CHMate vs TotalReader
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.
TotalReader
This app is a versatile reader supporting a vast array of book, document, comic, and source code formats. It offers advanced customization for reading comfort, cloud integration, and file management tools.
- Wide range of supported formats
- Cloud and network service integration
- Speech synthesizer
- Customizable reading experience
- File manager with Wi-Fi transfer
- Online book catalogs (OPDS)
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The BEST application for reading books: *.fb2, *.epub, *.mobi, *.azw, *.prc, *.chm, *.fbz, *.rtf, *.txt (all encodings), documents: *.djvu, *.pdf, *.xps, office documents: *.doc, *.docx, *.xls, *.xlsx, *.ppt, *.pptx, *.pages, *.numbers, *.key, comic books: *.cbr, *.cbz, *.cb7, *.cbt and sources: *.h, *.c, *.cpp, *.m, *.java, *.cs ... All formats are thoroughly elaborated and are 100% supported by the application, including the styles, chapters, tables, links, footnotes etc. The visualization system takes into account the specific character of the formats functioning on mobile devices (memory capacity, the number of general processor units etc.), Providing a maximum productivity and comfort when working with large documents. Elegant design, extended functionality, high speed and stability of work will make reading of your favorite literature a pleasurable experience. You can contact technical support and leave a comment without quitting the application. TotalReader’s special features: ■ Wide range of supported formats (fb2, epub, mobi, azw, prc, chm, fbz, rtf, txt(all encodings), djvu, pdf, xps, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, pages, numbers, key, cbr, cbz, cb7, cbt) ■ Compatible with all popular archive formats (rar, zip, 7z, gz, tar ...) ■ Speech synthesizer ■ Large set of page turning animations for books(Slide, Fade, Curl, Flip, Cube, Ripple, Rotate) ■ Night mode ■ Integration with popular cloud services(Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive, Yandex.Disk) ■ Integration with popular network services(SMB, FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, DLNA) ■ Open books directly from cloud services and network services ■ Hight application stability ■ Automatic recovery bad and non standard files ■ Search and highlight text options ■ Table of contents ■ Highlight and copy text options for books ■ Font, Font color, Background, font size, margins, line spacing, hyphenation, hyphenation language, skip author style options ■ User friendly navigation ■ Page layout option in documents(single page, double pages, double pages with cover) ■ Effects for documents(sepia, monochrome, color controls) ■ Brightness control ■ Rotation lock ■ Bookmarks ■ Quick document preview ■ Page scaling for documents ■ Auto scaling for adjacent pages ■ Double page view ■ Opening documents from external applications ■ Last open document list ■ Online book catalogs(OPDS) ■ Web Browser and download manager ■ Wi-Fi transfer ■ FTP transfer File Manager Features: ■ Intuitive interface ■ iTunes integration ■ File sorting(by name, by extension, by size, by date) ■ Searching files in subfolders ■ Create, move, copy, rename, pack/unpack, delete file/folder options ■ File/folder search ■ Preview book cover Wi-Fi Transfer Features: ■ Intuitive interface ■ Create, move, rename, delete file/folder options ■ Downloading/uploading few media files with one click ■ Display upload progress Online catalog(OPDS) Features: ■ Maximal support OPDS standards ■ User friendly navigation ■ Global searching ■ Full book information preview ■ Adding and editing catalog options ■ Completely popular catalog list Feel free to ask questions, report bugs or request new features: support@develsoftware.com
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: TotalReader at 4.3 against CHMate's 3.9. TotalReader also leads on ratings volume (368 vs 20) and review sentiment (69% vs 55%). On price, update cadence, ads 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 TotalReader sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
TotalReader holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: TotalReader has 368 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 69% of TotalReader's.
CHMate ships an update every 2 weeks, TotalReader every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 15, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CHMate | TotalReader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (20 ratings) | 4.3 (368 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 55.3% of reviews | 69.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 368 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 51 MB | 130 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | 贤安 陈 | LTD DevelSoftware |
Customer experience
CHMate
TotalReader
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
TotalReader
From 368 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Great reader
- 👍 Easy to use
- 🔍 Supports many file formats
- 💡 Integrates with cloud storage
- 📚 Excellent for reading books
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and stability issues
- 💰 Expensive premium version
- 📢 Intrusive ads in free version
- 🔒 Lacks security/privacy features
- 🔧 Poor file management and organization
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
TotalReader
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes on startup
- Unable to open certain file formats
- Cloud storage integration not working
- Ads prevent smooth reading experience
- Purchased features not functioning properly
Requested features
5 requests- Add more customization options
- Improve cloud storage integration
- Implement better file organization tools
- Provide better support for older devices
- Add text-to-speech and annotation features
In-app purchases
CHMate
- CHMate+$9.99
TotalReader
- Thank the Developer$0.99
- Appearance Customization$1.99
- Pro Version$6.99







