Comparison

CHMate vs Summit Reader

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

Most e-readers are bloated with monthly subscription traps, intrusive ads, and clumsy formatting. CHMate brings the quiet focus and tactile elegance of a real book back to your screen. Native EPUB and CHM reader with rich typography customization, instant search, and paper themes. Trusted by readers for over a decade, now rebuilt natively for modern iOS. Download free. Unlock unlimited bookshelf with a one-time purchase. CHMate is a local EPUB and CHM reader for iPhone and iPad. Import the books and documents you already own, arrange them into a library you enjoy, and read each one in the way that suits it best. CRAFTED FOR FOCUSED READING • Paper Texture & Themes: Curated paper backgrounds, customizable fonts, line spacing, margins, and dark mode • Distraction-Free: Clean interface designed to put nothing between you and the text • Tactile Gestures: Smooth chapter transitions and fluid page-turning that respect your reading rhythm DUAL FORMAT POWER: EPUB & CHM • EPUB: Perfect for literature, novels, and reflowable publications • CHM & MHT: Read technical documentation, programming references, and compiled help manuals with structured tables of contents POWERFUL, PRIVATE UTILITIES • Instant Search: Lightning-fast full-text search across chapters • Highlights & Notes: Capture the quotes that move you and review annotations easily • iCloud Theme Sync: Seamlessly sync your typography themes across your devices via CloudKit • Local Wi-Fi Transfer: Drop books directly from your computer browser to your device over Wi-Fi without cables HONEST PRICING • Free to download and read • Pay once to unlock the unlimited bookshelf forever • No subscriptions. No ads. No tracking.

About

Summit Reader

This app offers robust document management with unlimited storage, nested folders, and quick searching. It supports various archive formats, converts PDFs and Word docs to text, and allows easy exporting and customization of document covers. Enjoy a pleasant reading interface with diverse fonts and advanced TXT handling.

Highlights
  • Unlimited document storage
  • Nested folder organization
  • Archive format support (zip, rar, 7z)
  • PDF/Word to text conversion
  • Customizable document covers
  • Advanced TXT chapter segmentation
  • Pleasant reading interface
Features
Read full description

The Document Management App You'll Love Summit Reader stands out as an extremely user-friendly document management app with several key features: Organizational Capabilities Unlimited document storage, fully functional in the free version. Supports nested folders for detailed organization. Enables quick file searching. Allows batch renaming of files for efficient management. Support for Common Archive Formats Compatible with popular formats like zip, rar, and 7z. Directly decompresses files within the app. Supports password-protected and multi-part archives. Format Conversion Features Extracts pure text from PDF and Word documents. Eliminates the need for separate apps to convert PDF to text or Office files to text. Easy Document Exporting Facilitates the export of individual documents, multiple documents, or entire folders. Compresses folders for easy storage or sharing. Beyond these highlights, Summit Reader also offers unique functionalities: Customizable Document Covers Original feature to modify document covers. Import covers from your photo gallery or search for images on Baidu. A great way to enhance the look of TXT documents which typically lack attractive covers. Advanced Document Management Custom categorization, name editing, and order rearranging. Automatically prioritizes recently read documents. Allows moving documents between different categories. Pleasant Reading Interface User-friendly design with features like automatic reading position saving. Supports conversion between Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Customizable spacing and eye-friendly night mode. Diverse Font Selection 12 different fonts to choose from. Option to download and import other fonts. Advanced Handling of TXT Documents Automatically segments chapters in TXT format. Allows custom rules for chapter segmentation, including the use of regular expressions for convenience. Experience the joy of organizing and reading with Summit Reader, inspired by the high-rated novels of Yuan Dou Dou.

Screenshots

CHMate4 screens
Summit Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Summit Reader at 4.8 against CHMate's 3.8. Summit Reader also leads on review sentiment (86% vs 55%) and ratings volume (1.3K vs 20). CHMate's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price, in-app purchases, monetization model 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

Both are free to download. CHMate sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Summit Reader sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Summit Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Summit Reader has 1.3K ratings behind it against 20, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of CHMate's written reviews are positive against 86% of Summit Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

CHMate ships an update every 2 months, Summit Reader every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
CHMate versus Summit Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCHMateSummit Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.8 (20 ratings)4.8 (1.3K ratings) — better
Positive reviews55.1% of reviews85.8% of reviews — better
Number of ratings201.3K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 weeks — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS18.015.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size48 MB105 MB
Age rating4+17+
Developer贤安 陈三英 郑

Customer experience

CHMate

All ratings20 ratings
Positive65.0%
Neutral10.0%
Negative25.0%
Written reviews196 reviews
Positive55.1%
Neutral12.8%
Negative32.1%

Summit Reader

All ratings1,298 ratings
Positive96.4%
Neutral1.3%
Negative2.3%
Written reviews260 reviews
Positive85.8%
Neutral5.4%
Negative8.8%

User reviews

CHMate

From 20 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Excellent UI/UX design and interface
  • 📖 Best CHM file reader available
  • ⚡ Fast and smooth performance
  • 🎨 Customizable text formatting and fonts
  • 🔍 Powerful search functionality

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and stability issues
  • ⚠️ iCloud sync deletes files irreversibly
  • 💰 Expensive pricing for functionality
  • 🔄 Highlighting and annotations don't persist
  • 📱 Compatibility issues with iOS updates

Summit Reader

From 1.3K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Best reading app
  • 🚀 Powerful features
  • 🎨 Highly customizable
  • 💰 Great value for money
  • 🔍 Comprehensive search and download options

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Bugs and crashes after recent updates
  • 🔍 Inconsistent search and download functionality
  • 🔌 Battery drain issues during audiobook playback
  • 📱 Lack of multi-device sync
  • 🚫 Persistent ads even for paid users

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

Summit Reader

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Playback stops unexpectedly when encountering certain symbols
  • Horizontal dual-page mode cannot be disabled
  • Inability to download new books after recent update
  • Imported books not showing up in the library
  • Settings menu and navigation buttons not working

Requested features

5 requests
  • Add support for Apple CarPlay
  • Improve audiobook playback controls
  • Introduce a dark mode option
  • Allow custom text-to-speech voice selection
  • Implement iCloud sync for bookmarks and reading progress

In-app purchases

1 purchases

CHMate

One-time1
  • CHMate+$9.99
4 purchases

Summit Reader

One-time4
  • Extend VIP for 30 Days$0.99
  • Extend Membership for One Year$4.99
  • Extend VIP for Two Years$7.99
Show 1 more
  • Lifetime VIP$11.99

Questions

Is CHMate free?
CHMate is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Summit Reader free?
Summit Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, CHMate or Summit Reader?
Summit Reader is rated higher. CHMate averages 3.8 out of 5 from 20 ratings, while Summit Reader averages 4.8 from 1.3K ratings.
Do CHMate or Summit Reader have ads?
Summit Reader shows ads; CHMate does not.
Which is updated more often, CHMate or Summit Reader?
CHMate ships an update every 2 months, and Summit Reader every 3 weeks. Most recently, CHMate was updated on September 21, 2026 and Summit Reader on September 25, 2026.

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