Bookshelf vs LitList
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Bookshelf
Organize your entire reading life, tracking physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks. Set reading goals, log sessions, save quotes, and visualize your progress with detailed statistics and a reading habits heat map. Discover new books and connect with friends.
- Smart book organization with custom shelves
- Reading timer and session tracking
- Save quotes and notes with OCR
- Flexible reading goals and progress tracking
- Detailed statistics and insights
- Reading habits heat map
- Monthly and yearly recaps
- Purchase and borrowing logs
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The best reading tracker for physical books, ebooks, and audiobooks. Whether you're managing your TBR pile, tracking a BookTok recommendation, or building a reading habit - Bookshelf is the book journal, reading log, and library organizer you've been looking for. Switching from Goodreads or StoryGraph? Import your entire library in minutes. SMART BOOK ORGANIZATION Organize your books into Reading, To Read, Wishlist, Finished, and Abandoned shelves - or create unlimited custom shelves with your own icons and colors. Drag and drop books between shelves. Tag books with custom color-coded labels for easy filtering. Sort by title, author, rating, date added, start date, finish date, last read, pages, publication date, and more. Track series, editions, and co-authors. Add books by searching or by scanning ISBN barcodes - even in bulk scan mode. MULTIPLE VIEWS, YOUR WAY See your library the way you love it: a cozy 3D bookcase view, a flexible grid with adjustable cover size and spacing, or a detailed list. Customize progress indicators, goal badges, and shelf appearance down to the smallest detail. READING TIMER & SESSION TRACKING Start the built-in reading timer whenever you pick up a book. Use the stopwatch for open-ended sessions or set a countdown alarm for timed reading. Log pages read, reading percentage, and session duration. Track audiobooks with chapter-level, minute-precise listening sessions. Re-reading a favorite? Track multiple readings per book. Quick-start a session right from your home screen widget. QUOTES, NOTES & REVIEWS Save your favorite quotes by typing or scanning straight from the page with OCR text recognition. Attach photos to your notes for a richer book journal. Write reviews and rate every book you finish. FLEXIBLE READING GOALS Set goals for pages, reading time, or number of books across any date range - daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, or anything in between. Pin your most important goals, show visual badges on book covers, and celebrate completions with animated confetti. DEEP STATS & INSIGHTS Explore your reading like never before: reading pace and velocity, rating trends, abandoned-book rate, genre and author distribution charts, a reading-pattern clock showing when you read best, milestones, history, and year-over-year comparisons. Unlock tiered achievements as your library grows. MONTHLY & YEARLY RECAPS Beautiful monthly summaries and full yearly recaps - your longest and shortest books, five-star reads, first and last finishes, top quotes, genre breakdowns, streaks, and month-by-month highlights. Like Spotify Wrapped, but for your reading life. Export and share as an image or PDF. PURCHASE LOGS Track purchases, borrowed books, and lending history. Set return-date reminders so you never forget to return - or get back - a book. Log price, location, and personal notes. READING FEED Follow friends and explore their shelves, reviews, and stats. Stay inspired with a feed of reading activity from people you follow and the global community. Control exactly what's visible on your public profile. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS Keep your reading front and center with customizable home screen widgets for your current reads and reading timer. 18 STUNNING THEMES Choose from themes like Nordic, Forest, Cyberpunk, Lavender, Pink, and more - each in light and dark. Decorate your shelves with 50+ adorable book nooks across 11 categories. Personalize shelf size, spacing, progress indicators, and your profile widget layout. EASY IMPORT Import from Goodreads or StoryGraph with a CSV file, or scan your physical books with the built-in barcode scanner. Sync your reading across devices, with Kobo e-reader sync supported. Build your shelves. Set your goals. Track your reading streak. Fall in love with reading again. https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
LitList
Organize your reading life with this app. Track books, rate spice, tag tropes, and discover new reads tailored to your taste. Features include audiobook support, smart search, and social reading with friends.
- Log reading status and streaks
- Audiobook tracking
- Smart library search and filtering
- Trope and spice tagging
- Personalized book recommendations
- Buddy reads and social sharing
- Goodreads library import
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The reading tracker that actually gets readers. Built for how BookTokers think: spice ratings, trope tagging, series tracking. Made for every reader.. Track any book, any genre, any format. TRACK YOUR READING - Log books as Reading, Read, Want to Read, or DNF/soft DNF - Reading streaks, daily goals, and session timer with page tracking - Audiobook support with listening hours and narrator info - Journal entries with mood tracking for each session YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR WAY - Beautiful cover grid with smart search - Filter by status, genre, and vibes (tropes & moods) - Series tracking with reading progress and book order - Spice ratings and trope tags — because BookTok gets it - Content warnings, half-star ratings, and spoiler-tagged reviews DISCOVER YOUR NEXT READ - Today's Pick — a free daily recommendation curated to your taste - Mood Match — tell it your craving and it picks from your own TBR - Browse by tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Found Family, and more - Filter by spice level from mild to explicit - New in Your Series — never miss a release READ WITH FRIENDS - Buddy reads with real-time progress sharing - Friends system with activity feed - Send book recommendations to friends - Shareable stats cards, reading challenges, and goals FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY - Create a reading profile for your child under your account - Track their books and milestones together - No ads ever shown to child profiles IMPORT & GET STARTED FAST - Import your Goodreads library in under 2 minutes — shelves, ratings, and read dates transfer automatically - Import from any reading app or CSV - Instant cover art, metadata, and series detection - Scan barcodes to add books in seconds, or batch-scan a whole stack GO FURTHER WITH LITLIST PLUS - Picked For You — unlimited personalized recommendation batches - Mood Match for your TBR - Search by theme, mood, or vibe - Premium stats card designs & Year in Review - All vibe themes — Romantasy, Cottagecore & Dark Academia - Unlimited reading challenges - Unlimited family profiles Built independently in Canada by a reader, for readers. No ads. No data selling. Just your reading life, beautifully organized. Terms of Use (EULA): https://litlist.ca/terms Privacy Policy: https://litlist.ca/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: LitList at 100% against Bookshelf's 88%. 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. Bookshelf sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $2.49 per month and LitList sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Bookshelf ships an update every 2 weeks, LitList weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 5, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Bookshelf | LitList |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (27 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 87.5% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 27 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.5 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 171 MB | 65 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Tiago Almeida | merakistorms |
Customer experience
Bookshelf
LitList
In-app purchases
Bookshelf
- Premium Features$2.491 Month
- Premium Features$2.991 Month
- Premium Features$22.991 Year
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- Premium Features$29.991 Year
- Lifetime (promo)$99.99
- Lifetime$199.99
LitList
- LitList Plus Monthly$5.991 Month
- LitList Plus Annual$34.991 Year









