Comparison

CHMate vs MapleRead CX

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

Head to head
About

CHMate

This app offers a robust reading experience for EPUB and CHM eBooks. Organize your library, add bookmarks and notes, and customize your reading environment. Share passages and easily search within your books.

Highlights
  • Organize eBooks into collections
  • Add bookmarks and notes
  • Customizable fonts and line height
  • Fast scrolling and pagination
  • Highlight favorite passages
  • Built-in search functionality
  • Share quotes with friends
Features
Read full description

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.

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Read full description

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

CHMate4 screens
MapleRead CX4 screens

Verdict

The call

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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

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.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

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.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

CHMate ships an update every 2 weeks, MapleRead CX every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
CHMate versus MapleRead CX: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCHMateMapleRead CX
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.9 (20 ratings) — better3.4 (24 ratings)
Positive reviews55.3% of reviews61.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2024 — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeks — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases — betterPaid
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS26.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size51 MB26 MB
Age rating4+4+
Developer贤安 陈Maplepop LLC

Customer experience

CHMate

All ratings20 ratings
Positive70.0%
Neutral5.0%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews197 reviews
Positive55.3%
Neutral12.7%
Negative32.0%

MapleRead CX

All ratings24 ratings
Positive58.3%
Neutral8.3%
Negative33.3%
Written reviews39 reviews
Positive61.5%
Neutral10.3%
Negative28.2%

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
Show 8 more
  • 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
Show 7 more
  • 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

1 purchases

CHMate

One-time1
  • CHMate+$9.99
1 purchases

MapleRead CX

One-time1
  • Pro Upgrade$6.99

Questions

Is CHMate free?
CHMate is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is MapleRead CX free?
MapleRead CX is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, CHMate or MapleRead CX?
CHMate is rated higher. CHMate averages 3.9 out of 5 from 20 ratings, while MapleRead CX averages 3.4 from 24 ratings.
Do CHMate or MapleRead CX have ads?
Neither CHMate nor MapleRead CX shows ads.
Which is updated more often, CHMate or MapleRead CX?
CHMate ships an update every 2 weeks, and MapleRead CX every 5 weeks. Most recently, CHMate was updated on October 17, 2026 and MapleRead CX on October 13, 2026.

Other comparisons