Whenever you are searching for an application with a certain purpose, you will be offered a ton of options – and this can sometimes get overwhelming.
After all, you don’t have the time to go through each option one by one, so most people end up clicking on the first option they see and calling it a day.
But this often means they are missing out on some better alternatives.
The same goes for the popular book summary app. There are tons of options out there but two names always stick out in recommendations and reviews – Blinkist and Headway. But which one is the better option? Which one is right for you?
Here we are going to be comparing the Blinkist app and the Headway app, two of the biggest and most recommended book summary services out there.
This way, we can find out which one comes on top so you can pick the service which is right for you. Check out the information below between Blinkist vs Headway!
General Information
In this section, we are going to take a closer look at the general information of our two competitors. This way, you can understand which services we are talking about and have a good idea of how they work overall before we dive into more depth.
About Blinkist
Let’s start with Blinkist.
Blinkist is an online book summary service that provides 15-minute book summaries of non-fiction books to satisfy customers.
Based in Germany, Blinkist was first founded in 2012 by just four people and now is a multinational company with millions of readers worldwide.
The goal is to provide those who do not have the time to read whole books with a summary of the ideas and challenges each book raises.
This makes reading and literature more accessible to those who struggle with fitting literature into their busy everyday lives.
Blinkist works closely with authors and each book summary is written, fact-checked and quality assured by Blinkist’s own team of editors. This has resulted in them earning many awards including being named as one of the Best Apps in 2017 at Apple.
About Headway
Now, let’s take a look at the Headway app.
Headway app is a much more recent company as they were set up in 2019, but the company has seen amazing growth since then.
According to their website, Headway now offers book summaries to over 12 million users , and is in the Top 10 Free Education Apps for Apple and Google Play across some key markets.
They now employ over 100 people across many countries including Ukraine, Poland, and the UK.
Headway’s goal is to provide ‘bite-sized’ learning to those who want to access more ways to grow.
This is also through 15 minute better summaries of books, just like the services Blinkist offers, but the Blinkist app also boasts features to help improve concentration and keep their users on the right track.
Overall, Headway’s quick growth as a company is very impressive – so what is it that they offer which makes them such a popular choice and alternative to Blinkist?
Blinkist Vs Headway
So, now you know a bit about the background of each company, it’s time to compare them side by side to see which two apps offer the best features, deals, and more.
This way, you can see which one repeatedly comes out on top – and is the clear best option between the two companies.
So, let’s dive in!
Range Of Book Titles
Obviously, it’s important for a book summary provider to offer as wide a range of book titles as possible.
A large library of available titles makes it more likely for users to be able to find certain books they want quality summaries of, and less likely that their users will run through all of the titles you have to offer.
Plus, more books means more topics are covered to provide more information and ideas to eager readers.
The whole point of summary providers like Blinkist and Headway is so people can learn about more topics at a faster pace – and the more titles on offer, the easier it is to achieve this goal.
So, the more books the provider has useful quality summaries for, the better.
Blinkist has over 5,000 well know nonfiction books in their summary library and every month, around 40 new titles are added. This means that users have an extensive list of titles to choose from and a new title to view every single day.
There are tons of different titles to read and a range of different genres and categories ranging from self-help, history, finance and more.
Headway, however, lags behind a little bit but for a company only a few years old, their library is still pretty impressive. Unfortunately, they have nowhere near as many titles as Blinkist. Instead, they offer a library of a modest few hundred.
So, purely on selection of titles alone, Blinkist takes the win.
Unfortunately, both companies only really offer popular non-fiction titles and books – so perhaps in the future, they could both branch out and start offering summaries for fiction books too.
This feature could help sell their services to literature students who need short summaries of classic novels and the like, but for now, both Blinkist and Headway have limited their libraries to feature non-fiction titles instead.
Also, we’d like to mention how both Blinkist and Headway offer their summaries in both audio and written formats.
This makes their services far more accessible to all as you can choose the method which is easiest for you to take in – so a big shout out to this game-changing feature!
Quality Of Summaries
A common problem with some entire book summary providers is that their summaries read more like blurbs or ‘about’ sections on the book’s Amazon page.
People looking for a book summary don’t want a vague outline that is designed to make you pick up the book itself – they want an in-depth explanation of the book, summing up its key points and cutting out all the fat and trimmings.
So, another important area to consider when looking for the right book summary provider is the quality of their summaries.
This is what makes Blinkist and Headway leading companies in this niche market. They each provide very in-depth summaries without missing out on any key ideas or details of the book – all while keeping the summary short and sweet!
There is little difference between the quality of the summaries available on Blinkist and Headway.
If we had to nitpick, we would say that Blinkist’s summaries are more fact based and give the information to you straight, while Headway can be a little more creative with their sentence structures and this can make their summaries a more pleasant read.
Ultimately, which one is better comes down to personal choice.
If you would rather cold, straight sentences that can sound a little monotonous but they cut out any fluff – go with Blinkist.
If you want your summaries to have a little personality and are more fun to read, then Headway’s summaries would be more enjoyable for you.
Overall, both companies do a great job of providing short yet informative summaries that perfectly convey the key themes and ideas from each title they cover. As which one is ‘best’ comes down to personal choice of reading style, then we are going to call this one a tie.
Ease Of Use
Both Blinkist and Headway are accessible as smartphone app, which can be downloaded on iOS devices from the Apple Store or Google Play.
This makes both of them just as accessible as the other – but both have different features which both book summary apps a different experience.
Blinkist, like its summary style, is straightforward and to the point. You download the app and once you have signed up and logged in (a super quick and easy process), then you can instantly start looking for summaries to listen or read.
The layout of the app itself is very clear and easy to navigate, helping it to be super easy to use overall.
At the bottom of the screen, you will find your home bar and there are only three tabs to choose from: Discover, Library, and You.
The Discover tab is where you can search for new books and titles to read. There’s a search bar where you can look for a specific title, or browse the 27 unique categories Blinkist uses to divide up its titles.
You can easily add titles to your library as you go along, saving them for future use, and over time Blinkist will use this information to generate recommendations based on your preferences. This makes it even easier to discover new titles that you can learn from and enjoy.
Plus, there’s a trending section and a new section so you can stay on top of what is currently relevant.
As for the other tabs, the Library tab is where you can store all of your favorite titles. It acts as your ‘homepage’ and each title will feature a progress bar so you can keep on track of what you have started and where you left off.
Our personal favorite feature in the Library tab is that you can create your own tagging system so if there’s a particular group of titles you want to stick together (such as ones you want to recommend to your friend, or ones that are useful resources for your research projects), then you can do so with ease.
Finally, there is the You tab which hosts all of your account crucial details. If you ever need to change something, you can just pop in and fix it with no issue.
Overall, Blinkist is super easy to use and navigate – so what about Headway?
Headway is very similar to Blinkist in terms of layout and navigation but there are more features to play with and the overall design of the app is a bit more creative and visually appealing.
Headway also offers a library where you can store your favorite titles, and a discover tab to help you find specific titles or just browse through to your heart’s content. However, one feature that Headway offers that really knocks it out of the park is its goal tracking features.
The goal tracking feature allows you to set goals for yourself. For example, you can set a goal of listening to 30 minutes of Headway audio each day. Headway will then track how many minutes you have spent listening to audios and show you your progress towards the goal.
You can even check out if you met your goals in the past, keep a streak going for motivation, and see a reminder of your streak best.
We found this feature to be especially motivating and useful, and it helped us stay on track to keep using Headway every single day.
So, both Blinkist and Headway offer easy to use apps with additional features to help improve their user’s experience. This has made it difficult to pick a victor for this category, but we decided to go with Headway.
Headway shares a lot of similarities with Blinkist’s layout and interface but nudges it out with its far more appealing visual design.
While Blinkist’s personal tagging system is also incredibly useful, we also really liked using Headway’s daily progress tracker and found it to be super motivating. Ultimately, both companies did really well in this category but Headway just about steals the crown here.
Customer Service And Support
When it comes to customer service and support, Headway again just nudges out Blinkist.
This is because while Blinkist has a very responsive and effective support service, you can only contact them through emails.
On the other hand, Headway also offers quick and effective customer support but they give their users the option of using email or calling them on the phone.
This single extra contact method is what gives Headway the edge here, even if you could be on hold for a while waiting to get through. Despite this, we are grateful that the option was there for users who prefer to use calls rather than emails.
We would like to see more contact methods for both Headway and Blinkist, such as texting, but for now Headway takes the victor for this category due to the additional contact methods they offer. Overall, however, the quality of support and service is great with both companies.
Prices
Finally, we have come to our last category – cost and prices.
Both Headway and Blinkist can be downloaded with free account and both use a subscription model for their premium membership[. The services for both are severely limited unless you sign up to one of the payment plans.
For example, the free version of Blinkist and Headway both only give their users one free summary a day – and you don’t get to pick which one.
However, Blinkist does offer a seven day free trial period so you can check out if the features it offers is truly something you will use regularly. Headway also offers a 7 day free trial but beware!
If you don’t cancel at least 24 hours before it runs out, you will be automatically charged for a payment plan! Sneaky!
As for prices, Headway’s pricing are the most affordable price out of the two companies. It offers three different payment plans ranging from weekly charges (priced at $8.99), monthly subscription charges ($14.99), or one annual lump sum ($89.99).
This means that Headway offers more affordable prices compared to Blinkist, which offers two payment plans at one annual lump sum ($99.99, a whole $10 more expensive than Headway) and monthly plans of $15.99.
However, although Headway is more affordable, it also has less to offer in terms of book titles.
So, Headway is the most affordable but we have to argue that Blinkist offers more value for money because it offers so many more titles for such a little price difference.
Plus, Blinkist pricing doesn’t try to trick its customers into accidentally paying for a payment plan after their free trials period has ended. So, we are going to crown Blinkist the winner here as it’s more value for money.
Who Should You Choose – Blinkist Or Headway?
After comparing both Blinkist and Headway against one another in such detail, ranging in categories from cost to the quality of their summaries, we would recommend Blinkist over Headway.
Blinkist offers way more in terms of book titles and also has some unique, handy features such as their personal tagging system. Although it is a little more costly, it’s still better value for money as you have limited access to such a wide range of titles.
Plus, Headway only just stole the crown in the ease of use category. Headway does admittedly have better customer support and the more affordable prices, but it lags behind so badly when it comes to book titles.
A few hundred is so far behind Blinkist’s few thousand – so if Headway ever wants a change of knocking Blinkist off their thrown, they need to start adding more titles to their library and fast!
