Software Alternatives & Startups

Readwise VS ArtDeck

Compare Readwise VS ArtDeck and see what are their differences

Readwise

Effortlessly rediscover and organize your Kindle highlights

Rating
5.0 · 1 review
ArtDeck

Visual reference-board app for creatives to collect images, video, links, notes, GIFs, and PDFs, with study tools and iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac

Rating
0 reviews
Pricing
Paid $5.99 / One-off

Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Readwise seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 88 times since March 2021.

social mentions
88 vs 0
Productivity popularity
96% vs 4%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 23

Base details

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

Readwise
ArtDeck
Website readwise.io getartdeck.com
Pricing
Paid $5.99 / One-off
Company — Startup from France · 2026
Listed in

About Readwise and ArtDeck

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

Readwise
ArtDeck

No description of Readwise yet.

Build a moodboard, gather references for a project, or study an artwork up close. Everything stays together instead of scattered across screenshots, folders, and tabs. COLLECT FROM ANYWHERE • Take photos and video, scan documents, or import from Photos and Files • Save web links as preview cards,...

Read more about ArtDeck

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Readwise 5 features
ArtDeck 5 features
  • Centralized System
    Readwise allows users to consolidate highlights and notes from various reading platforms, such as Kindle, Instapaper, and Pocket, into one place.
  • Ease of Use
    The platform is user-friendly, making it easy to import, organize, and review highlights.
  • Spaced Repetition
    Readwise uses spaced repetition algorithms to help users retain and recall information over time by regularly revisiting highlights.
  • Customizable Export Options
    Users can export their highlights and notes to other services like Evernote, Notion, or plain text files, allowing for flexible usage of the stored data.
  • Search Functionality
    Readwise offers robust search capabilities, making it simple to find specific highlights or notes across your library.

Possible disadvantages

  • Subscription Cost
    Readwise operates on a subscription model, which may be considered expensive for some users relative to the features offered.
  • Limited Functionality Without Subscription
    While there is a free trial available, many features are gated behind a subscription, limiting the usability of the free version.
  • Learning Curve
    Despite its overall user-friendliness, some users might find a learning curve when initially setting up and configuring the system to suit their needs.
  • Dependence on Third-Party Integrations
    Readwise’s value is largely dependent on its integrations with third-party services, meaning any changes or issues with those services can impact its effectiveness.
  • Privacy Concerns
    Since Readwise collects and stores data from multiple reading platforms, there may be privacy concerns regarding how this data is handled and stored.
  • ToolBox - Study lenses
    Five lenses on any saved image: values, color, composition, read, and measure, so you can pull a palette, check a composition, or take an angle without leaving the board.
  • One canvas for everything
    Images, videos, GIFs, links with previews, notes, PDFs, palettes, drawings, and nested groups all live on the same board.
  • iPhone, iPad, And Mac
    Save on your phone, study beside a drawing app on iPad, organize on Mac. Sync is opt-in per board through your own iCloud, and boards work offline.
  • One-Time Purchase
    Buy once and keep it. No subscription, no in-app purchases, and no ArtDeck account to create.
  • Motion Study
    Step through video and GIF references, slow playback down, open a GIF filmstrip, and overlay nearby frames with onion skinning.

Analysis

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

Readwise
ArtDeck

Overall verdict

  • Overall, Readwise is well-regarded for its utility in helping users actively engage with and digest their reading materials. It provides a streamlined way to revisit and reinforce key concepts, making it a valuable tool for those serious about boosting their information retention.

Why this product is good

  • Readwise is designed to help users retain information from their readings by organizing, highlighting, and revisiting key excerpts. It integrates with various platforms like Kindle, Instapaper, and Pocket to collate highlights in one place. The daily review feature encourages consistent engagement with past highlights, aiding in better recall and comprehension. The platform is beneficial for avid readers, students, and professionals who wish to maximize their learning retention and make the most out of their reading habits.

Recommended for

  • Avid readers looking to remember more from their books
  • Students who need to recall key concepts from academic materials
  • Professionals who want to maintain a repository of valuable insights from articles and reports for reference
  • Anyone interested in personal development and continuous learning through reading

No analysis of ArtDeck yet.

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Readwise 2 videos + Add
ArtDeck 0 videos + Add

Readwise: How to use Spaced Repetition with your books

More videos

  • - Keep track of Kindle highlights with Readwise [#49] Adam Franklin

No ArtDeck videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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
Readwise
ArtDeck
96% 96%
4% 4%
100% 100%
0% 0%
0% 0%
100% 100%
100% 100%
0% 0%

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing Readwise and ArtDeck.

What makes your product unique?

ArtDeck's answer:

Most reference apps stop once the image is saved but ArtDeck keeps going.

It is the only reference board where collecting and studying happen in the same place, on the device you happen to be holding.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

ArtDeck's answer:

Against PureRef. PureRef is excellent on a desktop and has more specialized window modes: click-through transparency, always-on-top of one chosen app, separate overlays. It also runs on Windows and Linux, which ArtDeck does not. Choose ArtDeck when your references need to move between iPhone, iPad, and Mac, when you work on iPad beside a drawing app, when you study video reference, or when you want palette, value, composition, and measurement tools built in.

Against Eagle. Eagle is a library manager with strong tagging, smart folders, and batch operations on Mac and Windows. It has no native phone or tablet board. ArtDeck is a board first: things sit side by side on a canvas rather than in a grid, and the board travels with you.

Against Pinterest and the camera roll. Both are good at saving and bad at using. Pinterest ties your collection to an account, an algorithm, and a connection. ArtDeck boards are files on your devices, work offline, and never get reorganized by someone else's feed.

Against Milanote and general canvas tools. Those are built for teams planning work together, priced per seat per month. ArtDeck is built for one person studying images, bought once.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

ArtDeck's answer:

People who save images because looking at them carefully is part of how they work.

Concretely, that is digital artists and illustrators, concept and game artists, 3D artists, designers, photographers, animators working from motion reference, and art students. It also fits anyone with thousands of screenshots and saved pins who has never been able to actually use them.

What they have in common is a habit rather than a job title: they gather references from the web, the camera roll, files, and other apps, lay them out side by side, and study what makes them work. They also tend to own Apple hardware and move between it during a single project. Save something on the phone in the morning, study it on iPad beside Procreate in the afternoon, organize the board on Mac later.

What's the story behind your product?

ArtDeck's answer:

ArtDeck started from a personal problem: references were everywhere and useful nowhere. Saved pins in one place, screenshots in the camera roll, links in browser tabs, images in folders. Plenty of collecting, almost no returning.

The first version was the fix for that, a board where images, links, notes, and videos could sit together on one canvas and come along across iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

The second idea is the one that shaped the app. Collecting a reference and understanding it are not the same thing. Artists have always had a manual set of moves for the second part: squint at the image, flatten it to values, sample the colors, check where the lines land, measure the angle. Those moves were happening outside the app, in other tools or not at all. So ToolBox was built into the board, five lenses that open on any saved image without taking you away from it.

The belief underneath all of it is that what you collect shapes what you create. Collecting is creative work, not filing. And a tool for that should be yours: one purchase, no subscription, works offline, your boards on your own devices.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

ArtDeck's answer:

ArtDeck is a native Apple application, not a cross-platform wrapper. It is written in Swift with SwiftUI, and shares one codebase across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS while adapting the interface to each.

User comments

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Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Readwise 5.0 · 1 review
ArtDeck no reviews yet
  • Great help to review books
    SaaSHub review
    · Nov 2021

    I imported my kindle highlights, as many others. Now I daily review some highlights (thanks to a dashboard, I am motivated). And where I didn't create highlights, as I only listened to the audiobooks, I get the...

We have no reviews of ArtDeck yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

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

Readwise 88 mentions
ArtDeck 0 mentions
  • Relego, a free, self-hostable alternative to Readwise
    Anyway, as I reached the end of the chapter, I wanted to read my Readwise's daily recap. However, my iPhone was in other room. I didn’t want to get up; I was tired. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Exporting Mac OSX Book Highlights into an Obsidian Vault or Markdown Files
    The only highlights that Readwise retrieves semi-automatically are from the books I buy from Kindle, by going into the Readwise app and clicking a button. If I upload them to Kindle or need highlights from the Apple Books app, I have to... - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Show HN: I combined spaced repetition with emails so you can remember anything
    Readwise also has this feature. I get a daily email with a random assortment of highlights that have been pulled in from multiple sources (Reader, Notion, Kindle, etc.) The product benefit in their case is that it's kind of like Zapier,... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago

View more

Tracking ArtDeck since Aug 2026.

Alternatives to Readwise and ArtDeck

When comparing Readwise and ArtDeck, you can also consider the following products.