Blinkist vs. Headway: Which App Is Best for Book Summaries?

With our lives getting busier by the day, carving out time to read an entire book has become a luxury for many of us. Thankfully, book summary apps have become increasingly popular, and their demand has definitely been on the rise.

These apps offer concise summaries of some of the most popular books, enabling readers to get the gist of the book’s content in a shorter amount of time. Two of the most popular book summary apps, Blinkist and Headway, have garnered a lot of attention. But which one is better?

In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at both and compare them in terms of library size, content quality, user interface, features, and pricing.

Blinkist vs. Headway, what is the best option for you?

Blinkist and Headway provide concise book summaries. They let you browse a library of summaries and read or listen to them on your device. By providing the main ideas and key takeaways from each book, the summaries allow you to learn more in less time. It’s like having the superpower of speed reading!

Content selection: Blinkist has the most extensive library, with over 6,500 titles

One of the most significant differences between Blinkist and Headway is the size of their libraries. Blinkist has a massive collection of over 6,500 bite-sized pieces of content among 27 categories, covering everything from business to self-help, psychology, and even fiction. Talk about variety!

In contrast, Headway offers a more limite selection of approximately 1,500 titles across 16 categories such as productivity, happiness, and self-growth.

Quality of the content: Blinkist offers more comprehensive and accurate summaries.

Blinkist boasts 11 years of experience and a team of expert curators who offer top-notch book summaries. Their professional narrators and producers ensure an enjoyable listening experience for users. Blinkist places a strong emphasis on selecting talented and engaging speakers to bring the content to life in their audio versions.

Headway summaries are created by an international team of writers, editors, moderators, and voice actors from around the globe.

App interface and ease of use

Comparing Blinkist and Headway regarding their app interface and ease of use, both platforms are user-friendly and straightforward. However, one of the significant distinctions is that Blinkist is available on both mobile and desktop, while Headway only offers a mobile version.

With Blinkist, users can effortlessly add titles to their library, allowing Blinkist to generate personalized recommendations based on their preferences. This feature makes discovering new titles to learn from and enjoy a breeze.

The Blinkist app boasts an intuitive design, with a home bar and only three tabs to navigate: Discover, Library, and You. Its library tab is particularly remarkable; it includes the possibility to create collections and organize their favorite titles.

On the other hand, Headway offers users a daily progress tracker to help them stay motivated in their learning journey.

Key Differences Between Blinkist and Headway

Blinkist’s Unique Features

Blinkist Spaces

Blinkist Premium users can create group spaces within the app to add, share, and recommend titles from the library. Imagine having a virtual book club where you can invite friends, family, or colleagues, and members can exchange recommendations. 

Blinkist Guides

Blinkist has recently introduced a new content format, Guides, designed to provide practical insights and actionable tips on specific topics. Led by experts and thought leaders in their respective fields, each Guide contains a combination of original audio content, Blinks, and Shortcasts, as well as additional resources such as exercises, infographics, or quizzes to help users apply and retain what they’ve learned.

Users can choose to listen to a Guide from the beginning or scroll through the chapters to start where they prefer. At the end of each chapter, a quick recap of the key idea is provided, along with a summary of the entire Guide at the end. Guides offer a comprehensive and engaging way to learn about various topics, focusing on practical application and knowledge retention.

Headway’s Unique Features

Headway Mindsets

Headway has a nifty feature called “Mindsets,” offering daily motivational quotes and mindset exercises to help you apply the concepts learned from book summaries to your everyday life. They also have learning streaks, spaced repetition for memorization, habit tracking, and the ability to save and memorize favorite book insights.

Highlight and spaced repetition

Headway enables users to highlight and save ideas they want to memorize, turn them into interactive flashcards with one tap, and get personalized reminders to refresh their knowledge.

Pricing: Which App Is Worth the Most?

Both apps have similar pricing structures, with free and paid versions available. The free plan gives you access to one book per day, and both apps offer a 7-day free trial for unlimited content access. 

Blinkist‘s annual plan costs $99.99 per year, while the monthly plan is $15.99. The yearly plan offers significant savings over the monthly plan. 

Headway’s annual plan costs $89.99 per year, and the monthly plan is $14.99.

Blinkist Premium grants unlimited access to the entire library, exclusive guides, collections, and shortcasts. Premium users can also download titles for offline access and send reads to Kindle. 

Moreover, Blinkist lets subscribers invite one person to share their Premium plan at no extra cost. Sharing is caring! With Blinkist’s 2-for-1 offer and its vast collection of titles, it’s clear that Blinkist offers a much more affordable way to access high-quality book summaries than Headway.

Conclusion and Final Recommendation

Ultimately, if you’re craving a broader range of topics and extra features, Blinkist is your perfect match. Blinkist’s more extensive content library, a diverse range of topics, exclusive features like shortcasts and guides, and the option to share a Premium plan with another person makes it a strong contender for many users. If you’re looking for a comprehensive and versatile book summary experience, Blinkist is the one for you.

If you’re interested in giving Blinkist a try, we encourage you to head over to our website and subscribe today. And the best part? You will enjoy a 7-day free trial, so you can experience the benefits of Blinkist for yourself before committing to a subscription. So why wait? Sign up today and start your Blinkist journey.