Best Book Summary Apps like Blinkist- Updateland

Here is a list of the best Blinkist alternatives out there. I won’t just shove options down your throat. For every alternative listed here, I’ll explain the primary features you’re getting, what makes it similar to Blinkist, what are its advantages as well as disadvantages. Yes, we’re covering all the bases.

Also, I’ve personally used every single option (I love reading, more than most) for quite some time. Hence, a lot of personal experience has gone into curating this list.

Do note that these apps keep improving themselves constantly. Hence, in some cases it may be possible that new features are added or existing features removed by the time you read this piece.

You can also either use most of these options for free, forever, or there’s at least a free trial!

Okay then, if you need Shortform content, Head this Way (yes, I’m being creative).

1. Headway

Headway is a perfect alternative to Blinkist on multiple fronts. The signup process at Headway helps you get individually tailored content. You’re asked a few questions & book preferences. You simply have to select a yes/no button for the answers.

This ensures the content you see matches your goals/preferences.

As of July 2024, it has 1600+ book summaries to be exact.

It also has categories you can use to find your books easily. Need to learn stress management? Learn politics? Get smart? It has it all.

I personally love its achievements and trophies. It gamifies reading and gives me a reason to keep coming back.

You can of course highlight text. The highlights get saved to your library under the highlights tab.

It also has a streak counter. Yes, the same strategy Snapchat employs to keep users snapping each other. You need to keep coming back and using the app to maintain your streak.

For each book, you get “key points” and “insights” which further reduce the reading time and give you only the most important aspects of the book.

Its Spaced Repetition is a unique feature. The insights offered by each book can be “remembered”. Simply tapping on the “remember” button turns the insight into a flash card. You can revisit these insights once every 24 hours which boosts data retention for your brain.

It also has a progress tracker. It shows me how many pages I’ve read, how many books etc. You also get a free book everyday.

This too boosts motivation and gives me a reason to come back, doesn’t it?

Headway vs. Blinkist

Both platforms offer personalised and curated content. They use information provided during sign up to offer content that’s uniquely suited to each person.
Blinkist has a database of over 8000 titles, in comparison, Headway only offers about 2000 titles.
Headway has a gamification feature and a progress tracker. This keeps pulling you back to it and prevents a slump. Blinkist leaves the responsibility of coming back to you.
You can highlight text using both apps. In both cases, the highlights get saved to a dedicated tab.
Headway has a “remember” feature, which turns highlights into “flash cards” that can be repeated once in 24 hours. Blinkist doesn’t have this feature.
Both Headway and Blinkist offer 1 free book summary per day.

Advantages of Headway

Headway focuses primarily on the self-help and non-fiction genre. If that’s what you’re looking for, you won’t be disappointed.
Headway has 3 pricing plans that let you choose your budget. You aren’t forced to accept a singular plan.
The flashcards make revising and revisiting content faster and fun. This in turn helps in retention of the information.

Disadvantages of Headway

There are no major “disadvantages” as such. Comparatively, it has fewer books than Blinkist but 2000 is still a strong number.

Headway Pricing plans:

Headway offers 3 paid plans and a free 7-day trial plan that is available together with a yearly plan subscription.

Headway app plans are available at:

1 month: $12.99
3 months: $29.99
12 months: $89.99

Basically, the higher your subscription period, the cheaper it becomes.

2. getAbstract

getAbstract is one of the most title-rich alternatives to Blinkist on this list.

It has these “channels”, they’re basically topics or genres. You can pick the channel that interests you, e.g. AI/leadership/tech and so on. Each channel has its own collection of books.

Once you find a book, you can either read it or listen to it. I love its social feature that lets you comment on these books and read what other users have commented.

It does have the “highlight” feature as well which lets you mark books.

It also has an AI feature. You can ask questions to the AI and it gives you responses just like ChatGPT.

It makes managing easy with its “library” feature. I can add books to my “read later” pile or “like” a book to find it in my library. It also has a “reading history” section that automatically saves a history of what I was reading.

There’s a 100% free trial as well (truly, 100% free).

getAbstract vs. Blinkist

getAbstract offers more titles than Blinkist does. It has over 28,000 books as compared to the 8,000 from Blinkist.
When highlighting, getAbstract highlights get saved to “my library” while Blinkist has a dedicated “highlights” section. Moreover, Blinkist displays your highlighted text directly for each book. On getAbstract, you’ll simply be taken to the book and you’ll have to find the highlighted text manually.
Blinkist offers content both for fiction and non-fiction genres. getAbstract doesn’t deal with non-fiction.
getAbstract AI is pretty basic. Its responses are text-only, and it can’t comprehend long-format questions. Blinkist understood my queries better. It also includes images and book titles for reference when answering questions.
getAbstract library management is better. It has sections for “liked” and saved books. Reading history gets saved too. Blinkist only has a direct “save” feature.
They both support dual-modes, i.e. you can either read or listen to the books.

Advantages of getAbstract

If you’re a student (verification required) you get a free plan on getAbstract.
You can try getAbstract absolutely free, just with an e-mail ID. No credit card is required.
You get access to one of the biggest libraries in the industry.
It has a social commenting feature so you can interact with other users and leave your own thoughts for the books.

Disadvantages with getAbstract

If you’re a highlighter, you would find better options on this list to access and organise your highlighted content than getAbstract.
If you’re into fiction, getAbstract has almost no fiction collection. There’s history and politics which are non self-help but they aren’t fiction.
The paid student plan (Student Pro) costs more than almost the same plan for individuals.

getAbstract pricing plans:

getAbstract has multiple plans depending on who you are:

Student: A free plan, and a plan for $99.00/year.
For individuals: This is called the “Pro” plan, it costs $29.90/month or $25 if you pay yearly.
Team plans: There’s a $1145/year plan and a $2290/year plan for 5 and 10 users respectively.

3. Shortform

Before we start, let us set expectations. Shortform is one of the newest Blinkist alternatives. This means its library is still growing and is not as populous as Blinkist. The onboarding and overall interface is very similar to Blinkist.

It has a font-control feature so you can read in the font and size you like. It too lets us highlight content.

You also can add books to your library by marking them as “favourites”. Shortform, on top of books, also has “articles”. They span through various topics such as biography/ communication/ economy/ career etc.

It has the highlight feature as well. All highlighted content gets saved to a dedicated tab.

Shortform vs. Blinkist

Shortform has about 1,000 titles as compared to the 8000 titles that Blinkist boasts.
Shortform too asks a few questions when you signup, just like Blinkist. There are fewer questions than Blinkinst which means a faster signup but less personalised recommendations.
Like Blinkist, Shortform too lets us control the text. However, Blinkist only has 3 “text sizes”. Shortform has many different fonts, line height, margins you can choose from.
Both Blinkist and Shortform let us add content to a library. On Blinkist we “save” it while on Shortform we need to add it as a “favourite”.
Free content can be found with both the book summarizers. While it’s limited to 1 title /day with Blinkist, I’ve seen Shortform offer more than one per day.
Both Blinkist and Shortform allow us to highlight text. They both save the text to dedicated tabs. What’s special is, Shortform lets us “add notes” along with the highlights. Both Shortform and getAbstract show us the highlighted text for each book directly without requiring manual searching.
Blinkist has an AI which helps answer questions and find content. getAbstract so far doesn’t have any such feature.
Shortform has this feature which lets you download the summary as a PDF. This means you can not just access it online but access on your other devices and do much more. Blinkist has no download feature.

Advantages of Shortform

Shortform isn’t limited just to books but also hosts articles.
If you’re tight on the budget, Shortform can be used to consume free books.
Shortform also offers a 5-day free trial. The availability of the trial is an advantage but there’s another side to the story (scroll down).
The PDF download is a unique feature.

Disadvantages of Shortform

The obvious disadvantage is the lower number of books. Hey, 1000 is still a massive number. However, it’s just comparatively less than the competition.
The free trial requires a credit card. You aren’t charged for the 5 days but the trial just isn’t possible without linking a card.

Shortform pricing plans:

Annual plan: $16.42/month
Monthly plan: $24.00/month.

4. Instaread

With exactly 6169 titles summarised (yes, I counted), Instaread definitely deserves to be on every Blinkist alternative list, don’t you agree?

Of course it supports both audio and text content. It wouldn’t be a site like Blinkist any other way now, would it?

Without any payment whatsoever, you get access to 1 free book daily. On top of the summary, it also has “insights” and “quotes” tab for each book. This lets you instantly access curated sections of the book without even reading the summary!

As for genre, it’s not really limited and has both fiction as well as non-fiction books.

Instaread offers a free trial as well.

Instaread vs. Blinkist

If we count numbers, Instaread’s 6000+ collection is not very far behind as compared to Blinkist. Even the book types, categories and popularity are similar.
Both the platforms offer 1 free daily book. Yes it’s available in both the formats as well.
It doesn’t have a highlights feature whatsoever. It’s not about how good/bad the highlight feature is, it simply doesn’t exist.
Both the platforms let you add books to a library. On Blinkist you click the “save” button, on Instaread it’s directly an “add to library” button.
Both the companies offer a free trial. Both companies also require a credit card for the trial to be effective. Instaread offers a 7-day free trial.

Advantages of Instaread

For one, it’s cheaper than Blinkist. It’s actually one of the cheapest options on this list.
The book collection is pretty decent and you’ll probably find what you’re looking for.
The signup process is simpler without the questions. You may feel it’s a disadvantage though if “personalization” is what you needed.
It offers 3 different payment plans that let you pay at your own pace and budget.

Disadvantages of Instaread

The one major problem is its lack of the highlight feature. To me, it is a deal-breaker because I need to highlight what I’d like to revisit.
It doesn’t have the “spaces” feature that Blinkist offers which lets you invite friends. Yes, even those without a Blinkist account.

Instaread pricing plans

1 month plan: $8.99/month
12 month plan: $7.49/month (billed annually)
Lifetime plan: $299.00

5. Mentorist

Mentorist is one of my favourite websites like Blinkist for its very unique approach and concept.

So, they believe in “practical application” of knowledge. To facilitate that, Mentorist has an “action plan”. It’s basically a to-do list. It obviously helps you take action based on whatever you learn from a book.

4 (from phone)

You can even add these tasks to a “daily focus” list. Then, you can set a timer for a frequency, this is how often you will be evaluating your daily focus actions.

It also has a progress tracker that ensures even the lazy ones come back. It’s a very non-fiction/self-help (hence, “Mentorist”) platform.

It too offers one free book per day. For each book on Mentorist, you get “key insights” which along with the action points we discussed earlier.

It also has “Originals”. These are books or articles that Mentorist produces. Its awards and badges system helps trigger our “accomplishment” metre and is a reason some keep coming back.

A 7-day free trial exists as well.

It does have the highlight feature as well. Yes, highlights are saved to a specific “highlights” tab on your account.

Mentorist however is pretty low in terms of “numbers of books”.

Mentorist vs. Blinkist

Mentorist only has about 524 books as of July 2024. It’s pretty low when compared to the 8000+ that Blinkist is offering.
Mentorist is very action-oriented. It has action plans and to-do lists that let you take action based on what you’re reading. Blinkist doesn’t have the feature.
You already know they both offer 1 free book. However, on Mentorist, you can “unlock” 1 book per day, which can be any book of your choice. Unlike any other alternative to Blinkist here, or even Blinkist which gives you 1 book of their choice.
While Blinkist too is mostly non-fiction oriented, that’s not a strict rule. It has a few fiction books as well. Mentorist due to its nature (of mentoring) is entirely non-fictional.
Mentorist offers badges and rewards on various events. It helps track progress as well as is a reason to come back. Blinkist doesn’t have the feature.
The free trial is offered by both companies. Both companies also require credit cards for the trials to be activated.
Highlights are common for both but with a twist. Mentorist highlights are actually one of the best. You can choose your own colours for the highlights. Blinkist has a pre-set highlight colour.
Both Mentorist and Blinkist have only 1 payment plan.

Mentorist Advantages

It’s the best option on this list if you’re purely into self-help. This is because of its action plans, to-do lists and daily focus evaluations.
Mentorist originals are content you may not have seen or heard before. They’re curated by Mentorist and in my opinion is pretty helpful.
You get to choose which books to unlock. This essentially makes it a free library.
Even without the summary, the “key insights” tell you the most important parts of the book instantly.

Mentorist disadvantages

While not a direct disadvantage, its fairly low number of titles is something that surely can be improved.

Mentorist pricing plans:

Mentorist has a single payment plan. It’s priced at about $36.00 for the entire year.

Conclusion

If you ask me for my opinion, I’ll say Headway definitely deserves the top spot as an alternative to Blinkist. I’ve never run out of its book collection (2000+), the flash cards are almost a unique feature and the pricing is flexible. The personalization also ensures everything I see is something I need and love.

Mentorist will be my second recommendation if you don’t care about the “number of books” and rather “getting things done” is your primary focus. The fact that you can choose the book to unlock each day is a nice attraction as well.

If you’re an aggressive reader, nothing beats Shortform though. The book collection is pretty big (1000+), the AI helps out when needed, and I can mark my notes with the highlights. Even for the freebie lovers, its 2 free books/day beats all other options here.

The other options all have their strengths and weaknesses as well and will not be a disappointment, that’s guaranteed.

5 Best Book Summary Apps like Blinkist