BookFusion vs ShortBook²
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BookFusion
Manage, read, and organize your entire eBook collection across all devices with cloud synchronization. Customize your reading experience with extensive settings, highlights, and annotations. Supports various formats and offers text-to-speech functionality.
- Cross-platform eBook reader
- Cloud synchronization
- Organize with virtual bookshelves
- Highlights and annotations
- Text-to-Speech (TTS)
- Send to Kindle
- Calibre integration
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Thousands of readers use BookFusion to manage, read and enjoy over 2 million eBooks. BookFusion is the best cross platform eBook reader and manager with cloud sync that allows you to easily read, organize and manage your eBooks across all your devices. ◇ Features ◇ Integrated Reader - Read all your EPUB, PDF, & CBZ/CBR eBooks both online and offline with clean and intuitive interface . Extensive Reader Settings - Customize your reading experience from vertical/horizontal margins, line spacing, fonts, bold/italics, colors and much more. Seamless Syncing - Sync your reading progress, highlights & annotations, eBooks and bookmarks across all devices. Pick up exactly where you left off. Organize & Manage - Easily organize and access all your eBooks seamlessly whether offline or online. Organize your eBooks using virtual bookshelves or place them into Series. Quickly find the eBook you are looking for using the category, tags or author filters. The perfect eBook Organizer & eBook Manager in one. Light & Dark Mode – Dark or Light the preference is yours! Highlights & Annotations - Highlight with your preferred colors and add tags to highlights to keep them organized. Sort your highlights by date or reading progress and easily export them to use in other apps in CSV, Markdown, HTML and PDF formats eBook Cloud - Keep your entire eBook collection at the tips of your fingers by storing them in the cloud and downloading them to read offline only when you need to. Any title just a click away. Text-to-Speech (TTS) - Listen to your favorite eBooks with Apple's native natural-sounding text-to-speech feature. Customize reading speed, voice and accessibility. Ideal for audiobook lovers busy lifestyles and accessible for all readers. Send to Kindle – Organize and quickly send your next read to your Kindle device with one click. Calibre Integration - The perfect Calibre Ally. Sync metadata, custom columns, series, tags and incremental updated PDF & EPUB files to all your devices. Your entire Calibre library on your devices when you need it. Vertical Writing Support - Read Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese eBooks with ease. Image/Area Highlights & Annotations (PDFs) - Easily annotate/highlight images, tables, graphs or even text. Any element at all in your PDF can now be highlighted and annotated. EPUB 3 Support - With support for the full EPUB 3 spec. You can read eBooks with rich interactivity support that includes video, audio, Q&A, games and much more. Widgets – Quickly view and jump back into your last read, currently reading, or highlights right from your home screen with iOS Widgets. Multi-Window Support (iPadOS & macOS) – Open multiple books side by side, drag books into Split View, or read and view highlights simultaneously. Perfect for multitasking, studying, or comparing texts. NOTE: You will need to install the BookFusion Calibre Plugin to sync your eBooks to all your devices. See the tutorial at https://support.bookfusion.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018852052-Installing-Using-the-BookFusion-Plugin-for-Calibre Open With - Don’t like the integrated reader? Use the open with functionality to send and read your eBooks with your preferred app. No lock-in Metadata & Book Details – Know what an eBook is about at a glance or easily edit the cover, description, author tags and other information. Additional Formats Supported via Web - These include: AZW, AZW3, AZW4, CBC, CHM, DJVU, DOCX, FB2, FBZ, HTML, HTMLZ, LIT, LRF, PRC, PDB, PML, RB, RTF, SNB, TCR, TXT, TXTZ in a single app. These must be uploaded via the Web App before using the iOS App Choose from over 70,000 eBooks ◇ Other ◇ Have feedback or just want to chat? We would love to hear from you. Drop us a line at support@bookfusion.com or join us for a chat on Discord at https://www.discord.gg/7v34UYq Terms of Service - https://www.bookfusion.com/terms Privacy Policy - https://www.bookfusion.com/privacy
ShortBook²
This reader app offers a unique approach to text display on smaller screens, optimizing comfort and reducing eye strain. It allows extensive customization of text layout and includes decorative elements to enhance the reading experience. Supports FB2 format and provides reading statistics.
- Optimized text layout for small screens
- Customizable text placement options
- Decorative elements for atmosphere
- FB2 format support (contents, footnotes, figures)
- Rich settings with dozens of parameters
- Reading statistics and monitoring
- Quick restart after breaks
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Reading books on portable devices is always a compromise between comfort of reading and text availability. ShortBook² offers an original way of solving this problem with its careful approach to text makeup on the limited screen area of iPhone or iPad. A lot of experiments with various text compositions and interface layouts have jelled the unique match for convenient reading. If you need to read for a long time, with comfort and without any considerable damage to the sight take advantage of the ShortBook² program — a high-end reader. ShortBook² focuses on the layout process, allowing the user to control virtually all text placement options. Moreover, the program analyzes the text and places decorative elements in various places, which not only decorate the book and bring their atmosphere into it, but also simplify the reading process. Thus, in ShortBook², even "picture-free" books look attractive and do not tire with the external monotony while reading, which not only increases reader comfort, but also reduces eye fatigue from the reading process. The program fully supports FB2 electronic books format including contents, footnotes and figures. Any electronic book can be easily converted to this format with free utilities though using a variety of web libraries with books already in this format is much more simple. To meet personal preferences, the application has rich settings, including several dozens of customizable parameters. The book index has several sorting modes allowing to find a required writing easily. Reading can be quickly restarted after a break with one touch of the screen. The reader keeps reading statistics and offers developed means of monitoring the reading process. The application was developed using the latest technologies, therefore it is not available for users of iOS 12 and below. These users can use the classic ShortBook application. ShortBook² is available by subscription. The subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Subscribers gain access to all Short Review materials that will be published during the subscription period. Short Review materials contain reviews of the book market of electronic publications in Russia, book ratings and recommendations for organizing reading. Terms of use of the subscription: http://www.shortki.com/ShortBook/terms.html
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: BookFusion at free with in-app purchases against ShortBook²'s subscription. BookFusion also leads on review sentiment (76% vs 40%) and update cadence (every 10 days vs every 2 months). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. BookFusion sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and ShortBook² sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $9.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for BookFusion against 4.6 for ShortBook². That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: BookFusion has 523 ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 76% of BookFusion's written reviews are positive against 40% of ShortBook²'s.
BookFusion ships an update every 10 days, ShortBook² every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and October 29, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BookFusion | ShortBook² |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (523 ratings) — better | 4.6 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 76.4% of reviews — better | 39.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 523 — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Subscription |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 158 MB | 67 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 17+ |
| Developer | BookFusion | Jury Shortki |
Customer experience
BookFusion
ShortBook²
Bugs and requests
BookFusion
Reported bugs
5 issues- Highlights and notes not always saving properly
- Reading position sometimes resets unexpectedly
- Widget not functioning as expected
- Occasional crashes and freezes
- Issues with importing certain ebook formats
Requested features
6 requests- Add page numbers instead of just percentages
- Implement a true dark mode
- Improve PDF viewing and annotation capabilities
- Add support for DJVU format
- Provide an option to purchase a lifetime license
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- Implement better organization tools like folders/shelves
ShortBook²
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
BookFusion
- Casual Monthly$1.991 Month
- Advanced Monthly$4.991 Month
- Power Monthly$9.991 Month
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- Casual Yearly$18.991 Year
- Advanced Yearly$47.991 Year
- Power Yearly$95.991 Year
ShortBook²
- Annual1 Month trial$9.991 Year









