Comparison

Page Surfer vs Marginalis

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

Head to head
About

Page Surfer

Organize your reading life with this intuitive book management app. Track progress, set goals, and capture notes and quotes. Sync across devices and share your literary journey with friends.

Highlights
  • Personal book library
  • Custom reading lists
  • Reading goal setting
  • Page progress tracking
  • Note and quote capture
  • Reading statistics
  • Cross-device sync
Features
Read full description

Page Surfer - Your Ultimate Books Management App Page Surfer turns your reading habit into a rich, organized experience — from your first page to your last note. Quickly add any book to your library, set personalized reading goals, manage your reading lists, and keep track of your progress, all in one place. Key Features ORGANIZE YOUR BOOKS • Personal Library: Create and manage your library effortlessly. Add books manually or scan barcodes for quick entry. • Custom Lists: Organize books into personalized reading lists tailored to your preferences. • Reading Plan: Add books to your Reading Plan for structured reading. • Seamless Sync: Sync your library across multiple iOS devices for access anywhere, anytime. • Share Your Passion: Share your favorite books, quotes, and notes with friends. • Add Rare Finds: Manually add old or rare books to your collection. • Flexible Sorting: Sort your books by date added, author, publication date, and more. • No Limits: Enjoy unlimited books, reading sessions, collections, and more. TRACK YOUR READING • Set Goals: Establish daily, weekly, monthly, or annual reading goals and monitor your progress in real-time. • Log Pages: Track how many pages you've read to see your accomplishments grow. • Average Reading Time: Monitor your average reading time to better understand your habits. NOTES AND QUOTES • Capture Insights: Take notes and quotes while reading or after finishing a book. • Diverse Input: Enter notes manually, dictate them, or scan text images for easy capture. • Share Your Thoughts: Share your notes and quotes with friends to inspire discussions. VIEW YOUR STATISTICS • Insightful Analytics: Gain valuable insights into your reading habits with detailed statistics. Discover how many books you've read, your average reading time, and more. Download Page Surfer and make every book count. And by downloading, you're supporting an independent developer — thank you! It requires a subscription to use the application. Subscription and Pricing: If you choose to purchase, payment will be applied to your iTunes account at confirmation of purchase. Subscriptions will automatically renew unless cancelled within 24-hours before the end of current period. You can cancel any time with your iTunes account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription. The current subscription start at $1.99 USD/month. Subscription can be deactivated at the following link: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202039 Privacy Policy: https://parakeetsoftware.com/Books_Adventure_Privacy_Policy.html Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Marginalis

This app helps you capture and organize highlights from physical books. It allows you to save quotes, ideas, and summaries, and track your reading habits. Enjoy private AI-powered book summaries and share your favorite passages.

Highlights
  • Capture highlights with Live Text
  • Organize books into custom lists
  • Five types of notes (quote, idea, etc.)
  • Share passages as image cards
  • Reading activity insights
  • On-device AI book summaries
  • Home Screen widget for quotes
Features
Read full description

Every great book leaves a mark. Marginalis makes sure you never lose it. A reading journal for physical book readers — capture highlights, organise your library, and revisit the passages that changed how you think. Capture quotes without the friction Point your camera at any page. iOS Live Text does the rest — your highlight is captured in seconds, no typing, no losing your place. Prefer to highlight in other apps? Send any selected text straight to Marginalis from Kindle, Apple Books, Safari, or anywhere with a share sheet. Five kinds of notes, because not every thought is the same Quote. Idea. Question. Reaction. Summary. Each note type gives your thinking room to breathe — and makes it easy to find exactly what you were looking for when you come back. Your library, the way you actually read Organise books across Reading, Up Next, Wishlist, and Finished. Browse by genre or reading status. Add any title by scanning its barcode, searching by name, or entering it manually. Cover images fetch automatically. Share the passages that moved you Turn any note into a beautiful image card — paper or editorial style, portrait or square. Edit inline, then share anywhere. Because some quotes deserve more than a screenshot. Explore your reading with AI Synthesis lets you have a real conversation with your reading. Select books or tags, then ask anything — what themes keep coming back, what tensions you noticed, what remains unresolved. Your reading assistant answers from your own notes, citing exactly where each idea came from. When something is worth keeping, save it as a permanent insight. On supported devices, Marginalis can also generate an intelligent summary of your notes for any book — powered by Apple Intelligence, processed entirely on your iPhone. Understand your reading life A heatmap of your annotation activity. Note type breakdowns. Most highlighted books. Favourite authors. A tag cloud built from your own words. Marginalis reflects your reading back to you in ways that are actually interesting. Your favourite quotes, on your Home Screen The Marginalis widget brings a daily highlight to your iPhone's Home Screen — a small reminder of why you read. Seamless iCloud sync Your library and notes sync automatically across your devices via iCloud. Private, seamless, requiring nothing beyond your Apple ID. Built for privacy, from the ground up No account required. No subscription. No analytics. No advertising SDKs. Your library, your notes, and your reading life belong entirely to you. Free to start. Yours forever. Marginalis is free to download. Up to 5 books, unlimited notes, every feature available to try. A one-time unlock gives you unlimited books, Markdown export, and full reading stats. No subscription. Ever. Reading that leaves a mark.

Screenshots

Page Surfer4 screens
Marginalis4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is monetization model: Marginalis at free with in-app purchases against Page Surfer's subscription. Page Surfer's advantage is device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, ratings volume and update cadence 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. Page Surfer sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Marginalis sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Page Surfer against 5.0 for Marginalis. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 3 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Page Surfer ships an update every 2 months, Marginalis every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Page Surfer versus Marginalis: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterPage SurferMarginalis
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings)5.0 (3 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings4 — better3
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 5 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationSubscriptionFree with in-app purchases — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — betteriPhone
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size50 MB8 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperParakeet Software LLCTIAGO KHZOUZ SANCHEZ

Customer experience

Page Surfer

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Marginalis

All ratings3 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Page Surfer

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly Subscription$1.991 Month
  • Annual Subscription$19.991 Year
1 purchases

Marginalis

One-time1
  • Marginalis Unlock$4.99

Questions

Is Page Surfer free?
Page Surfer is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Marginalis free?
Marginalis is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Page Surfer or Marginalis?
Page Surfer and Marginalis are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 4 and 3 ratings respectively.
Do Page Surfer or Marginalis have ads?
Neither Page Surfer nor Marginalis shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Page Surfer or Marginalis?
Page Surfer ships an update every 2 months, and Marginalis every 5 weeks. Most recently, Page Surfer was updated on October 14, 2026 and Marginalis on October 31, 2026.

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