Thorium Reader vs Sutra
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Thorium Reader
Organize all your ebooks, comics, and manga in a single app. Customize your reading experience with adjustable text, fonts, and themes. Listen to audiobooks and zoom into visual content with ease.
- Unified bookshelf for all content
- Adjustable text size and spacing
- Multiple font options
- Text-to-speech audio playback
- Zoom for comics and manga
- Offline dictionary and translation
- Import EPUB, PDF, CBZ files
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Looking for an app where you can bring all your ebooks, comics and manga in one place? That’s what we built Thorium Reader for. Read it your way Everyone’s different, that’s why we want you to be fully in control: • Adjust text size, switch between color schemes with themes and control spacing. • 10+ fonts available, including specialized ones. • You prefer audio? Listen to any ebook, whenever you want. We’ll remember your preference. • Zoom into comics, manga and magazines. • Add bookmarks with notes. • Use the built-in iOS dictionary and translation features, even offline. • Tweak your reading experience with reading options. Bring your own books A single bookshelf and reading application where you can bring all your content: • Download free books, borrow from your library or buy from your favorite retailer. • Support for ebooks, documents, comics and manga. • Import EPUB, PDF and CBZ files. • Support for Readium LCP, used by thousands of libraries and retailers. Thorium Reader is built by EDRLab, a non-profit dedicated to open standards, reading and accessibility.
Sutra
Access your entire book collection from various sources in one beautiful app. Enjoy a customizable reading experience with synced progress, bookmarks, and highlights across devices. Organize your library with series info, search, and collections.
- Connect Kavita, Calibre, and OPDS servers
- EPUB and PDF reading with page-curl effect
- Rich typography and reading themes
- iCloud sync for progress, bookmarks, and highlights
- Offline downloads
- Highlighting and search functionality
- Series grouping and collections
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Sutra is a warm, thoughtful home for every book and comic you love. Bring together your self-hosted library, your manga, your classic EPUBs, and those “just one more chapter” reads in one beautifully calm reader. Connect Kavita, Komga, or Calibre; explore any OPDS catalogue; or discover a new favourite from Project Gutenberg and Standard Ebooks. READ YOUR WAY • Enjoy EPUB, PDF, CBZ, MOBI, fixed-layout comics, and manga in one place • Move through comics panel by panel, or take in the whole page • Read right-to-left manga and beautiful iPad two-page spreads • Make the page yours with fonts, text size, spacing, themes, auto-scroll, page turns, and Sutra-only brightness control A LIBRARY THAT FEELS LIKE HOME • Browse dedicated Series and Collection views, with Favorites always close by • Sort by Recently Read, Title, Author, or Date Added while staying in a familiar cover grid • Let Sutra recover missing Calibre series details and keep your library beautifully organised • Pick up where you left off with dependable progress and finished-book sync for Kavita and Komga BUILT FOR SELF-HOSTERS • Connect Kavita, Komga, Calibre, Grimmory, or another OPDS server • Stream comic pages from Kavita and Komga when available, or download for offline reading • Keep your highlights and reading progress with you across your Apple devices Sutra is free to enjoy for EPUB and PDF reading, with no ads and no subscription. Unlock unlimited CBZ, MOBI, and Komga reading once, and keep it forever.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Sutra at 4.3 against Thorium Reader's 3.5. Sutra also leads on review sentiment (73% vs 40%) and update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks). Thorium Reader's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 4). On price, ratings volume, ads and monetization model 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. Sutra sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Thorium Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
Sutra holds the better App Store score, 4.3 against 3.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 13 and 17 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 40% of Thorium Reader's written reviews are positive against 73% of Sutra's.
Thorium Reader ships an update every 3 weeks, Sutra weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 30, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Thorium Reader | Sutra |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (13 ratings) | 4.3 (17 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.0% of reviews | 73.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 13 | 17 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.1 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 46 MB | 42 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Readium | Koustav Dasgupta |
Customer experience
Thorium Reader
Sutra
In-app purchases
Thorium Reader
No in-app purchases
Sutra
- Small Tip$1.99
- Medium Tip$2.99
- Large Tip$4.99
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- Sutra Pro$6.99
