BookPine vs PocketShelf
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BookPine
Track your reading journey with detailed stats, custom lists, and reading goals. Easily import your library from other platforms and discover ambient sounds for focused reading. Share your progress and connect with a community of book lovers.
- Detailed reading stats and insights
- Custom lists and shelves for organization
- Personalized reading goals and challenges
- Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph, LibraryThing
- Ambient sounds for focused reading
- Social features to follow friends and share reviews
- Transaction log for borrowed, lent, or purchased books
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BookPine is a book tracker for readers who like to keep a record of what they read. Log your books, set goals that fit your life, and see real stats about your reading habits. Note: BookPine is not an e-reader, so you can’t read books inside the app. READING CIRCLES Read a book together with friends or other readers. Start a circle from any book, make it public or private, and choose how long it runs. Members write posts, comment, vote in polls and log their progress as they go. You can hide a post until readers reach a certain point in the book, or until they finish it, so nobody gets spoiled. SERIES TRACKING BookPine builds your series list from the books on your shelves. Each series shows its books in order, how many you've read, and which one comes next. Reading a series in another language? Set the language for that series and your progress only counts the books published in it. You can also mark a series as paused or abandoned. CUSTOM COVERS Don't like the cover on your edition? Change it. Pick one from another edition, upload your own image, or grab one from any web page. Only you see your custom cover, and it shows up everywhere you see that book in the app. HOME SCREEN WIDGETS Keep your books on your home screen. Pick a grid of covers, a shelf of spines lined up like a real bookshelf, or the book you are reading now with your progress on it. Choose which shelf each widget shows, how it is sorted and which colors it uses. From the Currently Reading widget you can start the reading timer or update your progress. CUSTOM GENRES AND TAGS Sort your library with your own genres and tags: comfort read, slow burn, signed copy, book club, five-star prediction, whatever fits how you read. They are private to you, and you can filter your whole library by them, so any book is easy to find again. READING STATS AND INSIGHTS Track pages, finished books and reading time, with charts for your streak, monthly progress and yearly trends. It's an easy way to see how much you read and what you actually finish. BOOK TRACKER, LISTS AND SHELVES Shelve books as Currently Reading, Want to Read, Read or Did Not Finish. Rate with half stars, write reviews, and make your own shelves and lists. Add a book in seconds by scanning its barcode or searching by title, author or ISBN. READING GOALS AND CHALLENGES Set yearly, monthly or custom goals by books, pages, minutes or authors. Streaks and milestones help you keep the habit going. IMPORT FROM GOODREADS, STORYGRAPH AND LIBRARYTHING Import your books, ratings, reviews and shelves in one go, so your reading history comes with you. TRY IT AS A GUEST Open the app and start tracking without an email address. Create an account later if you want to keep going. AMBIENT SOUNDS Play rain, a crackling fireplace, cafe noise and more while you read. SOCIAL Follow friends, share reviews and see what other people are reading, along with their goals, shelves and wishlists. SHAREABLE BOOK CARDS Turn your current read, a favorite quote, a review or a reading milestone into an image you can post or send to friends. TRANSACTION LOG Keep track of the books you borrow, lend, buy or give away. PRIVATE BOOKS Some reads are just for you. Private books never appear on your public profile. ALSO INCLUDED • Dark mode, plus dark gray, high contrast, true black and sepia themes • Available in 16 languages • Half-star ratings and tags for more detailed reviews Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
PocketShelf
Easily organize your book collection and track your reading progress. Save notes, get session recaps, and start reading directly from your home screen.
- Organize book library
- Track reading sessions
- Add notes and summaries
- Home screen widget
- Accessibility features
- AI-powered recaps
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Track your reading. Remember what matters. Meet PocketShelf, the easiest way to keep track of your books and your reading journey. No matter what kind of reader you are, PocketShelf helps you stay organised and makes coming back to your books feel effortless. What you can do with PocketShelf: - Your Library: Add books in seconds and keep your collection neat - Track your reading sessions: See how much time you spend reading and celebrate your progress - Notes & Summaries: Write down notes while reading. PocketShelf gives you recaps of you last reading session to help you jump right back in again - Widget: Start your reading session right from the Home Screen with our widget - Accessibility: Support for VoiceOver, dynamic type and accessible fonts. Plus, you can get those recaps also in plain language - Beautifully designed: Crafted by an Apple Design Award Winner We have so much more planned for the future. To keep up to date, follow us at the following platforms: - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pocketshelf.app - TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@PocketShelf - X: https://x.com/PocketShelfApp —— Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://pocketshelf.app/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: PocketShelf at 85% against BookPine's 25%. BookPine's advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.4) and monetization model (ad-supported vs freemium). 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. BookPine sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and PocketShelf sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $3.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
BookPine holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: BookPine has 78 ratings behind it against 8, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 25% of BookPine's written reviews are positive against 85% of PocketShelf's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
BookPine ships an update weekly, PocketShelf every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 28, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BookPine | PocketShelf |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (78 ratings) — better | 4.4 (8 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 25.0% of reviews | 84.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 78 — better | 8 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Ad-supported — better | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 16.4 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 101 MB | 159 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Devpri SRL | Klemens Strasser |
Customer experience
BookPine
PocketShelf
In-app purchases
BookPine
- BookPine Pro7 Days trial$4.991 Month
- BookPine Pro7 Days trial$49.991 Year
PocketShelf
- Monthly$3.991 Month
- Yearly$19.991 Year
- One Extra Book Slot$4.99
- Lifetime$49.99









