Comics Plus vs SWAN Libraries +
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Comics Plus
Access thousands of digital comics, graphic novels, manga, and picture books from numerous publishers. Enjoy unlimited reading without wait lists or late fees, and manage your progress across devices. Stream titles online or download them for offline enjoyment.
- Unlimited digital comic access
- No wait lists or borrowing limits
- Cross-device reading progress
- Online streaming and offline downloads
- Diverse publisher selection
Read full descriptionHide full description
Comics Plus from LibraryPass gives you unlimited access to thousands of digital comics, graphic novels, manga, and picture books from dozens of publishers — exclusively through your school or library. Don’t see your school or library listed? Ask your librarian about #ReadAllTheComics! No wait lists; no borrowing limits; no late fees Manage your shelf and reading progress across devices Maintain your reading progress across devices Stream titles online without using storage space Download titles for offline reading Explore a diverse selection from publishers like ABDO, Andrews McMeel, BOOM! Studios, Capstone, Cherry Lake, Dark Horse, Europe Comics, Fantagraphics, Humanoids, Image Comics, Kodansha, Lerner, Manga Classics, Oni Press, Papercutz, Tokyopop, TOON Books, UDON Entertainment, Yen Press, and dozens more. Comics Plus is created by Joyful Reading Co, where we're dedicated to nurturing a lifelong love of reading through engagement, access, and data-driven insights. Learn more at https://comicsplusapp.com/
SWAN Libraries +
Access your library account, search a vast catalog, and manage holds and renewals. Download ebooks and audiobooks directly to your device. This app connects you to a consortium of public, academic, school, and special libraries in the Chicagoland area.
- Manage library account
- Search library catalog
- Renew items
- Place holds
- Download ebooks
- Download audiobooks
Read full descriptionHide full description
SWAN is a library consortium of public, academic, school, and special libraries in the Chicagoland area. Manage your account, search the catalog, renew and place holds on books, download ebooks and audiobooks, and more. Visit your library including: • Acorn (Oak Forest) • Addison • Alsip-Merrionette Park • Batavia • Bedford Park • Beecher • Bellwood • Bensenville • Berkeley • Berwyn • Bloomingdale • Blue Island • Bridgeview • Broadview • Brookfield • Calumet City • Calumet Park • Carol Stream • Chicago Heights • Chicago Ridge • Cicero • Clarendon Hills • Crestwood • Crete • Dolton • Downers Grove • Eisenhower (Harwood Heights and Norridge) • Elmwood Park • Evergreen Park • Flossmoor • Forest Park • Frankfort • Franklin Park • Geneva • Glen Ellyn • Glenside • Glenwood-Lynwood • Grande Prairie (Country Club Hills and Hazel Crest) • Green Hills (Palos Hills) • Harvey • Hillside • Hinsdale • Hodgkins • Homewood • Indian Prairie (Darien, Willowbrook, and Burr Ridge) • Itasca • Justice • Kaneville • La Grange • La Grange Park • Lansing • Lyons • Markham • McCook • Matteson • Maywood • Melrose Park • Messenger (North Aurora) • Midlothian • Nancy McConathy (Sauk Village) • North Riverside • Oak Brook • Oak Lawn • Oak Park • Palos Heights • Palos Park • Park Forest • Prairie Trails (Burbank and Nottingham Park) • Richton Park • River Forest • River Grove • Riverdale • Roselle • Schiller Park • South Holland • St. Charles • Steger • Stickney-Forest View • Sugar Grove • Summit • Thomas Ford • Thornton • Tinley Park • Town and Country (Elburn) • University Park • Westchester • Villa Park (Villa Park and Oakbrook Terrace) • Warrenville • West Chicago • Westmont • William Leonard (Robbins) • Wood Dale • Woodridge • Worth • National University of Health Sciences • Theosophical Society • Morton Arboretum
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Comics Plus at 2.6 against SWAN Libraries +'s 1.8. SWAN Libraries +'s advantage is update cadence (monthly vs every 2 months). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Comics Plus holds the better App Store score, 2.6 against 1.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 99 and 73 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 21% of Comics Plus's written reviews are positive against 13% of SWAN Libraries +'s.
Comics Plus ships an update every 2 months, SWAN Libraries + monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Comics Plus | SWAN Libraries + |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.6 (99 ratings) — better | 1.8 (73 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 20.8% of reviews — better | 13.2% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 99 — better | 73 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Monthly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 15.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 39 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Library Pass, Inc. | System Wide Automated Network |
Customer experience
Comics Plus
SWAN Libraries +
User reviews
Comics Plus
From 99 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 📚 Massive collection of comics and manga
- 💰 Free access with library card
- ✅ Legal and legitimate reading platform
- 🎨 Wide variety of publishers and genres
- 📖 Ability to store unlimited books on shelf
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes and force quits
- ⏳ Extremely slow loading times
- 🔍 Search function broken or non-functional
- 📖 Pages fail to load or display correctly
- ⚫ Black screen issues when opening books
SWAN Libraries +
From 73 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Easy to look up books
- 👍 Can place holds easily
- 👍 Can see checked out books
- 👍 Get notified for pick up
- 👍 Digital library card available
Room to improve
- 🐛 App crashes frequently
- 🐛 Constantly logs out users
- 🐛 Slow loading times
- 🐛 Filters do not work
- 🐛 Discover section is blank
Bugs and requests
Comics Plus
Reported bugs
25 issues- Login screen stuck on library selection
- Search returns blank page with no loading indicator
- Shelf fails to load
- Pages crop off at bottom
- Black screen when opening downloaded books
Show 20 moreShow fewer
- App crashes when opening new comics
- Pages display out of sync in horizontal mode
- Duplicate pages appearing consecutively
- Pages loop back to beginning after certain number
- Thumbnail not showing for resume position
- Dialog boxes cut off or positioned incorrectly
- App forgets reading position when resuming
- Vertical view does not work
- iCloud backup size inflates dramatically
- Screen goes black periodically during reading
- Network error despite active connection
- Download progress bar hangs
- Orientation change causes reading position reset
- App switches to different manga unexpectedly
- Popular page items don't load or unavailable
- Shelf deletion when launching from cloud library
- Zoom functionality unresponsive
- Page turning causes visual flash and blur
- Inconsistent page display in 2-page mode
- Home bar overlay obscures content on iPad
Requested features
18 requests- Favorites/bookmarking system with notifications
- Auto-download while using other apps
- Auto-mark books as finished
- Better search with pagination and page jumping
- Dark mode option
Show 13 moreShow fewer
- Right-to-left reading for manga
- Folder organization for shelf
- Reading history tracking
- Series completion indicators
- Next book in series recommendations
- Auto zoom feature for reading
- Smooth page transition animations
- Ability to manually move books to completion status
- App status/server status page
- Better content filtering and sorting options
- Rating system for comics
- Chapter bookmarks
- Customizable reading settings
SWAN Libraries +
Reported bugs
63 issues- Category toggles are tricky and don't reflect changes immediately
- Pick up location changes don't seem to stick
- App logs users out constantly
- Discover section is blank, new content doesn't appear
- Filters to search for items no longer work
Show 58 moreShow fewer
- App works less than 50% of the time
- App is logged out every session, requires re-entry of library card number
- Cannot sign back in after being signed out
- Keyboard and Number pad do not work on login screen
- App takes forever to load
- App is impossible to customize
- App is clunky and has very little options
- App kicks users out for no reason
- App is generally unreliable
- App is not smart or intuitive
- App is buggy and unreliable
- App is consistently closing out and logs users out at random
- Filters for searches frequently don't work
- Buggy mediocre app
- Search requires retyping the entire field
- Filters by media format show results of filtered-out formats
- Filtering by library only shows home library and eVideo
- App crashes constantly
- App is slow
- App is signed out for no reason on a weekly basis
- App locks up iPhone before login
- App asks for Library Card # and return from keypad does NOT work
- App crashes on startup
- App is bricked after latest update
- Categories on discover page aren't linked or showing selected ones
- Tapping account icon and menus has a delay, leading to double taps
- Search filtering doesn't work
- Offline ecard access doesn't work
- Cannot select library location to get past initial screen
- Error when requesting certain holds
- App won't open
- App immediately crashes
- App crashes when it starts
- App won't open anymore, just crashes immediately
- Tapping holds crashes app
- App startup is cumbersome, requires selecting library each time and reading trivia screens
- Tapping my holds list keeps crashing the app
- Notifications are enabled but app says they are not
- App doesn’t support automatic iOS light/dark mode
- Correct login info returned as incorrect on first input
- Forgot PIN link returns a blank window
- Progress bar is choppy and not indicative of loading time
- Brightness doesn't return to original setting after using ecard
- Double/back to back loading icons at the start of future app launches
- App keeps crashing and/or losing account info during a session
- Old app was working fine, new app is a mess
- Filters are ignored
- App is extremely limited in functionality
- Categories like New DVDS do not open/populate
- App asks to allow notifications EVERY TIME
- For every book ordered, user has to input their library
- App is slow to start up
- App provides no convenient access to the library
- Facial recognition to open app should be available
- In notifications, enable all switch is confusing with individual alerts
- App is slow to load
- Have to force quit and go back in to see account info
- App is buggy
Requested features
38 requests- Fix the issue of being logged out every session
- Improve category toggles and make changes stick
- Fix discover section to show new content
- Make filters work correctly
- Add app support to website
Show 33 moreShow fewer
- Improve loading times
- Allow customization
- Add more options
- Fix the issue of being kicked out of the app
- Improve reliability
- Make the app smarter and more intuitive
- Fix glitching and bugs
- Improve loading screen experience
- Ensure changes to pick up locations stick
- Allow retyping search fields instead of full retype
- Fix filter results to match selected media formats
- Allow filtering by any library, not just home library
- Add self checkout option
- Add facial recognition to open app
- Improve notification enabling process
- Add variety to loading screen facts
- Add a report feedback option
- Improve backward compatibility for older iOS versions
- Add a spinner or hourglass for loading
- Make categories on discover page linked
- Allow users to select library every time or remember it
- Add a submit or go button after entering library card number
- Add a percentage to the progress bar
- Add more fun facts with variety
- Ensure brightness returns to original setting after using ecard
- Remove double loading icons
- Fix 'Forgot PIN' link to work
- Add option to create a new account
- Include all libraries in the pick-up location list
- Add a search guidance for users
- Make the app less annoying with notification prompts
- Add a dark mode option
- Improve the discover page functionality
In-app purchases
Comics Plus
No in-app purchases
SWAN Libraries +
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Comics Plus free?
Is SWAN Libraries + free?
Which has better reviews, Comics Plus or SWAN Libraries +?
Do Comics Plus or SWAN Libraries + have ads?
Which is updated more often, Comics Plus or SWAN Libraries +?
Other comparisons
