eBoox vs ShortBook²
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
eBoox
This application provides a comfortable and customizable reading experience for a wide variety of e-book formats. It offers features like bookmarks, highlights, dark mode, and offline reading, with seamless online synchronization. Books can be easily uploaded from various sources, including cloud storage and email.
- Supports EPUB, MOBI, FB2, DOC, TXT, and more
- Customizable fonts, text size, and brightness
- Dark mode and offline reading
- Bookmarks, highlights, and notes
- Online auto-sync of books and progress
- AD-FREE reading experience
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eBoox – the most pleasant book reader ever! * *according to my mom :) • Cute, simple and useful UI, • Effective reading tools: bookmarks, 3-colors highlights, interactive links and notes, • Dark mode and offline reading, • Customized settings - Fonts, Fields, Text size, screen Brightness, Page scrolling, ets. • Suppots all your e-books, even in ZIP: EPUB, MOBI, DOC, DOCX, TXT, FB2, PRC, RTF, ODT, HTML, AZW, AZW3 and others text documents, • PDF supported (beta), • !Completely AD-FREE, • !Online auto SYNC of ebooks and reading progress, • !FREE WEB e-reader available! Start reading your e-books right now! Upload books via iTunes, import your files from the email, web browser, cloud storages (iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, Yandex.Disk etc) or share via AirDrop. In the app you will find detailed guide How to add ebooks in different ways. And we've already added three classic welcome books so you can appreciate the e-reader right away! This is a upgraded version of eBoox. The old one is no longer supported. In order not to lose your books, progress, quotes and bookmarks, install this app version. Run it on device and wait for the data transfer to finish. When you make sure that all your books appeared in eBoox 2020, you can safely delete eBoox.old. You can turn on the synchronization for backup.
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 review sentiment: eBoox at 88% against ShortBook²'s 40%. eBoox also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (3.5K vs 13). On price, update cadence, ads 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
Both are free to download. ShortBook² sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $9.99 per year. eBoox asks for nothing beyond the download.
eBoox holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: eBoox has 3.5K ratings behind it against 13, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 88% of eBoox's written reviews are positive against 40% of ShortBook²'s.
eBoox ships an update monthly, ShortBook² every 2 months. Both last shipped on September 25, 2026.
| Parameter | eBoox | ShortBook² |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (3.5K ratings) — better | 4.6 (13 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 88.1% of reviews — better | 39.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 3.5K — better | 13 |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Subscription |
| Best chart rank | #187 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 9.0 — better | 14.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 177 MB | 67 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | REDIT, OOO | Jury Shortki |
Customer experience
eBoox
ShortBook²
Bugs and requests
eBoox
Reported bugs
3 issues- Highlighting and annotations sometimes behave unexpectedly
- Syncing between devices can be unreliable at times
- Occasional crashes or freezes when navigating the app
Requested features
7 requests- Add more font options, including bold and italic
- Implement a built-in dictionary or translation tool
- Allow direct import of books from local device storage
- Improve page numbering and reading progress display
- Add support for PDF files and annotations
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- Introduce a grid-style library view for book covers
- Implement automatic dark mode based on system settings
ShortBook²
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
eBoox
No in-app purchases
ShortBook²
- Annual1 Month trial$9.991 Year









