Comparison

Fairy PDF Reader vs Starta

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

Head to head
About

Fairy PDF Reader

This app offers a comprehensive PDF reading experience on iOS devices, mimicking desktop functionality. It includes advanced features like keyboard support, smart zoom, dark mode, and translation saving to enhance document interaction and learning.

Highlights
  • Full keyboard support
  • Smart zoom & lock
  • Dark mode with color inversion
  • Table of contents search
  • Translate & save words
  • Import from cloud services & zip files
  • Organize files in folders
Features
Read full description

Fairy PDF Reader is a PDF reader that’s aims to provide you with the best reading experience on your iOS device. I created it for myself at first, and then continued to add features to it to make it more useful. It features full keyboard support for almost anything, including turning pages, opening & closing documents, finding stuff on the PDF document, importing PDF files and more. It tries to imitate the desktop PDF reading experience on your iPad or iPhone for you to take it anywhere you go. Fairy PDF Reader has many other nifty features:- - It remembers the last book you opened, and allows you to continue reading it whenever you want. If the app was closed for whatever reason, the next time you open it, it will reopen the last PDF document where you stopped. This is quite useful in case you own an old iOS device with a low amount of memory. - Zoom & Lock feature:- A lot of PDF books tend to have large margins. The zoom & lock feature makes it easier to zoom in & take advantage of your iPad or iPhone screen real-estate. Once the zoom level is locked, you won’t be able to zoom in or out again until you unlock it again. Fairy PDF Reader will remember the last zoom setting you did separately for each book in your library, and it remembers it for both portrait & landscape modes separately. Other PDF readers allow you to zoom in to view your documents, but they make to harder to turn pages or maintain the page's position on the screen. - Dark Mode support, with the ability to invert the PDF colors to further relief your eyes. - Shows the PDF book table of content, with a search box to find the part you are looking for - The PDF Documents list is sorted based on the last book you opened, making it easier to open one of the last few books you read - Supports importing files from Zip files. If there are multiple PDF files inside the Zip, Fairy PDF Reader will import all of them. - Import PDF files from common cloud services. Like Dropbox or OneDrive. - Stores all the words you translated:- With the Translate & Save feature, any word you translate will be stored automatically, you can view these words and copy them for revision at any time you want to. This can quite helpful to expand your vocabulary or learning new languages. - Share PDF files from other applications:- You can export any PDF file you open in Safari or other apps & they will be directly imported to Fairy PDF Reader. - Find text in the documents you’re currently reading. - Organize files in folders, and copy or move them between them. - Search for books in the current folder. Fairy PDF Reader has a convenient text matching that makes this easier. - Smart tap detection:- Touching the lower part of the page won’t turn the page, this was added so you won’t turn the page by mistake while reading. The same goes to showing the options bar, you can easily hide it by tapping anywhere on the screen, but you need to tap on the upper part of the screen to show it, so you will unlikely show it by mistake. Unselecting text is also easy, just tap anywhere on the screen, and the selection will be gone. Generally speaking, taps & gestures are designed so that they won't interfere with one another, or interfere with you while you're focused on your book. - Go to any page quickly using the pages navigator, you can either type the page number you want or move the slider, or you can simply tap on the left or right arrows to go to the next or previous page. - Scroll To Top disabled:- While in landscape mode, you can't go to the beginning of the PDF document by tapping on the title bar, which is a common feature in iOS. This was done since it's easy to trigger that feature by mistake. The "Go To Page" dialog is there to help you get to the beginning of the book if you like. You can also read the full documentation of the app on my website:- https://Tech-Fairy.com/fairy-pdf-reader-user-manual-how-to-use-fairy-pdf-reader-to-get-the-best-pdf-reading-experience/

About

Starta

Features
Read full description

Your community deserves a dedicated home — not a borrowed corner of someone else's platform. Starta gives churches, schools, chambers of commerce, associations, and networking groups a private, powerful space to connect, communicate, and grow. Everything in One Place Stop juggling multiple tools. Starta brings your member directory, group messaging, community feed, and event coordination together in one clean, easy-to-use platform. Your Network, Your Rules Full control over design, permissions, and visibility. Customize everything to match your community's vision — without an algorithm deciding who sees your content. Built-in Communication Group messaging, direct messages, and collaboration tools keep every member connected and engaged — on their schedule, not an app's. Shareable & Searchable Public pages, searchable member profiles, and SEO-optimized content help your community get discovered by the right people. AI-Assisted Spotlight Use built-in AI writing assistance to create engaging content, showcase members, and grow your reach — no marketing experience required. Built for Any Community Whether you're running a chamber of commerce, a church ministry, a homeschool co-op, a professional networking group, a nonprofit, or a hobby club — Starta scales with your needs and grows with your people. Free to Launch. Free to Run. Free to Grow. No plans. No tiers. No monthly bills. Create your network, invite your members, and start building — zero cost, no credit card required. Download Starta and give your community the home it deserves.

Screenshots

Fairy PDF Reader4 screens
Starta4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Starta at Free against Fairy PDF Reader's $4.99. On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Starta is free to download; Fairy PDF Reader costs $4.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Fairy PDF Reader versus Starta: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFairy PDF ReaderStarta
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (3 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 2 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS14.1 — better15.0
Further details — not scored
Size27 MB2 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperMohannad DaghistanyStart A Network, LLC

In-app purchases

None

Fairy PDF Reader

No in-app purchases

None

Starta

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fairy PDF Reader free?
Fairy PDF Reader costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is Starta free?
Starta is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Fairy PDF Reader or Starta have ads?
Neither Fairy PDF Reader nor Starta shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Fairy PDF Reader or Starta?
Fairy PDF Reader ships an update every 2 months, and Starta every 2 months. Most recently, Fairy PDF Reader was updated on October 30, 2026 and Starta on October 25, 2026.

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