

What's the story behind your product?

article2audio's answer

I built it for myself. I prefer listening to long articles while doing other things, and the text-to-speech apps I tried read the page rather than the piece: tables recited cell by cell, code read out character by character, images skipped in silence.

article2audio started as a way to make my own reading list listenable. It turned into a narration service for the people who write the posts, because they have the same problem once a week rather than once in a while.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

article2audio's answer

A Python backend fetches the post and parses the HTML structure. A vision model describes the images. A language model turns the parsed post into a script a person could plausibly read aloud - deciding what to summarise, what to explain and where to pause. A text-to-speech engine renders that script. The web front end is Next.js.

Text to speech is the last step of the pipeline rather than the product.

What makes your product unique?

article2audio's answer

It narrates the post rather than reading the page.

Tables are summarised instead of read cell by cell. Code blocks and pre-formatted text are explained in spoken language rather than spelled out. Images are described, so they stop being silent gaps. Pauses land where the writing pauses - between paragraphs, after headings.

The output is an MP3 and a private podcast feed, so a post can be listened to in a normal podcast app.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

article2audio's answer

Most alternatives are voice vendors: you hand them text, they hand back a voice. article2audio takes the URL of an HTML post and does the work that comes before any voice is involved - working out what the tables say, what the code is doing, what the images show, and where the writing wants a pause.

If your posts are plain prose, a text-to-speech tool will do the job. If they contain tables, code, footnotes or figures, that is the part that usually sounds wrong, and that is the part this handles.

User comments

Share your experience with using article2audio and Readmill. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

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Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

article2audio 1 mention
Readmill 0 mentions
  • Ask HN: What are you working on (August 2024)?
    Https://article2audio.app/ is my creation. It's a BMW of article readers -- it handles images, tables, preformatted text, and many other nuances of a Web page. I built it to scratch my own itch. I invite you to a free trial. This app can... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago

Tracking Readmill since Mar 2022.

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