Comparison

Librarian BookShelf vs Underlined

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

Head to head
About

Librarian BookShelf

Features
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Librarian allows organize books in a easy way. Start store your books using ISBN manually or using your camera. You could use Tags to categorize, also you can see with book information you can see estimate prices. Works perfectly with large fonts!

About

Underlined

Features
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You underline as you read. Then the lines stay in the book, because typing one out is more work than it is worth in the moment. Underlined is a reading tracker built around getting them out. Photograph the page, draw a box round the passage, and it is yours. A PASSAGE WITHOUT TYPING IT • Photograph the page and draw a box round what you underlined. Nothing is retyped. • The box is coarse on purpose: it only has to contain the passage. The words are trimmed back to whole sentences, so a box that clips a few still gives a clean quotation. • The page number is read off the photograph, so keeping a line from page 214 moves your reading progress to 214. When it cannot be read, the app asks. • Text read off a page is never quietly corrected. A word that looks wrong is offered as a suggestion — against word lists carried on the phone, in twenty-six languages — and nothing changes until you say so. • Star the ones that matter. Add a thought underneath while it is still fresh. A SHELF IN ONE PHOTOGRAPH • Point the camera at a row of spines instead of typing forty titles. • Books standing up, books lying flat, a shelf shot at an angle, all without turning the picture. • A single cover works too, for the book in your hand. • Everything found is shown to you first. You choose which go on the shelf and which shelf. YOUR READING YEAR • One goal for the year, paced against how far into the year it actually is — not against a flat count. • Three shelves and no ceremony: want to read, reading, finished. Your TBR is just a shelf. • Keep the page you are on; the last page finishes the book on its own. • Write down how a book left you, in a sentence or two. • Statistics about reading, not about scores: passages kept this month, this year and all time; how many you starred; how long they run; books finished, by year. WHAT YOU KEEP COMES BACK • A passage resurfaces each day, from your own collection. • Search every line you ever kept, with your words marked where they were found. • The ones you return to rise: the app counts which passages you come back to. • Dig into a passage with a model that runs on your phone, never a server. (Recent iPhones.) • Read a passage in another language through Apple's own translation sheet. DISCOVER • Passages other readers underlined, narrowed by subject, in the languages you read. • Keep the ones that stay with you; they join your own shelf. • Find the book behind a line: what it is about, more by the author, books shelved beside it, and where to buy a copy. • Offer a passage of your own if you like — a button you press, never something the app does on its own. Anything can be reported and taken down. TAKE IT WITH YOU • Send a passage as a picture, set as a page rather than a screenshot. • Export one book's passages, or everything you have ever kept, as a PDF set at paperback size. YOUR LIBRARY STAYS YOURS • No account. Nothing to sign up for and nothing to sign in to. • Your books, your progress and your passages live on your phone. • The app does not upload your notes and it does not track you. • Eight languages in the app itself, and passages in twenty-six. • A colour for every book; paper by day, ink by night. FREE AND PRO Five books, free, with every feature working — the camera included. Keeping passages is free without limit and always will be: it is what the app is for. Underlined Pro opens the shelf to as many books as you keep. SUBSCRIPTION Underlined Pro is an auto-renewing subscription: $2.99 a month, or $19.99 a year. Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. It renews automatically unless turned off at least 24 hours before the period ends; manage or cancel it in your Apple Account settings. Privacy policy: https://www.threedollarclub.com/underlined/privacy.html Terms of use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Discover passages come from Wikiquote, used under CC BY-SA 4.0. Book information comes from Open Library.

Screenshots

Librarian BookShelf4 screens
Underlined4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Librarian BookShelf at none against Underlined's 2. Librarian BookShelf also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 18.0). Underlined's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and update cadence (fortnightly vs monthly). On price 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. Underlined sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Librarian BookShelf asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Librarian BookShelf ships an update monthly, Underlined fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 8, 2026 and November 10, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 1 level
Librarian BookShelf versus Underlined: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLibrarian BookShelfUnderlined
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyMonthlyFortnightly — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS13.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size35 MB24 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNamocodeMert Arman

In-app purchases

None

Librarian BookShelf

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Underlined

Subscriptions2
  • Underlined - Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Underlined - Yearly$19.991 Year

Questions

Is Librarian BookShelf free?
Librarian BookShelf is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Underlined free?
Underlined is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Librarian BookShelf or Underlined have ads?
Librarian BookShelf shows ads; Underlined does not.
Which is updated more often, Librarian BookShelf or Underlined?
Librarian BookShelf ships an update monthly, and Underlined fortnightly. Most recently, Librarian BookShelf was updated on November 8, 2026 and Underlined on November 10, 2026.

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