Reviews of Readwise Reader

By: Readwise

List of user reviews and ratings for Readwise Reader

Total ratings

4.20 (Rating count: 550)

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Review summary

Overall, users praise Readwise Reader for Obsidian integration, a smooth Pocket transition, and helpful text-to-speech; but recurring downsides include a pricey, unclear subscription, weak offline support, slow performance, onboarding ambiguity, and occasional TTS glitches. The app shows potential for Obsidian users and API-driven workflows if pricing is clarified and reliability improves.

Pros

Obsidian integration and syncing (Seamless Obsidian PARA vault syncing; strong Obsidian companion).
Smooth transition from Pocket, making Readwise Reader a natural choice for Pocket users.
Text-to-Speech accessibility helps focus and reading, with good voice options.
Overall positive user sentiment and willingness to subscribe after trial.
E-Ink mode support is appreciated and adds versatility for reading on eink devices.

Cons

Pricing and subscription model is opaque and expensive, with multiple complaints about after-trial charges and unclear free plan.
Offline reading reliability is weak: articles sometimes don’t save offline or content won’t load offline.
Performance is slow, especially with many sources or large feeds.
Onboarding and clarity about the app’s purpose and pricing is lacking.
Occasional TTS glitches (e.g., TTS stopping when images are in the document).

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User Reviews

Recent rating average: 4.10

All time rating average: 4.20

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33% (13)

Date	Author	Comment
2026-06-02	R.*****	Good but difficult to highlight passages because the app won't allow you to select a single word to start highlighting a sentence. Sometimes, it doesn't even let you select anything at all. Mostly though, my gripe is with how slow the app is to update its library whenever I add a new link. Whether it uploads or not seems to have nothing to do with its length (it'll tell you if it's processing, so that's not what I'm referring to), and I have to force quit and clear the cache regularly.
Good but difficult to highlight passages because the app won't allow you to select a single word to start highlighting a sentence. Sometimes, it doesn't even let you select anything at all. Mostly though, my gripe is with how slow the app is to update its library whenever I add a new link. Whether it uploads or not seems to have nothing to do with its length (it'll tell you if it's processing, so that's not what I'm referring to), and I have to force quit and clear the cache regularly.
2026-05-23	Mo*****	The ultimate reading and research tool. Hands-down the best read-it-later app available. It handles web articles and dense PDFs beautifully, and the highlighting seamless feeds into the main Readwise ecosystem. It is clean, lightning-fast, and completely streams your note-taking.
The ultimate reading and research tool. Hands-down the best read-it-later app available. It handles web articles and dense PDFs beautifully, and the highlighting seamless feeds into the main Readwise ecosystem. It is clean, lightning-fast, and completely streams your note-taking.
2026-04-23	Si*****	Please remove GMS plugin module so that I can run this app on a phone without Google Play. I think many users on Reddit requested similar change.
Please remove GMS plugin module so that I can run this app on a phone without Google Play. I think many users on Reddit requested similar change.