TBR vs OnlyBooks
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TBR
Easily track your reading progress, organize your book lists, and discover new titles through curated book news. Scan books with a barcode, add them manually, and sort them by various criteria. Get personalized recommendations and export your library.
- Track books to read, reading, and read
- Organize books into custom lists
- Barcode scanner for quick book entry
- Discover new books via curated news feeds
- Get 'More Like This' book recommendations
- Import from Goodreads
- Export to spreadsheet formats
Read full descriptionHide full description
TBR is a fast, elegant and modern place to track your reading. The books you want to read (your TBR, To Be Read), the books you are reading, and the books you've read. You can also organize your books into custom lists of your own choosing. Get inspiration by reading Book News from our 1000+ curated book news sources. TBR contains a Book News browser, essentially a curated collection of RSS feeds, with links back to the original sources. Bookship will identify books in each story and easily let you save them, remembering where you found the book. TRACK BOOKS Add a book by name by searching our database, or use the easy Barcode Scanner to scan books quickly into TBR. It's great when you're in a bookstore and want to remember a book for later. Using Multi-scan lets you quickly add your entire library right into TBR. Reorder your TBR list by drag-n-drop, so you can change what's coming next. Sort and filter by author, genre, title, publication date and more. Mark books as Reading, or Read, and the books are automatically added to those lists as well, and dates are automatically tracked. Keep Notes about the books you are reading. Use our Share Extension to share pages you are reading on the web to TBR. TBR extracts the books being mentioned so you can easily browse or save them. READING IDEAS TBR’s More Like This tells you related or similar books to a book you're reading. Or get reading ideas by browsing our always-timely Book News, featuring the latest in books from around the web. BOOK NEWS We've curated over a thousand high quality book news sites, and assembled their RSS feeds into a timely, beautiful view into the world of books, with links back to the original sites. You can find news about books by genre, about the books you are reading, or just what's popular right now. Browse our feeds to see news from each source individually, or browse by Channel to see book news about a particular topic. DARK MODE We support dark mode, for a particularly striking view on the world of books. IMPORT, EXPORT, SYNC Import your books from Goodreads. Export your books to a spreadsheet (Excel, CSV). All sync'd with the cloud and with Bookship, our Social Reading app, so you can plan your reading for your reading group or Book Club.
OnlyBooks
Read full descriptionHide full description
Your books deserve a better home than a spreadsheet. OnlyBooks turns your reading life into a beautiful virtual bookshelf — every book you own or have read, arranged as spines just like a real shelf. Add a book in seconds, watch your collection grow. A shelf that looks the part Books are rendered as spines with their real cover art and colours. Customise the wall, adjust shelf colours, and make it yours. Track what matters Log when you started and finished a book, or simply mark it as read if you can't remember the dates. Your stats page shows how many books you've read each month and how many pages you've powered through. Find any book instantly Search the Open Library catalogue of millions of titles to add books with cover art, author, year, and page count filled in automatically. Add several books at once with multi-select. Stay organised Tag books by genre, series, or anything else. Filter your shelf by tag, reading status, or month to find exactly what you're looking for. Your data, your device Everything is stored locally — no account, no cloud, no tracking. Export your entire library as a backup and import it on any device.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: OnlyBooks at Free against TBR's $4.99. OnlyBooks also leads on ads (none vs shown). TBR's advantage is update cadence (every 3 months vs every 5 months). On in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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
OnlyBooks is free to download; TBR costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
TBR ships an update every 3 months, OnlyBooks every 5 months. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TBR | OnlyBooks |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $4.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.3 (6 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months — better | Every 5 months |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 56 MB | 51 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | The Hawaii Project, LLC | Devin Smith |
In-app purchases
TBR
No in-app purchases
OnlyBooks
No in-app purchases









