Diigo vs Readwise

Diigo

• Students and researchers who annotate web pages and PDFs
• Teachers running class groups with managed student accounts
• Teams building a shared, annotated library of sources

Readwise

• Kindle and ebook readers who want to see their highlights again
• People who send reading notes to Notion, Obsidian or a similar app
• Readers who want articles, RSS, newsletters and PDFs in one app

Diigo

• The Free plan shows ads and stops at 500 bookmarks and 100 highlights over the lifetime of the account.
• Cached pages and image storage start at Standard; unlimited PDF storage and outliners need Professional at $59 a year.
• Team library storage, collaborative annotation and the admin console are limited to Business at $10 per user a month.
• The tools page links to an Android app, but its Google Play listing returned a not-found page when checked.

Readwise

• There is no free plan: a paid subscription is needed once the 30-day trial ends.
• Readwise Lite leaves out tags and notes, exports to note-taking apps, and the Reader app.
• Reader is not sold on its own; it comes with the full Readwise plan at $9.99 per month billed annually.
• Desktop apps are listed for Mac and Windows only, with no Linux app mentioned.

Diigo

Bookmarks, tags and a personal library

Saved pages go into a cloud library and are tagged for later retrieval. Each item can be set as private or public.

Highlights and sticky notes

Highlight text and add sticky notes directly on web pages and PDFs while browsing; the annotations are still on the page when you come back to it.

Outliner

Arrange links, references and your own notes into a structured outline for a piece of research. Unlimited outliners are part of the Professional plan.

Groups

A group builds a shared library for a class, team or company that members can add to, search and discuss through annotations on the page.

Archived web pages

Paid plans store cached copies of bookmarked pages with their annotations intact, so they stay readable if the original source goes offline.

Import, export and API

The tools page lists bookmark and Kindle highlight import, library and PDF export, saving by email, automatic publishing to a blog and the Diigo API.

Readwise

Daily Review

A daily selection of past highlights, delivered by email and in the app and timed with spaced repetition so older passages come back around.

Highlight import

Syncs highlights from Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, Instapaper and other listed sources, and captures passages from paper books by photographing the page.

Export to note-taking apps

Sends highlights to Notion, Obsidian, Evernote, Roam, Logseq and other listed apps, or to Markdown and CSV. Exports are part of the full plan.

Reader

A read-later app for web articles, RSS feeds, email newsletters, PDFs, EPUBs, YouTube transcripts and X threads, with highlighting, full-text search and text to speech.

Ghostreader and chat with highlights

Ghostreader answers questions about a document, defines terms and simplifies passages. Chat answers show the highlights they were drawn from.

MCP server, CLI and API

An MCP server connects Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or another MCP-compatible assistant to the library, alongside a command-line tool and an API.

Diigo

• Free$0

  Ad-supported, with lifetime caps of 500 cloud bookmarks and 100 webpage and PDF highlights.

• Standard$40

  per year

  No ads, with unlimited bookmarks, highlights, image storage and cached pages, plus Kindle highlight import.

• Professional$59

  per year

  Everything in Standard, plus unlimited PDF storage and unlimited outliners.

• Business$10

  per user / month (billing basis not stated)

  Everything in Professional, plus an unlimited team library, collaborative web and PDF annotation in a team, and an admin console.

Readwise

• Readwise Lite$5.59

  per month, billed annually ($67.08), or $6.99 billed monthly

  Daily Review by email and app, a searchable highlight library, and syncing of new highlights from all sources.

• Readwise$9.99

  per month, billed annually ($119.88), or $12.99 billed monthly

  The full plan: everything in Lite, plus tags and notes, exports to Notion, Obsidian and other note apps, and the Reader app.

Diigo

• Education

  Free teacher and student accounts

  Teachers can apply for a free account with more capabilities than the normal free plan, including a Teacher Console for creating and managing student accounts. Schools can apply for an education domain.

Readwise

• Annual discount

  Save 21% to 24% with yearly billing

  The pricing page shows a 21% saving on Readwise Lite ($5.59 instead of $6.99 a month) and 24% on the full plan ($9.99 instead of $12.99) when billed yearly.

• Education

  50% off for students and academics

  Students and other members of academia get 50% off by emailing Readwise before subscribing, then subscribing through the Readwise website.

• Nonprofit

  50% off for nonprofits

  The Reader page lists the same 50% discount for nonprofits, educators, military and first responders, requested by email.