CHMate vs PureReader
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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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.
PureReader
This app offers a fast and simple way to read TXT and EPUB ebook files. Customize your reading experience with adjustable fonts, spacing, and themes. It supports one-handed use and file transfers via Wi-Fi or iTunes.
- Instant loading
- Customizable line spacing, font size, and theme
- One-handed gesture optimization
- Downloadable and custom font support
- Wi-Fi and iTunes file transfer
- In-app purchase for unlimited files and organization
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PureReader is a Simple and Fast txt/epub ebook reader. Features: • Instant Loading, Tap and Read • Customize Line Spacing, Font Size and Theme • Gestures, optimized for one-handed use • Dozens of fonts available for download, or upload your own font files via Wi-Fi • Transfer books via Wi-Fi or iTunes File Sharing. • Free version of PureReader allows up to 3 files PureReader·Pro (In-App Purchase) features: • Unlimited Files • Use folders to organize your books • Search your book library by filename • Hide your private files, protect them by password
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: PureReader at 85% against CHMate's 55%. PureReader also leads on rating (4.2 vs 3.9) and iOS requirement (10.0 vs 18.0). On price, ratings volume, update cadence 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
Both are free to download. CHMate sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and PureReader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
PureReader holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 26 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of CHMate's written reviews are positive against 85% of PureReader's.
CHMate ships an update every 2 months, PureReader every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 25, 2026 and September 27, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CHMate | PureReader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (20 ratings) | 4.2 (26 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 55.3% of reviews | 84.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 | 26 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months — better | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 10.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 贤安 陈 | 乙丑 蒋 |
Customer experience
CHMate
PureReader
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
PureReader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CHMate
- CHMate+$9.99
PureReader
- PureReader Pro$3.99
