Comparison

Bookshelf vs Own Shelf

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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/

About

Own Shelf

Read full description

Welcome to your Own Shelf. Import any EPUB you own and press play. The text rolls like a teleprompter or the credits at the end of a film, so you can sit back and read hands free. SET YOUR OWN PACE Set the roll anywhere from 60 to 450 words per minute. Tap to pause, tap to resume. A floating HUD shows your progress, time remaining, and words per minute, then tucks away so you can focus. YOUR LIBRARY, ORGANISED Import EPUBs you own, including public-domain books from libraries such as Project Gutenberg, and they appear in a clean grid with real cover art extracted from each file. Press and hold to remove a title. Pull down to refresh. Every book remembers exactly where you left off. CHAPTER NAVIGATION Open the chapter sheet to see the full table of contents, grouped into Front Matter and Story. Tap any chapter to jump straight there. A "Skip to start of book" button appears automatically when you're in a preface or copyright page. BOOKMARKS Tap the bookmark icon to save your spot. View all bookmarks with percentage and age, jump back instantly, or delete ones you no longer need. Bookmarks are stored by character offset so they survive changes to font size. READING STREAKS Build a daily reading habit. Own Shelf tracks your streak with milestone badges at 3, 7, 14, 30, 100, and 365 days. A weekly chart shows your reading activity at a glance, and a warning style nudges you when your streak is about to break. MAKE IT YOURS Choose from Light, Sepia, or Dark themes. Pick Sans, Serif, or Mono fonts. Step text size from 14 to 56 px. All preferences persist across your entire library. PRIVATE BY DESIGN Everything stays on your device. EPUBs are opened and parsed entirely on your iPhone. Own Shelf has no server and makes no network requests, so your files and reading never leave your device. Your library, bookmarks, reading position, and preferences are all stored locally. No accounts, no cloud sync, no tracking. Your reading is your own.

Screenshots

Bookshelf4 screens
Own Shelf4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Own Shelf at none against Bookshelf's 6. Own Shelf also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks). On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Bookshelf sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $2.49 per month. Own Shelf asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bookshelf ships an update every 2 weeks, Own Shelf every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Bookshelf versus Own Shelf: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBookshelfOwn Shelf
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (36 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews87.5% of reviews—
Number of ratings36 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 2 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.515.1 — better
Further details — not scored
Size171 MB33 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperTiago AlmeidaDANIELLA TOPPLE

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Bookshelf

Subscriptions4
  • Premium Features$2.491 Month
  • Premium Features$2.991 Month
  • Premium Features$22.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Premium Features$29.991 Year
One-time2
  • Lifetime (promo)$99.99
  • Lifetime$199.99
None

Own Shelf

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Bookshelf free?
Bookshelf is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Own Shelf free?
Own Shelf is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Bookshelf or Own Shelf have ads?
Neither Bookshelf nor Own Shelf shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Bookshelf or Own Shelf?
Bookshelf ships an update every 2 weeks, and Own Shelf every 2 days. Most recently, Bookshelf was updated on October 25, 2026 and Own Shelf on October 13, 2026.

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