CHMate vs MapleRead CX
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
CHMate
Transform your personal ebook files into a comfortable reading experience with a customizable virtual bookshelf. Enjoy tailored typography, import your own fonts, and organize your collection with decorative elements and personal photos. Read EPUB and CHM files offline with powerful search and annotation tools.
- Customizable virtual bookshelf with ambient lighting
- Decorate shelves with photos, videos, and ornaments
- Tailored typography with adjustable fonts and page colors
- Import custom font files
- Read EPUB and CHM files offline
- Full-text search and annotation tools
- Local Wi-Fi file transfer
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Default ebook formatting does not always suit the way you read. CHMate turns your personal files into a calm, comfortable reading corner. A customizable wooden bookshelf with an ambient lamp and personal decor. Download free. Unlock multiple books with a single one-time purchase. A BOOKSHELF OF YOUR OWN • Wooden shelves and ambient lamp: Display your personal collection with warm bookshelf lighting. • Shelf decor: Arrange animated ornaments, plants, paintings, and shelf-edge figures. • Personal memories: Decorate with photos, Live Photos, or silent looping videos (MP4/MOV). • Custom layout: Freely move, resize, and favorite your decor items. TAILORED TYPOGRAPHY • Page colors: Choose from six page colors independently of your typography theme, with light, dark, or automatic appearance. • Precise reading controls: Adjust font size, line height, page margins, and fonts for body, headings, and code. • Custom font import: Read with built-in fonts or import your own font files. • Horizontal and vertical reading: Switch text orientation where supported for Chinese and Japanese text. • iCloud theme sync: Save your custom typography themes and sync them across your devices. TOOLS & LOCAL IMPORT • Supported formats: Read your own EPUB and CHM files with structured table of contents navigation. • Local Wi-Fi transfer: Send files directly from your computer browser over your local network. • Reading tools: Search full text across chapters, add highlights, and review notes in one place. HONEST PRICING • Free download with complete reading features for your current book. • Unlock multiple books with a single one-time in-app purchase. • No subscriptions and no ads.
MapleRead CX
This app offers a unique audio-visual reading experience for EPUB ebooks. Customize book styles, generate pseudo audiobooks with various voices, and enjoy immersive reading with synchronized audio and text. It also functions as a powerful library management tool with extensive customization options.
- Audio-visual EPUB reader
- Pseudo audiobook generation
- Immersion reading (sync audio/text)
- Customizable book styles and themes
- Word lookup and translation
- Library management and organization
- User-defined fonts and highlight colors
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MapleRead is dedicated to enable unique audio-visual reading experience for everyone. ------------ Our MapleRead app family has 3 members, namely SE, CE and CX. - SE is our flagship product with all features. - CE is SE without PDF reader and built-in Library Server. - CX is CE with some limitation. Free to try. - No recurring subscription fees. No ads. Just buy it once. Gratuity optional. - Moreover, SE and CE can be run side-by-side via split-view multitasking. - Recommend SE for use on multiple devices with easy and fast book sharing via Library Server. - Recommend the SE-CE bundle for the best value. ------------ MapleRead includes a superb audio-visual EPUB e-book reader. - It lets you easily modify publisher's original book style to better suit your aesthetic taste. - It lets you instantly generate pseudo audiobooks with a choice of narrator voices over 40 languages. - It enables immersion reading so that you may read and listen to the same book in sync. - Background listening works well too. Compatible with Lock Screen Music Player and CarPlay. MapleRead UI is friendly to users of all ages. - Books can be read in regular and large print. - A choice of UI text sizes makes reading in non-book views much more comfortable. MapleRead is a great learning tool. - It lets you look up words, translate sentences, search text, highlight text and write notes. - It helps you collect vocabulary and organize notes with various priorities. - It provides hooks to user-defined dictionaries, translators, and other tools. - Immersion reading improves your comprehension, especially of foreign-language books. MapleRead is an effective and fast library management tool. - It is designed for you, a book lover, who may own a huge and/or growing book collection. - It lets you keep all your books in one place and well-organized automatically. - It lets you display your books elegantly in style. - It lets you easily repair individual book metadata. - If supports multiple book sets and multiple tags. - It offers multiple ways to import and export books, and works well with Calibre. MapleRead offers unprecedented user-defined customization options. - They include unlimited user-defined fonts, book themes, cover images and library scenes. - Each book theme includes various types of user-defined highlight colors. - Each book can have its own theme, and each EPUB book can have its own style. [For more technical details, screenshots, FAQ and reviews, please visit our website.]
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: CHMate at 3.9 against MapleRead CX's 3.4. CHMate also leads on monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid) and update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 5 weeks). MapleRead CX's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 26.0). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads 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
Both are free to download. CHMate sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and MapleRead CX sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
CHMate holds the better App Store score, 3.9 against 3.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 24 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 55% of CHMate's written reviews are positive against 62% of MapleRead CX's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
CHMate ships an update every 2 weeks, MapleRead CX every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CHMate | MapleRead CX |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (20 ratings) — better | 3.4 (24 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 55.3% of reviews | 61.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 24 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 5 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 51 MB | 26 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | 4+ |
| Developer | 贤安 陈 | Maplepop LLC |
Customer experience
CHMate
MapleRead CX
Bugs and requests
CHMate
Reported bugs
13 issues- App crashes when searching CHM files
- Crashes when using tap-hold for bookmarking
- Highlighting functionality broken after iOS updates
- Notes and bookmarks not saving properly
- Highlights disappear or move between chapters
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- App crashes on startup or when opening files
- Table of contents index expansion broken
- Custom fonts blocked after iOS 14.5 update
- Files not accessible via iCloud or Dropbox
- Missing icons after updates
- Images display as half-dark or missing
- Text formatting changes not visible without page reload
- First line spacing issues
Requested features
12 requests- Dark mode and additional color themes (Sepia)
- Book cover display instead of text-only library view
- PDF support
- Text-to-speech functionality
- Better pagination options
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- iPad Pro resolution support
- iOS multi-window support
- Better bookmark functionality
- Separate highlighting and annotation tools
- Support for Cyrillic and Arabic text encoding
- Collection/folder organization for multiple files
- Zip file support for documentation sets
MapleRead CX
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CHMate
- CHMate+$9.99
MapleRead CX
- Pro Upgrade$6.99








