Buchen vs Samurai Search
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Buchen
Manage your web links with this bookmark organizer. Tag, sort into folders, and add notes to your saved sites. Import/export bookmarks and access them via widgets or share sheets.
- Tagging and folder organization
- Bookmark pinning
- Add notes to bookmarks
- Import/export bookmarks (JSON, HTML)
- Share sheet integration
- QR code generation
- App styling and widgets
- Biometric app lock
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Buchen (pronounced like bookin’) is a simple bookmark manger that allows you to manage your bookmarks for multiple browsers, tags, and folders. Some of the feature of the app include: - Tag your bookmarks with an interface that allows you to easily add new tags and suggest existing ones. - Organise your bookmarks in folders. Folders can have as many sub-folders as you need to organise your bookmarks. - Pin your bookmarks, tags or folders. - Remove common trackers from URLs with one click when adding / editing a bookmark. - Add notes to your bookmarks. - Import / Export bookmarks as JSON or HTML. When the optional fields added date, tags, or notes are available in either import format, Buchen will use those too. - Shortcuts for adding bookmarks or searching bookmarks. - An “Add Bookmark” action for the Share Sheet. This allows you to add bookmarks directly from Safari and other apps. - A variety of keyboard shortcuts for iPad users. - Create QR Codes in a variety of colours for your bookmarks. You can view or share the QR Code from the bookmark detail view or with a left swipe / long-press on a bookmark. - Choose between different bookmark styles. You can choose different styles in the Bookmarks and Tags sections. - When you choose a bookmark style that shows its tags, you can navigate to that tag from any bookmark. - Choose from multiple colors to style the app and widgets. - Select which browser will open your bookmark. Note: Browsers other than Safari are only an option if they’re installed on the device. Read the help for the list of compatible browsers. - Lock Buchen with Face ID / Touch ID / Passcode. Either fully lock it down or enjoy some convenience and allow widgets and shortcuts to show your data. - Search your bookmarks against their name, URL, notes, browser, tags or even creation date (YY-MM-DD format). Buchen also comes with Widgets in all 4 sizes. Medium, Large and Extra Large widgets let you open links from the Widget. Add lock screen widgets for easy access to bookmarks, tags, and folders. Importing bookmarks can use the Buchen JSON format, Firefox JSON backup files or standard bookmark HTML files. Exporting bookmarks can use the Buchen JSON format or the standard bookmark HTML format. Notes from HTML imports require using the Delicious / Pinboard HTML format.
Samurai Search
Efficiently search text and PDF files across your device, iCloud, and external storage. Preview matched files or open them in other applications. Supports advanced search options like regular expressions.
- Search text and PDF files
- iCloud and external storage support
- File preview
- Regular expression support
- Customizable file types
- Saved search locations
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Search your iOS device or iCloud for text, source code, plain text files, and PDFs. Find matches inside files and preview results instantly, or open any matched file in your favourite editing or viewing app. Flexible search options: whole word, case sensitive (all file types), and regular expressions (for text files). Choose which files to include by selecting standard or custom text file types, or by searching filenames that match a pattern. Select where to search from On My iPad, iCloud Drive, or external file providers such as SMB and USB folders. When possible, the app retains saved search selections so you can quickly repeat the same searches later. If you search selected folders in iCloud Drive, matching iCloud files are synced to your device before searching, ensuring fast local results. Searching plain text files is extremely fast and memory efficient. PDF search speed depends on the document content and can be slow. Note also that PDF search may consume large amounts of memory which can cause Samurai Search to crash.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Samurai Search at 5.0 against Buchen's 4.1. Samurai Search also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 64%) and update cadence (every 5 days vs every 2 months). Buchen's advantage is device support (4 vs 2). On price, ratings volume, 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Samurai Search holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 16 and 25 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 64% of Buchen's written reviews are positive against 100% of Samurai Search's.
Buchen ships an update every 2 months, Samurai Search every 5 days. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.
| Parameter | Buchen | Samurai Search |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.1 (16 ratings) | 5.0 (25 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 64.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 16 | 25 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Vision Pro — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 16.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | William Baer | Michael Rourke |
Customer experience
Buchen
Samurai Search
In-app purchases
Buchen
No in-app purchases
Samurai Search
No in-app purchases









