CHMate vs PDF 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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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.
PDF Reader
This app allows you to read various document formats like PDF, EPUB, and CHM on your iPhone and iPad. It supports file import, text search, annotation, and even previewing MS Office files and videos. A simple to-do list and auto-save reading progress are also included.
- Reads PDF, CHM, EPUB, TXT files
- PDF annotation and text search
- File import via Files, Airdrop, iTunes, web
- MS Office and video file preview
- Simple To-Do list functionality
- Auto-save reading progress
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PDF Reader - Mini Version is an amazing reader App on iPhone and iPad Main Fatures: 1. support read pdf、chm、epub、txt file 2. support pdf annotation and text search 3. support import file via Files、Airdrop、iTunes、web browser 4. support MS office Word、Excel、PPT、Video and many other file types preview 5. support simple Todo list 6. support auto save reading progress 7. support Baidu Net Disk
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: PDF Reader at 4.9 against CHMate's 3.8. PDF Reader also leads on review sentiment (71% vs 55%) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 2 months). On price, ratings volume, 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 PDF Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
PDF Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 3.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 20 and 8 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of CHMate's written reviews are positive against 71% of PDF Reader's.
CHMate ships an update every 2 months, PDF Reader every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and August 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | CHMate | PDF Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (20 ratings) | 4.9 (8 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 55.1% of reviews | 71.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 20 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| 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 | 18.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 48 MB | 50 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | 贤安 陈 | 绪强 任 |
Customer experience
CHMate
PDF 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
PDF Reader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
CHMate
- CHMate+$9.99
PDF Reader
- Reader App donate$0.99
- Dropbox Support$0.99
- Remove Ad$4.99
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- Todo donate$7.99
- Todo donate$14.99
