Highlights vs Launchpad

Highlights is a PDF reader for research that turns PDF annotations into notes, available on iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Its free plan supports reading and annotating PDFs, merging annotations, editing PDF metadata, and Handoff. Notes can be exported as Markdown, TextBundle, HTML, WebArchive, or PDF, or sent directly to supported apps including Evernote, DEVONthink, Ulysses, Bear, and Keep It. For scientific articles, Highlights can find DOIs and retrieve metadata; it can link to a PDF on the device if the citation has already been read. Built-in multilingual OCR extracts text from PDFs without searchable text, with processing done on device. Smart Copy outputs copied images as PNG, tables as CSV, and citations as BibTeX. PDFs can be stored on device, in iCloud Drive, Dropbox, or another sync service, while annotations use standard PDF annotations. On macOS it integrates with Bookends and Papers. The free plan is available alongside Pro at $4.99 a month or $29.99 a year. The maker describes the app as intended for students and researchers.

Launchpad is a free platform for open-source collaboration, with tools to build and publish software. Projects can host Git repositories, review and merge changes, and link code changes to bug reports. Bug tracking can also integrate reports from Bugzilla, Trac, GitLab, and Mantis. Teams can build and distribute Debian packages, snaps, rocks, charms, and OCI images; documented architectures include AMD64, AMD64v3, ARM, and RISC-V. Localization tools support importing, exporting, and sharing translations, while blueprints help track project ideas and work. Launchpad Answers supports community help requests and FAQs. Automation options include a REST-style API, the launchpadlib Python client, and webhooks. The platform is available through the web, Linux, API, and self-hosted options. Commercial projects can request private branches, bugs, teams, mailing lists, and PPAs, but these features require Canonical authorization. Security documentation describes least-privilege access, restrictive networking, and fine-grained permissions; it also says automatic security monitoring was not in place as of July 2023.