What’s the difference between highlights, notes, and comments?

A highlight marks a passage in an article and a note adds your own text to a passage or to the whole article. Both are yours alone unless you share them with the Team. A comment is a message in the discussion under an article shared in a Team channel, where the members of that channel reply, mention each other and get notified.

Highlights

Select text in an article and choose Highlight text in the menu that appears under the selection to keep the highlight to yourself, or Highlight for Team to show it to the members of your Team. What are annotations? explains highlights in general.

Notes

A note goes on a highlight or on the whole article, with Add note in the selection menu, below the article or in its More menu, or with Create note in the Annotations panel. Team members get the checkbox Make visible to Team members, unticked for a new note. A highlight and its note are one annotation, and a shared one appears to every member in the article's Annotations panel and under Team > Annotations. Sharing sends no notification. Can I keep notes private? covers the switch.

Comments

Comments live under articles shared in a Team channel. Below the article text you find the comment box with Post comment, and you can mention teammates by typing @ and their name. Each comment has Reply, Like and Flag, and Edit and Delete on your own. Comments notify people in Inoreader, in the apps and by email, and a new comment shows in Team > Activity. Where do comments appear? explains who sees them and who is notified, and What is a Team channel? the channels themselves.

Plans

Sharing highlights and notes with the Team and commenting come with the Team and Team Intelligence plans, while highlights are a Pro feature every Team member has and notes on a whole article work on every plan. The feature page Annotations has an overview.