Comparison

The Comic Book Reader vs Widget Reader

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

The Comic Book Reader

Organize and read your digital comic book collection with custom-designed bookshelves. Import comics and other items, then arrange them freely with a drag-and-drop system. Customize the appearance of your shelves and individual items for a personalized reading experience.

Highlights
  • Custom digital bookshelves
  • Drag-and-drop item placement
  • Template editor for customization
  • Supports PDF, CBZ, ZIP files
  • Organize with built-in file browser
  • Import via Drag&Drop or iTunes
Features
Read full description

Don't just read your comic books. Create your own digital comic bookshelves. Take your collection out of their folders and place them inside your own, uniquely designed racks to gape and read them. This app is perfect for you if you want to read comic books and/or have a place to visibly store all your digital comic books. The Comic Book Reader lets you freely design your own bookshelves and customize them down to the last detail. Main Features • Comic book reader • Create your own digital bookshelves and fill them with your imported comic books or other types of things • Custom-made drag and drop system that allows you to freely move and place items and rows where ever you want • There are many types of items you can place inside your rack (more will come) •• Create titles, color blocks, notes items, separators, etc. •• You can even put a rack inside a rack to play Inception • Every item can be customized • Template editor: Create and assign templates to your items that change their looks • Every comic book can be placed in as many racks as you want (each comic book item inside a rack has its own reading progress) • Set page ranges on your comic book items to only include the pages you want •• e.g. you can break a volume into their underlying issues • Supports PDF, CBZ, and ZIP comic book files (more will come) • Import all your comic books via Drag&Drop or iTunes File Sharing • Organize your collection using the app's built-in file browser The app is continuously being improved and there are many more things to come in the future! If you have any questions, ideas or if you have found bugs or glitches, please contact me: d3mueller@me.com!

About

Widget Reader

Features
Read full description

Bring your own books into a quieter reading space. Widget Reader makes it easy to read a page, listen to a chapter, or enjoy a short passage from your Home Screen. • Import DRM-free EPUB, TXT, text-based PDF, MOBI/AZW, Markdown, HTML and FB2. • Choose files from your device, iCloud Drive or third-party cloud services enabled in Files. • Adjust fonts, text size, spacing, themes and page turns. • Listen with installed offline system voices, sentence highlighting and a sleep timer. • Save bookmarks, highlights and notes. Put your current book in a Home Screen widget. • Pro adds unlimited imports, organization, reading reports, advanced widgets, exports and optional private iCloud sync. Imported files are local copies; changes to the original do not update them. Export Google Docs to a supported format first. Scanned PDFs, OCR and DRM-protected books are not supported. Interactive widgets require iOS 17 or later. iPhone includes up to 10 unique books for free. Reading and library actions on iPad require Pro. Weekly and yearly subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled. Any trial is subject to App Store eligibility; see the purchase screen for current prices and terms. No app account or advertising. Books stay local unless you enable private iCloud sync. https://reader.jameshaoyu.com/privacy https://reader.jameshaoyu.com/subscription-terms https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Widget Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is device support: Widget Reader at 3 against The Comic Book Reader's 1. The Comic Book Reader's advantage is iOS requirement (11.0 vs 15.0). On price, update cadence, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

The Comic Book Reader ships an update every 2 weeks, Widget Reader every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
The Comic Book Reader versus Widget Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterThe Comic Book ReaderWidget Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating1.0 (2 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews0.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings2 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS11.0 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size40 MB56 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDennis Mueller浩宇 黄

In-app purchases

None

The Comic Book Reader

No in-app purchases

None

Widget Reader

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is The Comic Book Reader free?
The Comic Book Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Widget Reader free?
Widget Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do The Comic Book Reader or Widget Reader have ads?
Neither The Comic Book Reader nor Widget Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, The Comic Book Reader or Widget Reader?
The Comic Book Reader ships an update every 2 weeks, and Widget Reader every 3 weeks. Most recently, The Comic Book Reader was updated on October 14, 2026 and Widget Reader on October 15, 2026.

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