Compare
Taper and Readwise Reader
Reader is a library with feeds attached, built for people who highlight. Taper is feeds and nothing else, with an ending. They overlap less than the word reader suggests.
Without paying
Free30 days
Taper · Readwise Reader
A year, paid
$48$119.88
Taper · Readwise Reader
A day's reading
EndsDoesn't
Taper · Readwise Reader
The short answer
Reader is the most ambitious reading app anybody ships. Feeds, newsletters, PDFs, EPUBs, YouTube and Twitter threads in one place, highlighting that works on all of them, text to speech, full-text search, and apps on every platform down to e-ink. It comes with a Readwise subscription, which carries those highlights on to Obsidian, Notion and the rest.
Reader's answer
Bring everything you might read into one place. Highlight it, search it, and send the notes to where you think.
Taper's answer
Fill the number of items you set. End there, with nothing underneath the last one.
Move to Taper if
You came for the feeds and not the highlights
Reader costs what it does because it is a highlighting and notes product with feeds inside it. If the feeds are the part you use, Taper's free tier is the whole app.
The pile of things to read later keeps growing
Reader is built to hold it, and holds it well. Taper holds nothing you did not save, and an edition ends at the number of items you set.
You would rather no model sat between you and the article
Ghostreader is there to summarise and to answer questions. Taper has no model anywhere in it, and nothing you read is sent to one.
A prolific source keeps crowding out a quiet one
Three tiers you assign per edition, then fair turns for the slots that are left. A site posting forty times a day and one posting weekly compete evenly.
Stay with Readwise Reader if
You highlight what you read
Nothing here highlights, annotates or exports a note. Taper saves an item and lets you put a word of your own on it, and that is all.
You read PDFs, EPUBs and saved web pages in it
Taper reads sources that publish a feed and nothing else. There is nowhere to put a document.
You listen to articles, or read them offline
Reader has text to speech and native apps that work without a connection. Taper has neither.
Your newsletters arrive by email
Reader takes them that way. Taper reads a newsletter that publishes a feed, and one that only arrives by email has nowhere to land yet.
Side by side
Values rather than ticks, because a tick is an opinion and a figure is something you can go and check.
| Feature | Taper | Readwise Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Without paying | The whole app, free | 30-day trial |
| Sources | Unlimited | No number stated |
| Paid tier, billed monthly | $5 | $12.99 |
| Paid tier, billed yearly | $48 | $119.88, as $9.99 a month |
| What the subscription is for | Filter expressiveness, more editions | Readwise highlights, with Reader included |
| Where a day's reading ends | At the size you set | It does not |
| A model in the product | None | Ghostreader |
| Highlights and notes | None | On every document type |
| Besides feeds | Nothing | PDFs, EPUBs, web pages, YouTube, threads |
| Native apps | None. Installs from the browser | iOS, Android, Mac, Windows |
| Everything back out as OPML | Free | Yes |
What Readwise Reader does better
Written down first, and not out of politeness. You are probably reading this while paying for Readwise Reader, which makes you the worst possible audience for a page that cannot be checked.
Highlights that go somewhere
Highlighting on articles, PDFs and EPUBs, with notes, carried on to Obsidian, Notion, Roam, Logseq and Evernote. It is the reason the product exists. Taper has no equivalent and is not building one.
Everything you read, in one place
Feeds sit beside saved pages, documents, newsletters and threads. Taper reads feeds only, so anything else you read still needs somewhere to live.
Apps everywhere, offline, and read aloud
Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android and e-ink devices, working without a connection, with text to speech. Taper runs in a browser and installs to the home screen, which is not the same thing.
Search across all of it
Full-text search over everything you have kept, which in Reader is nearly everything. Taper searches saved items only, because saved items are all it keeps.
Where they actually differ
Not a feature list. Four places the two products disagree about what a reader is for, and every smaller difference falls out of one of them.
A library, or an edition
The whole disagreement. Reader treats reading as something you collect and work through, and gives you excellent tools for the working through. Taper treats it as an amount you decide on, fills exactly that, and ends. One is for keeping and the other is for finishing.
What is kept
Reader keeps what you put in it, searchable, which is the point of a library. Taper keeps no copy of an article you did not save. Anything still current arrives on your next refresh, and anything older is with the publisher.
What the money is for
Reader comes with a Readwise subscription and has no free tier after the trial. You are paying for highlights, and the feeds come along. Taper's free tier is the whole app, and $5 a month adds filter expressiveness and more editions.
Whether a model reads with you
Ghostreader summarises, defines and answers questions about what is on the page. Whether that is help or a shorter version of something you meant to read is a real disagreement. Taper has deliberately never built one.
Moving from Readwise Reader
What comes across, what does not, and what it costs.
Do my feeds come across from Reader?
Yes. Reader exports your subscriptions from the account page as Export Feeds as OPML. Import that file here and, if your feeds are in folders, each top-level folder becomes an edition with its sources already in it. There is a flat mode if you would rather start with everything in one and split it later.
What stays behind?
Everything that is not a subscription. Highlights, notes, tags, saved pages and documents all stay in Reader, because nothing here could receive them. Your Reader account is untouched by any of this, and nothing is removed from it by exporting.
Can I use both?
Yes, and for a lot of people it is the right answer: Reader for documents and highlights, Taper for the feeds. On Pro an edition can be served at its own address, so you can subscribe to that one address in Reader and receive the edition already blended and filtered, ending where the edition ends. The article you want to keep is then one step from a highlight.
Is Taper cheaper than Reader?
Pro is $5 a month or $48 a year, against $12.99 a month, or $9.99 a month billed yearly, for the Readwise plan that includes Reader. The comparison only means something if feeds are what you use it for. If you highlight, you are buying a different product and the price is for that. Figures checked 21 September 2026.
Decide how much news is enough.
Bring the sources you already read. Set a size. Reach the end of it, and find nothing underneath.
Free. No card, and bring every source you follow.