X Brain vs Readwise for X/Twitter Saves (2026 Comparison)
X Brain vs Readwise for X/Twitter Saves
TL;DR: These tools solve different halves of the same problem. Readwise is a highlights system for everything you read: books, articles, podcasts, and the posts you bookmark on X. X Brain is a one-purpose tool that imports your entire X like history from the official data archive and makes it searchable by meaning. The deciding question is whether the posts you care about are bookmarks or likes. Readwise is a subscription, X Brain is $4.99 once.
Pricing and integration behaviour below were checked against both vendors' own pages on 6 August 2026 and rechecked on 13 September 2026. An earlier version of this page said Readwise could not import bookmarks saved before you connect it. That was wrong: its documentation describes a backfill, covered below. Both products change, so verify before you buy.
The one difference that decides it
Readwise's X integration reads your bookmarks. Once you connect your account, new bookmarks import on a once-a-day sync, and a "Backfill your bookmarks" option in its Twitter settings pulls in the ones you saved before, keeping their original bookmark dates. The backfill runs through the Readwise browser extension.
It has no import for likes. If you have liked four thousand posts over six years, none of them reach Readwise unless you go back and save each one.
X Brain works the other way. It reads the official X data archive, which contains your complete like history in one file, and processes all of it in a single pass. It has no live sync at all: when you want newer likes included, you download a fresh archive and upload it again.
So:
- Your bookmarks, past and future, kept in sync: Readwise
- Your whole like history, in one import: X Brain
Neither does both well, and no amount of feature comparison changes that.
What actually gets in
Readwise accepts tweets three ways: reply to a post with @readwise save, DM it to the account, or connect your X account so bookmarks import daily, with an optional backfill of the bookmarks you already had. Individual posts land as highlights. Threads go to Reader as articles. Readwise's own documentation describes the X integration as experimental and dependent on the stability of X's API.
X Brain accepts one thing: the ZIP file X gives you when you request your data archive. Inside it, like.js holds every post you have ever liked, with the post ID, its text, and a URL.
That file is also the source of X Brain's hard limits, and they are worth knowing before you pay:
- No author filtering.
like.jshas no author field. Filtering by who wrote a post is impossible without paid per-post X API lookups, which X Brain does not do. - No "date I liked it". The archive does not record it. Dates come from the post's publication time, recovered from the post ID.
- Bookmarks are unreliable. Newer archives export bookmarks as bare IDs with no text, and text is what makes a post searchable. Likes are the dependable source.
Readwise is not subject to any of this, because it captures posts live and keeps the author. If author filtering is the feature you actually want, Readwise is the better answer and this is the honest place to say so.
Pricing
| X Brain | Readwise Lite | Readwise Full | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 one-time | $5.59/mo billed annually | $9.99/mo billed annually, $12.99 monthly |
| Trial | Free preview before paying | 30 days | 30 days |
| Obsidian export | Yes | No | Yes |
| AI provider cost | Included, own key optional | Included | Included |
X Brain's $4.99 includes the AI processing: embeddings, search, classification and the first 10,000 key takeaways per account run on X Brain's own keys. You can also bring your own provider key and pay that provider directly, which lifts the takeaway limit and keeps the calls on an account you control; for most libraries that runs $1 to $3. Embeddings specifically need an OpenAI or Gemini key, since Anthropic offers no embeddings API; an Anthropic key covers classification and enrichment only.
Over three years, Readwise Full billed annually comes to roughly $360. X Brain comes to $4.99 plus a few dollars of provider cost. That gap is real, but it buys different things: Readwise keeps working on everything you read, forever, and X Brain processes one archive.
Where Readwise is genuinely better
Comparison pages that find no merit in the competitor are not worth reading, so, plainly:
- Breadth. Kindle, Apple Books, articles, podcasts, PDFs, newsletters. X Brain reads one file format from one website.
- Spaced repetition. The daily review that resurfaces old highlights is Readwise's core idea and X Brain has no equivalent.
- It keeps the author. Because it captures live rather than from an archive.
- Reader. A genuinely good read-later app is bundled with Full.
- It is not a one-shot. Set it up once and new saves keep arriving.
If you want a reading system, buy Readwise. This is not a close call.
Where X Brain is genuinely better
- Your back catalogue. The years of likes Readwise structurally cannot reach.
- Semantic search over that catalogue. Ask for "that thread about hiring engineers" and get it without remembering a single exact word.
- Classification you did not do by hand. 15 knowledge domains and 65+ subcategories, assigned automatically, plus a key takeaway per post.
- An MCP server. Connect the library to Claude and ask questions about your own saved posts in conversation. Readwise has no equivalent.
- One payment. No renewal, no seat, no cancellation to remember.
Can you use both
Yes, and it is a reasonable setup. Run X Brain once on your archive to recover and organise your likes, export them as an Obsidian vault, and let Readwise handle your bookmarks and everything else you read. They do not conflict, because they are reading different things.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Readwise import my old Twitter likes?
No. Readwise's X integration imports bookmarks: new ones on a daily sync, and older ones through an optional backfill that runs in its browser extension. It has no import for likes and does not read the X data archive, so your like history is not reachable through it.
Does X Brain sync new likes automatically?
No. X Brain is archive-based, so new likes appear only when you download a fresh archive from X and upload it again. The trade is deliberate: it means no browser extension to break and no ongoing access to your account, but it also means there is no live sync.
Is X Brain cheaper than Readwise?
For a one-time import, substantially. X Brain is $4.99 once, AI processing included (or roughly $1 to $3 in provider costs if you choose to use your own key). Readwise Full is $9.99 per month billed annually or $12.99 month to month. The comparison is only fair if you want what X Brain does, because Readwise keeps ingesting from every source you read.
Can both export to Obsidian?
Yes. Readwise Full includes Obsidian export, and so does X Brain. The difference is what ends up in the vault: Readwise exports the highlights it has collected, which on the X side means your bookmarks, while X Brain exports your whole like history as one Markdown note per post, with YAML frontmatter, tags, and category index notes.
Which one keeps the author of each tweet?
Readwise. It captures posts live, so the author travels with the post. X Brain reads the X archive, whose like.js file contains no author field at all, so author filtering is not available at any price short of per-post X API lookups.