# R Discovery vs Nerdi: which research app fits you?

Both apps help you read new research on your phone, but they are built for different readers. R Discovery is a large, personalised feed, with millions of AI summaries and, with its paid Prime plan, audio and translation. Nerdi is deliberately small: three papers a day from the fields you choose, always shown with the authors' original abstract. Pick R Discovery if you want breadth and institutional access, and Nerdi if you want a short daily reading habit you can actually keep.

## At a glance

| | R Discovery | Nerdi |
|---|---|---|
| What you get each day | A feed, including a "Daily Top 100" | Three picks a day, plus a feed |
| Catalogue | "300M+ research papers" (its App Store subtitle) | A curated selection across 20 fields, from OpenAlex |
| Summaries | AI summaries ("8M+") | A short AI summary on many papers, labelled, above the original abstract; can be turned off |
| Full text | Open-access papers; paywalled ones with institutional credentials | Free PDF in the app when a legal open copy exists |
| Paid plan | Prime: collaboration, translation, audio | Plus: unlimited library, notes, offline PDFs, BibTeX/RIS export, add papers by link, sync |
| Account | Yes | No |
| US App Store rating | 4.8 from 926 ratings | New (November 2026) |

R Discovery's numbers come from its [App Store listing](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/r-discovery-academic-research/id1508182175) in November 2026. They change, so check the current page.

## Choose R Discovery if

- You need **coverage**: you follow a niche topic and want every new paper in it.
- Your university gives you **institutional access**, and you want paywalled full texts on your phone.
- You like **listening** to papers, or reading them in another language, and are happy to pay for Prime.

## Choose Nerdi if

- Your problem is not finding papers but **reading** them: a feed of hundreds a day is what you are escaping.
- You want the **authors' own words** in front of you, with any AI summary clearly marked and optional.
- You don't want to **create an account** before you can read anything.
- You read across fields, and want a few good papers a day rather than everything.

## Can you use both?

Yes. Some readers keep R Discovery for alerts in their own subfield and use Nerdi for a few papers a day from a wider range of fields. If you write a thesis, add a reference manager too; Nerdi Plus exports your saved papers to Zotero or Paperpile as BibTeX or RIS.

## Further reading

- [The best apps for reading research papers on iPhone in 2026](https://nerdi.pages.dev/blog/best-apps-to-read-research-papers-on-iphone)
- [Zotero, Paperpile or Nerdi: which do you need?](https://nerdi.pages.dev/blog/zotero-paperpile-or-nerdi)