CHMate vs Hedgehog 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
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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.
Hedgehog reader
This app allows you to read a wide variety of e-book and audiobook formats, organize your personal library, and even translate text offline. It offers features like full-text search, typo correction, and text-to-speech functionality.
- Supports multiple e-book and audiobook formats
- Organize library with shelves, search, and filtering
- Offline text translation
- Full-text search and notes
- Typo correction
- Text-to-speech with adjustable speed
- Import from local devices and cloud storage
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An app for reading books and organizing a personal library. The supported formats are FB2, MOBI, EPUB, DOCX, CBZ, CHM, RTF, HTML, MHTML, WebArchive, PDF, MD, TXT, and MP3, M4A, M4B for audiobooks. Import from local devices, iCloud, and Dropbox, as a single book and as a batch. An ability to create an internal shelves structure with search and filtering by genre, keywords, languages, series, and ratings. An ability to translate (even when there is no Internet connection) selected words and phrases to the chosen language, by presetting the list of languages to translate from. An ability to perform a full-text search throughout the entire library and the notes added to books. An ability to quickly correct typos in a book. Reading the text aloud (even when there is no Internet connection) with different variants of speed and operating from the music control. Bookmarks and notes with the ability to upload the latter as a file. An ability to directly download books from servers that support OPDS. Automatic synchronization of library content (and reading progress) across multiple devices.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Hedgehog reader at 4.9 against CHMate's 3.9. Hedgehog reader also leads on review sentiment (67% vs 55%) and iOS requirement (18.7 vs 26.0). CHMate's advantage is ads (none vs shown). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and in-app purchases 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 Hedgehog reader sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Hedgehog reader holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 17 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of CHMate's written reviews are positive against 67% of Hedgehog reader's.
CHMate ships an update every 2 weeks, Hedgehog reader fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 21, 2026.
| Parameter | CHMate | Hedgehog reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (20 ratings) | 4.9 (17 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 55.3% of reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 — better | 17 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 18.7 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 51 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | 贤安 陈 | Anna Diubina |
Customer experience
CHMate
Hedgehog reader
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
Hedgehog reader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CHMate
- CHMate+$9.99
Hedgehog reader
- Advertisement free mode$5.99
- Book export$14.99








