Hardcover.app vs Bookoscope
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hardcover.app
This app helps you organize and discover books. Track what you've read, create custom lists, and see what friends are reading. Set reading goals and share your thoughts on books.
- Track read and to-read books
- Organize with lists and tags
- See friends' reading activity
- Discover trending books
- Rate and review books
- Set reading goals
- Track reading statistics
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Hardcover is a book tracking app with a social side, built for readers, not algorithms. Add books you’ve read or want to read. Keep your library tidy with lists and tags. See what your friends are reading, explore trending picks, and discover hidden gems through curated lists. Rate, review, and share your thoughts. Make your profile public, private, or friends-only—your reading, your rules. Set goals, track your stats, and find your reading rhythm. We use Apple's standard Terms of Service (EULA). https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Bookoscope
Browse and download public domain ebooks or access your own self-hosted library. This app crawls OPDS endpoints, caches book data, and allows quick export to your preferred ereader.
- Browse self-hosted ebook libraries
- Download public domain classics
- Searchable by metadata
- Cached feeds
- Quick download and export
- Compatible with Calibre-web, Kavita, Ubooquity
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Bookoscope is a fast, searchable ebook catalog. With Bookoscope, you can browse your own self-hosted ebook library as well as download public domain classics from Project Gutenberg. FEATURES: - Fast - Easy on the eyes - Includes over 70,000 public domain books from Project Gutenberg - Uses cached feeds (refresh on demand) - Searchable by any available metadata - Quick download and export to the ereader of your choice COMPATIBLE WITH: - Calibre-web - Kavita - Ubooquity - Any ebook server with OPDS 1.0 functionality WHY USE BOOKOSCOPE? Some ereader apps can connect to OPDS endpoints, but the functionality is tucked away and awkward. There's no way to browse and search all the ebooks you have access to, all at once. Bookoscope fills that niche. It crawls your OPDS endpoints, finds and caches all the books it can, and lets you easily download any of them to your device. From there, you can export them to your preferred ereader. BOOKOSCOPE IS NOT: - An ebook reader, sync client, or annotator, like Apple Books, Google Books, or Kindle. - A metadata editor or organizer, like Calibre. - A self-hosted ebook server, like Kavita, Ubooquity, or calibre-web. Bookoscope may be used with any of the above, but is not affiliated with any other app or tool. WHAT IS OPDS? OPDS is the open standard for web endpoints that expose catalogs of ebooks. Many people use home OPDS servers for their personal ebook libraries. WHAT IF I DON'T HAVE AN OPDS SERVER? That's okay! You can use Bookoscope to browse and download free, completely legal books in the public domain. Start with classics like: - Moby Dick - Frankenstein - Pride and Prejudice - The Great Gatsby - The complete works of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Frederick Douglass, and more!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Hardcover.app at 52% against Bookoscope's 0%. Hardcover.app also leads on price (Free vs $2.99) and ratings volume (66 vs 1). Bookoscope's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.2) and in-app purchases (none vs 2). On ads 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
Hardcover.app is free to download; Bookoscope costs $2.99 up front. Hardcover.app sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Bookoscope asks for nothing beyond the download.
Bookoscope holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hardcover.app has 66 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 52% of Hardcover.app's written reviews are positive against 0% of Bookoscope's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Hardcover.app ships an update every 6 months, Bookoscope every 5 days. Both last shipped on November 12, 2026.
| Parameter | Hardcover.app | Bookoscope |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $2.99 |
| Rating | 4.2 (66 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 52.2% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 66 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 35 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Hardcover LLC | Isaac Lyman |
Customer experience
Hardcover.app
Bookoscope
In-app purchases
Hardcover.app
- Supporter - Monthly$4.991 Month
- Supporter - Yearly$49.991 Year
Bookoscope
No in-app purchases








