Comparison

BookPine vs Margin

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

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Read full description

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/

About

Margin

Features
Read full description

Margin is a calm reading-streak app. Read a little every day and watch the days add up. Keep a streak Log minutes with a focus timer or by hand, set a daily goal, and see every reading day on a calendar beside your stats. Gentle reminders help you keep going without nagging. Read in Margin Open your own EPUB and PDF books in a reader built for long sessions: a page curl that follows your finger, themes and fonts, a contents view with page numbers, search, bookmarks, highlights and notes. Your place follows you from iPhone to iPad to the web, down to the sentence. Your library, organised Add books by title, by scanning a barcode, or by taking a photo of the cover. Sort them into collections like Research or Computer Vision, tag genres, and track what you want to read, are reading, and have finished. Covers are found for you, or use the first page of a PDF. Read aloud Record chapters as you read, keep reading while it records, and play them back from the book's page. Export a recording as a video with the book's cover, ready to share. Works with your AI assistant Connect any AI assistant that supports MCP to your library. Your assistant can see what you're reading, log sessions, add books, make collections and set genres, with access you approve and can revoke. Margin Plus Everything above is free, including up to five uploaded books of 5 MB each. Margin Plus adds unlimited uploads up to 150 MB each, video export of recordings, and book recognition from photos. Choose monthly, yearly, or a one-time lifetime purchase. If Plus ends, nothing is locked: every book you have stays readable. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period, and can be managed in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy: https://margin.pstepanov.dev/privacy

Screenshots

BookPine4 screens
Margin4 screens

Verdict

The call

BookPine and Margin are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters — price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

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. BookPine sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Margin sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

BookPine ships an update weekly, Margin every 6 days. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 24, 2026 respectively.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
BookPine versus Margin: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBookPineMargin
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (78 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews25.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings78 — better—
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 6 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationAd-supported—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS16.416.4
Further details — not scored
Size101 MB74 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperDevpri SRLPavel Stepanov

In-app purchases

2 purchases

BookPine

Subscriptions2
  • BookPine Pro7 Days trial$4.991 Month
  • BookPine Pro7 Days trial$49.991 Year
3 purchases

Margin

Subscriptions2
  • Margin Plus Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Margin Plus Yearly$24.991 Year
One-time1
  • Margin Plus Lifetime$49.99

Questions

Is BookPine free?
BookPine is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Margin free?
Margin is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do BookPine or Margin have ads?
Neither BookPine nor Margin shows ads.
Which is updated more often, BookPine or Margin?
BookPine ships an update weekly, and Margin every 6 days. Most recently, BookPine was updated on October 30, 2026 and Margin on October 24, 2026.

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