Comparison

Fairy PDF Reader vs TransRead

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

TransRead

Features
Read full description

TransRead is a browser extension built for full-text comprehension. Unlike standard translators that process text paragraph by paragraph—often leading to lost context and semantic errors—Transread analyzes the entire page as a whole. This ensures that every sentence is translated with professional accuracy and logical consistency. Key Features: - Context-Aware Translation: Understands the connection between paragraphs to prevent translation errors caused by fragmented text. - Smart Layout: Delivers a clean, bilingual reading experience optimized for long articles, research papers, and eBooks. - Native Integration: Designed exclusively for Safari for a fast, seamless, and lightweight browsing experience. Privacy Policy: https://www.taosoftinc.com/privacy Terms of Service: https://www.taosoftinc.com/terms support:https://www.taosoftinc.com/support

Screenshots

Fairy PDF Reader4 screens
TransRead4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: TransRead at Free against Fairy PDF Reader's $4.99. TransRead also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). On ads, 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

TransRead 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

Fairy PDF Reader ships an update every 2 months, TransRead every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Fairy PDF Reader versus TransRead: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterFairy PDF ReaderTransRead
Price$4.99Free — better
Rating5.0 (3 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings3 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationPaid—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS14.113.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size27 MB32 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperMohannad DaghistanyTao Soft Inc.

In-app purchases

None

Fairy PDF Reader

No in-app purchases

None

TransRead

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Fairy PDF Reader free?
Fairy PDF Reader costs $4.99, with no in-app purchases.
Is TransRead free?
TransRead is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Fairy PDF Reader or TransRead have ads?
Neither Fairy PDF Reader nor TransRead shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Fairy PDF Reader or TransRead?
Fairy PDF Reader ships an update every 2 months, and TransRead every 3 weeks. Most recently, Fairy PDF Reader was updated on November 3, 2026 and TransRead on October 31, 2026.

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