CHMate vs iPublishCentral Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
Read full descriptionHide 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.
iPublishCentral Reader
Read and manage your digital library with this app. It supports PDF and EPUB formats, allowing you to organize books, customize your reading experience with notes and highlights, and sync progress across devices. Download content from various sources, including cloud storage and email.
- Read PDF and EPUB ebooks
- Organize books into shelves
- Add notes and highlights
- Bookmark pages
- Sync reading progress across devices
- Download content from Dropbox and email
- Customize font, margins, and background
Read full descriptionHide full description
With the iPublishCentral Reader App you can read ebooks and content in PDF and EPUB format on your iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch. You can organize books in to shelves, customize your reading experience, add notes or highlights to specific passages, bookmark a page, and download content from your Dropbox account and e-mails. Your last read page, notes, highlights, and bookmarks are synchronized across devices when network connectivity is available. This synchronizations enables you to pick a book from where you left off on another device. Download ebooks: · From various ebookstores hosted on the iPublishCentral platform · Non-DRM PDF and EPUB content from your e-mails, and Dropbox Customize your reading experience: · Add notes or highlights to specific passages, bookmark pages/locations · Select among four typefaces and adjust font size, set margins · Set background color of the Reader · Switch between horizontal swipe and vertical scroll · Set brightness level Organize: · Organize your ebooks/content by creating shelves Navigation: · Search for specific keywords and navigate to a specific passage by picking a search result · Swipe or scroll to go to previous or next page · Use the page slider to quickly navigate across · Go to specific passages from the table listing the personalizations · Table of contents Formats supported: · Ebooks in PDF format hosted on the iPublishCentral platform · Ebooks in EPUB2 and EPUB3 format hosted on the iPublishCentral platform · Interactive ebooks and audio (read aloud) ebooks hosted on the iPublishCentral platform · Non-DRM PDFs · Non-DRM EPUBs Hope you enjoy reading your ebooks on the iPublishCentral Reader App iPublishCentral Team
Screenshots
Verdict
CHMate and iPublishCentral Reader both sit at 3.9 stars, but that hides the real split: 55% of CHMate's written reviews are positive against 19% of iPublishCentral Reader's. CHMate also leads on update cadence (every 2 weeks vs every 2 months). iPublishCentral Reader's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and ratings volume (156 vs 20). On price, rating, 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
Both are free to download. CHMate sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. iPublishCentral Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
CHMate holds the better App Store score, 3.9 against 3.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: iPublishCentral Reader has 156 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 19% of iPublishCentral Reader's.
CHMate ships an update every 2 weeks, iPublishCentral Reader every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CHMate | iPublishCentral Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (20 ratings) — better | 3.7 (156 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 55.3% of reviews — better | 19.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 156 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 9.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 51 MB | 178 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 贤安 陈 | iPublishCentral |
Customer experience
CHMate
iPublishCentral Reader
User reviews
CHMate
From 20 App Store ratingsWhat 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
iPublishCentral Reader
From 156 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Nice design, works well
- 🚀 Swiftly updated
- 👍 Easy to use
- 👍 Nice App, easy to download and read
- 👍 Keeps notes updated across devices
Room to improve
- 🐛 App constantly crashes
- 🐛 Notes/highlights not synced
- 🐛 Poorly built app
- 🐛 No way of writing notes
- 🐛 Deletes written notes
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 moreShow fewer
- 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 moreShow fewer
- 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
iPublishCentral Reader
Reported bugs
19 issues- App constantly crashes
- Notes/highlights not synced between devices
- Highlighting and note-taking disappears after closing books
- Vertical scrolling resets to default every time the book is left
- App crashes every second after last update
Show 14 moreShow fewer
- Speech to text only works if the app is open
- Tables in BCSC do not display correctly
- Highlighting does not work
- Apple pen support is scarce
- App consistently fails to 'see' new books
- App crashes every time a book is attempted to be added
- App crashes every time the textbook is opened
- App fails to work more often than not
- iPad does not recognize password
- App crashes after highlighting or noting
- App takes user out to bookshelf upon closing
- Image quality of radiological pictures is poor
- Update has made the app worse, does not open
- Cannot open any downloaded books
Requested features
7 requests- Direct link to Bible scripture
- More colors for underlining
- Set vertical scrolling preference permanently
- Support split screen on iPad
- Improve highlighting function to avoid squares
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Allow search and TOC selection
- Improve image quality for radiological pictures
In-app purchases
CHMate
- CHMate+$9.99
iPublishCentral Reader
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is CHMate free?
Is iPublishCentral Reader free?
Which has better reviews, CHMate or iPublishCentral Reader?
Do CHMate or iPublishCentral Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, CHMate or iPublishCentral Reader?
Other comparisons
