edgi vs Headway (the book summary app): which is better?

By the edgi team

edgi is the better app if you want to get smarter in a few minutes a day and actually enjoy it. A Lesson takes 60 seconds and teaches something you're curious about, you collect a card for every idea, and the cards build a Map of everything you know. It's free. Headway condenses nonfiction bestsellers into 15-minute summaries, sold by goal ("Speak like a CEO," "Turn on confidence mode"), with one free summary a day and the rest by subscription.

We make edgi, and we built it to be the most fun way to learn something new. To be clear which Headway this is: the book app from makeheadway.com, not the therapy platform at headway.co, which launched its own iPhone app on September 23, 2026.

Headway's facts come from its US App Store listing, its pricing article and its public summary pages, checked September 2026. We haven't used its paid app.

A goal or a question

Headway's homepage sells outcomes. The "Get started" buttons lead to a quiz whose first screen reads "Become the most interesting person in the room," asks your age bracket, and says passing the quiz will "personalize your subscription plan." The library is broader than the homepage suggests (Sapiens, A Brief History of Time and The Selfish Gene sit next to the self-help), but the pitch is self-improvement as a to-do list: pick the outcome, read the book that promises it.

edgi starts somewhere better: with whatever you're wondering about right now. The real test of a good education is how much you enjoy learning, and people learn best what they're already curious about. So edgi never asks for a goal. You open a Lesson, and a minute later you know something you didn't. Why a mug feels worth more the moment it's yours. Why red wine dries your mouth. The card is yours, it lights up on your Map, and the Map shows you three more things you suddenly want to know.

What Headway shows you before you pay

We opened its public summary of Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. It's labeled "12 min." You get the first two key points in full, about 540 words ("Control your thoughts, control your life" and "Are you system one or system two?"). Then the page says the full summary is waiting for you in the app, and the other five key points appear only as titles. A pop-up covers the page: "Join 55M+ people crushing their goals with Headway," over a wall of book covers.

Twelve minutes, for a book Headway's FAQ puts at 512 pages. That's what a summary is: the argument, fast, without the experiments that make it stick.

One book, six Lessons

Among the ideas Wikipedia's article on Kahneman's book lists are anchoring, the availability heuristic, loss aversion, the framing effect, the sunk cost fallacy and prospect theory. edgi has an interactive Lesson for each of those six. Headway's version is one 12-minute summary of the whole book, and its own FAQ for the summary lists loss aversion among what the book teaches.

Here's ours on loss aversion, so you can feel the difference. It's built on the Cornell mug experiment Kahneman ran with Jack Knetsch and Richard Thaler in 1990: give half a class a mug, and a few minutes later the owners want more than twice what the others will pay for the same mug.

Loss Aversion Loss aversion is a cognitive bias where losing something hurts more than gaining the exact same thing feels good.

60-second Lesson

Loss Aversion

Half the class gets a mug. Minutes later, the owners want more than twice what everyone else will pay.

Play it here Read about loss aversion

Finish it and loss aversion is a card in your collection, sitting on your Map. And the Map keeps going: behavioral economics, then neuroeconomics, then game theory, then mechanism design, the economics of designing auctions and markets. No single book covers that run. On edgi it's four steps across your Map.

We also checked 13 topics from Headway's own topic pages (sleep, astronomy, macroeconomics, mindfulness among them) against edgi's catalog. All 13 are edgi ideas with a Lesson of their own.

How big is Headway's library?

Headway's own pages give three figures. The homepage and its pricing article say 2,500+ summaries. The App Store description and the homepage FAQ say 1,700+. The library page says 1,600+. Its public sitemap lists 897 book-summary pages, and since a sitemap doesn't have to list everything, 897 is a floor. edgi has more than 104,000 ideas, 44,000 of them with a Lesson.

What Headway costs

Headway's free plan is one summary a day. As of September 30, 2026, its new price page lists 4-, 12- and 24-week plans at $19.99, $39.99 and $59.99, each renewing at double, while its features page still lists $12.99 a month, $29.99 every 3 months or $89.99 a year. The App Store lists at least nine Premium prices. On Trustpilot, makeheadway.com has 3.9 out of 5 from 6,681 reviews, 22% of them one-star. Our Headway review goes through the prices, the reviews and how to cancel.

edgi is free: every Lesson, every card, the whole Map. Sets unlock with coins you earn by learning, not money.

Pick something else only if…

• You want one specific book's argument in 15 minutes. That's a summary app's job.
• You need Android. edgi runs on iPhone and in the browser.

FAQ

Is this the Headway book app or the therapy one? The book summary app, from makeheadway.com; its App Store listing is "Headway" with the subtitle "Daily Micro Learning." The therapy platform is headway.co, whose app is "Headway Therapy & Psychiatry." The book app's own llms.txt says "Headway is not a therapy platform."

Is Headway free? Partly. The free plan is one summary a day. Everything else needs a subscription.

Is edgi free? Yes. Lessons, cards and the Map are free, and Sets unlock with coins you earn by learning, not money. An optional Pro subscription adds extras like offline access.

Is Nibble made by Headway? Yes. Nibble's own llms.txt says it's "Built by Headway Inc." (checked September 30, 2026).

Does edgi summarize books? No. edgi teaches in 60-second Lessons, and every idea becomes a card on your Map. It's a quicker way into the ideas inside the books.

Is there a Headway app for Android? Is there one for edgi? Headway has apps for iPhone and Android, plus a web version. edgi runs on iPhone and the web, with no Android app.