Comparison

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor vs Fairy PDF Reader

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

Head to head
About

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor

This app offers robust PDF editing and annotation capabilities, alongside comprehensive file management for various document types. It allows users to securely store, organize, and access files from cloud services, enhancing productivity on mobile devices.

Highlights
  • PDF annotation and editing
  • File management for various formats
  • Cloud service integration (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.)
  • Military-grade AES-256 encryption
  • Split-screen viewing for iPad
  • PDF Reflow feature
Features
Read full description

GoodReader® Pro and our famous classic GoodReader app are essentially the same app, but this one comes with Pro Pack® pre-activated, no subscription or in-app purchase needed. First released in 2009, GoodReader® is truly a veteran of the App Store. In the modern app business, it's not easy to stay relevant that long. We're proud to say that after 17 years and counting, we've been delivering wonderful updates with extraordinary new features. And we're going to keep doing that! GoodReader is a perfect combination of document-reading and file-managing capabilities. It's your one-stop shop for all your document needs on your iOS device. Use the app once, and you'll be hooked. Soon you'll be wondering how you ever managed to work without it. -= File Reading =- PDF, TXT, MS Office, iWork, HTML, pictures, music & audio-books, videos. This is what you can view in GoodReader, plus you can also annotate PDF files and edit TXT files. -= PDF Reading and Annotating =- PDF files is where GoodReader truly shines. Reading experience is so superior, it's hard to describe. To rephrase one of our customers' review, "try it, and you'll see." While you're at it, give our PDF Reflow feature a try. You'll be surprised how much better PDF reading goes when you don't have to scroll left/right all the time, for every single line of text. Annotating PDFs is another star feature of our app. Adding notes and drawings, highlighting text, and then sharing your annotated files or annotation summaries will be your main productivity and collaboration asset. -= File Management =- While reading files is a big part of GoodReader, it's not all it can do. It can also serve as a central hub for all your files, even those that can't be opened by GoodReader itself. It's like bringing your personal computer experience to your mobile device — easily managing huge collections of files and folders will make you forget you don't have your laptop around. -= Connecting =- Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box.com, WebDAV, SMB, FTP, SFTP — these are all accessible from inside GoodReader. Download, upload, and sync individual files or huge folder collections. -= Security =- With GoodReader, your data security steps up to the level previously only dreamt of. With Pro Pack®, our new set of professional-level super-features, you'll get AES-256, a military-grade encryption, for all your data, at a price of a cup of coffee! And it's completely independent from the built-in Apple's Data Protection, so even if a hacker steals and unlocks your device, your data will still be protected by another strong layer of security, our own. -= Multi-Windows =- Seamlessly view and manage multiple files simultaneously on iPad. -= Notes =- Capture ideas and comments while reading or studying a technical document without even leaving the app. Sort and group your notes into categories.

About

Fairy PDF Reader

This app offers a comprehensive PDF reading experience on iOS devices, mimicking desktop functionality. It includes advanced features like keyboard support, smart zoom, dark mode, and translation saving to enhance document interaction and learning.

Highlights
  • Full keyboard support
  • Smart zoom & lock
  • Dark mode with color inversion
  • Table of contents search
  • Translate & save words
  • Import from cloud services & zip files
  • Organize files in folders
Features
Read full description

Fairy PDF Reader is a PDF reader that’s aims to provide you with the best reading experience on your iOS device. I created it for myself at first, and then continued to add features to it to make it more useful. It features full keyboard support for almost anything, including turning pages, opening & closing documents, finding stuff on the PDF document, importing PDF files and more. It tries to imitate the desktop PDF reading experience on your iPad or iPhone for you to take it anywhere you go. Fairy PDF Reader has many other nifty features:- - It remembers the last book you opened, and allows you to continue reading it whenever you want. If the app was closed for whatever reason, the next time you open it, it will reopen the last PDF document where you stopped. This is quite useful in case you own an old iOS device with a low amount of memory. - Zoom & Lock feature:- A lot of PDF books tend to have large margins. The zoom & lock feature makes it easier to zoom in & take advantage of your iPad or iPhone screen real-estate. Once the zoom level is locked, you won’t be able to zoom in or out again until you unlock it again. Fairy PDF Reader will remember the last zoom setting you did separately for each book in your library, and it remembers it for both portrait & landscape modes separately. Other PDF readers allow you to zoom in to view your documents, but they make to harder to turn pages or maintain the page's position on the screen. - Dark Mode support, with the ability to invert the PDF colors to further relief your eyes. - Shows the PDF book table of content, with a search box to find the part you are looking for - The PDF Documents list is sorted based on the last book you opened, making it easier to open one of the last few books you read - Supports importing files from Zip files. If there are multiple PDF files inside the Zip, Fairy PDF Reader will import all of them. - Import PDF files from common cloud services. Like Dropbox or OneDrive. - Stores all the words you translated:- With the Translate & Save feature, any word you translate will be stored automatically, you can view these words and copy them for revision at any time you want to. This can quite helpful to expand your vocabulary or learning new languages. - Share PDF files from other applications:- You can export any PDF file you open in Safari or other apps & they will be directly imported to Fairy PDF Reader. - Find text in the documents you’re currently reading. - Organize files in folders, and copy or move them between them. - Search for books in the current folder. Fairy PDF Reader has a convenient text matching that makes this easier. - Smart tap detection:- Touching the lower part of the page won’t turn the page, this was added so you won’t turn the page by mistake while reading. The same goes to showing the options bar, you can easily hide it by tapping anywhere on the screen, but you need to tap on the upper part of the screen to show it, so you will unlikely show it by mistake. Unselecting text is also easy, just tap anywhere on the screen, and the selection will be gone. Generally speaking, taps & gestures are designed so that they won't interfere with one another, or interfere with you while you're focused on your book. - Go to any page quickly using the pages navigator, you can either type the page number you want or move the slider, or you can simply tap on the left or right arrows to go to the next or previous page. - Scroll To Top disabled:- While in landscape mode, you can't go to the beginning of the PDF document by tapping on the title bar, which is a common feature in iOS. This was done since it's easy to trigger that feature by mistake. The "Go To Page" dialog is there to help you get to the beginning of the book if you like. You can also read the full documentation of the app on my website:- https://Tech-Fairy.com/fairy-pdf-reader-user-manual-how-to-use-fairy-pdf-reader-to-get-the-best-pdf-reading-experience/

Screenshots

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor3 screens
Fairy PDF Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Fairy PDF Reader at $4.99 against GoodReader Pro PDF Editor's $79.99. Fairy PDF Reader also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 68%) and rating (5.0 vs 4.7). GoodReader Pro PDF Editor's advantage is ratings volume (269 vs 3) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). On ads, in-app purchases, monetization model and device support 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

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor costs $79.99 and Fairy PDF Reader $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Fairy PDF Reader holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: GoodReader Pro PDF Editor has 269 ratings behind it against 3, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 68% of GoodReader Pro PDF Editor's written reviews are positive against 100% of Fairy PDF Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor ships an update every 3 weeks, Fairy PDF Reader every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 6, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
GoodReader Pro PDF Editor versus Fairy PDF Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGoodReader Pro PDF EditorFairy PDF Reader
Price$79.99$4.99 — better
Rating4.7 (269 ratings)5.0 (3 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.1% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings269 — better3
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeks — betterEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaidPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.614.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size53 MB27 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperGood.iWare, Inc.Mohannad Daghistany

Customer experience

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor

All ratings269 ratings
Positive93.3%
Neutral0.7%
Negative5.9%
Written reviews119 reviews
Positive68.1%
Neutral2.5%
Negative29.4%

Fairy PDF Reader

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor

Reported bugs

15 issues
  • Cannot move bookmarks from old to Pro version
  • Dropbox/OneDrive sync not working
  • iCloud integration issues
  • App crashes when adding photos
  • App freezes after annotation
Show 10 more
  • App does not keep pattern open after closing
  • iPad version web server option not working
  • Cannot change or disable app password
  • Encrypted PDF export issues
  • Glitchy highlighter and eraser
  • Cannot access files through Dropbox
  • No longer syncs with OneDrive or Dropbox
  • Files lost after upgrading to new app
  • Cannot download embedded video
  • Cannot see iCloud files without workaround

Requested features

16 requests
  • Proper night mode (inverted colors)
  • Bookmark sharing feature
  • PC version of the app
  • Profile switching for open tabs
  • Editable text feature
Show 11 more
  • Support for Chinese language
  • Adjustable plain text font size
  • Two-page PDF viewing
  • Option to ignore finger/hand annotation
  • True dark mode with inverted colors
  • Edit text within PDFs
  • Improve note-taking and thumbnail features
  • Add text editing function
  • Make max number of open tabs configurable
  • Improve PDF annotation experience
  • Allow editing of actual text in PDFs

Fairy PDF Reader

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

GoodReader Pro PDF Editor

No in-app purchases

None

Fairy PDF Reader

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is GoodReader Pro PDF Editor free?
GoodReader Pro PDF Editor costs $79.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Fairy PDF Reader free?
Fairy PDF Reader costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, GoodReader Pro PDF Editor or Fairy PDF Reader?
Fairy PDF Reader is rated higher. GoodReader Pro PDF Editor averages 4.7 out of 5 from 269 ratings, while Fairy PDF Reader averages 5.0 from 3 ratings.
Do GoodReader Pro PDF Editor or Fairy PDF Reader have ads?
Neither GoodReader Pro PDF Editor nor Fairy PDF Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, GoodReader Pro PDF Editor or Fairy PDF Reader?
GoodReader Pro PDF Editor ships an update every 3 weeks, and Fairy PDF Reader every 2 months. Most recently, GoodReader Pro PDF Editor was updated on September 22, 2026 and Fairy PDF Reader on September 6, 2026.

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