BookOwl vs PagePact
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BookOwl
Organize your reading life with this free companion app. Build your personal library, track your progress, and customize your profile. Import data from other services and scan books instantly. Enjoy personalized recommendations and share your reading insights.
- Barcode scanner for instant book addition
- Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph, Audible, Libby
- Customizable profile with aurora colors
- Half and quarter-star rating system
- Custom shelves and curated book lists
- Reading progress tracking
- Yearly reading goals and streaks
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Your reading life, delightfully organized. BookOwl is a free reading companion for people who love books. Build your personal library, track what you're reading, and make the app feel like yours, all without ads, clutter, or data harvesting. Available on iOS and at bookowlapp.com. NEW: THE SIT TAB The Sit tab gives reading sessions a home. Start a sit, set a timer, and read. BookOwl keeps you company. Capture a mood, a scene, or a pinned moment mid-read without losing your place (speak it instead of typing, if you like). When you close the book, a wrap-up card logs how far you got and how the sit felt. A COMPLETELY REDESIGNED LIBRARY: Your library now opens like a magazine. A masthead greets you with the books you're reading now, The Lead carousel keeps your current reads one swipe away, and your shelves sit beneath. Pinch to zoom from big covers down to a compact index. The new Contents view puts shelves, filters, and sorting in one place, with breadcrumb chips showing what's active. YOUR THOUGHTS, ORGANIZED BY BOOK: Everything you capture lands where you'll find it again: pinned passages on the book's page, your moods across the book's arc, even why you set a book down. Make the capture chips your own with custom moods and scenes. Your written thoughts stay private, always. TRACK PROGRESS WITHOUT THE FUSS: Update your page, your status, and your reading dates in one place with the new progress editor. Edit or delete any past read. Your history stays accurate and syncs everywhere. MAKE IT YOURS WITH 12 THEMES: Every theme hand-tuned, from the warm sepia of Quiet Warmth to the banker's-lamp green of Reading Room, all meeting accessibility contrast standards. YOUR PROFILE, YOUR WAY: Five tabbed sections: Overview, Collections, Reviews, Stats, and Personal. Choose which reading stats sit front and center. Pick your aurora colors. Arrange your sections. PRIVACY THAT MAKES SENSE: One toggle. Three options: Public, Friends Only, or Private. Visitors see a friendly banner explaining what's shared. IMPORT FROM ANYWHERE: Switching from another app? Import your full reading history from Goodreads, StoryGraph, Audible (via OCR), or Libby. Your ratings, shelves, and reading dates all come with you. Export to CSV or JSON anytime. Your data belongs to you. SCAN BOOKS IN SECONDS: Point your camera at any barcode. BookOwl identifies it instantly and adds it to your library. Stack of books at a used bookstore? Scan them all in one session. ORGANIZE YOUR WAY: Custom shelves and curated lists for any purpose: "Beach Reads," "Book Club," "Lent to Friends." FIND YOUR NEXT READ: Personalized recommendations, author pages, series with reading order, and a catalog of millions of books. USE IT ANYWHERE: Web app at bookowlapp.com with the same profile and achievements. Your data syncs across devices. BUILT FOR READERS, NOT ADVERTISERS: No ads. No engagement tricks. No data selling. Just a calm, thoughtful space for your reading life, built by a reader, for readers. • Sit tab: timed reading sessions with a wrap-up card • Capture moods, scenes, and pinned moments mid-read • Voice capture: speak your thoughts without stopping • Redesigned Library: The Lead carousel and pinch-to-zoom shelves • Barcode scanner: add books in seconds • Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph, Audible, or Libby • Export your library to CSV or JSON • Progress editor: pages, status, and dates in one place • Edit or delete past reads anytime • 12 hand-tuned themes and alternate app icons • Customizable profile with aurora colors and hero stats • Half-star and quarter-star ratings • Custom shelves, collections, and curated book lists • Yearly reading goals and streaks • Year in Review: shareable reading personality cards • Series tracking with reading order • Privacy controls: Public, Friends Only, or Private • Social features: follow friends, reviews, profiles Whether you read 5 books a year or 50, BookOwl helps you remember every one. Whooo's ready to get started?
PagePact
This app helps serious readers track their reading habits, log sessions, and review books. It offers unique ranking features and allows for social interaction or solo reading, fitting your personal reading style.
- Import Goodreads library
- Log reading sessions
- Head-to-head book ranking
- Write in-moment footnotes
- Build reading streaks
- Follow readers and share quotes
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PagePact is the reading tracker for people who take their books seriously, whether that means reading in quiet solitude or trading notes with a community of people who actually finish their books. If you've outgrown Goodreads or Storygraph, the move takes seconds. Import your entire library with one CSV upload and pick up exactly where you left off. Years of reading history, instantly yours. Track your reading life, your way. Log sessions as you go, write reviews or quick footnotes while the story is still fresh. Your library becomes a living record, not just a list of titles collecting dust. Ranking that actually works. Head-to-head matchups make it effortless to place every book against everything else you've read. No more staring at a star rating wondering if this one was a 3 or a 4. Your shelf sorts itself. A habit that works on your terms. Reading streaks and your PagePact—your personal reading commitment—are there when you want them. Ignore them when you don't. The app doesn't guilt-trip you for living your life. Solo or social. PagePact fits the reader you actually are. The Pact is home to readers who annotate, review, quote, and champion the books they love. Dip in when you want the social side: follow readers you trust, share footnotes, see what people are actually reading. Close the app and it's just you and your book. Both feel complete. Your shelf, your rules. Finally, a shelf that treats DNF as a real decision, reading sessions as real data, custom tags as real organization, and every edit to your log as your own business, not workarounds for a system that wasn't built for you. → Import your Goodreads library in one step → Log sessions and track your reading pace → Rank books head-to-head and review every finish → Write footnotes in the moment → Build streaks and set your PagePact → Follow readers, share quotes, and join The Pact when you're ready
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: PagePact at every 3 days against BookOwl's every 11 days. PagePact also leads on iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.9 for BookOwl against 5.0 for PagePact. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 41 and 38 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 92% of BookOwl's written reviews are positive against 100% of PagePact's.
BookOwl ships an update every 11 days, PagePact every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on September 3, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BookOwl | PagePact |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (41 ratings) | 5.0 (38 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 92.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 41 — better | 38 |
| Update frequency | Every 11 days | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 15.1 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 50 MB | 43 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Phil Getzen | Hyunjin Kang |
Customer experience
BookOwl
PagePact
In-app purchases
BookOwl
No in-app purchases
PagePact
No in-app purchases








