Comparison

ShelfBuddy vs Litmark

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

Head to head
About

ShelfBuddy

Manage your physical book collection digitally with virtual shelves, wishlists, and reading timelines. Track borrowed books with return reminders and view reading statistics. Easily add books by scanning, searching, or manual entry.

Highlights
  • Virtual shelves and wishlists
  • ISBN barcode scanning
  • Reading progress tracking
  • Borrowed book management
  • Customizable notes and genres
  • Multilingual interface
Features
Read full description

ShelfBuddy is your digital bookshelf: beautiful, calm and built entirely around reading. Keep track of every book and audiobook you own, are reading, have lent out or still want. Your whole library, neatly organized, and your data always stays in your hands. YOUR LIBRARY, ORGANIZED Create as many shelves as you like, for example Fantasy, Thrillers or Classics, keep wishlists, and plan what to read next with a reading list. A book may sit on several shelves, and copies marked "collected only" count neither as read nor as unread. Manage genres and tags across all your books at once, and "Edit fields" sets author, genres and tags for several books in one step. Filter your TBR pile by shelf, format, genre, tag or language. BOOKS AND AUDIOBOOKS The overview keeps books and audiobooks apart: audiobooks get their own series, wishlists, loans and statistics. Count them as read if you like, and keep manga and comics separate. BOOK SERIES AT A GLANCE See for every series which volumes you own and which are still missing, and add them to your wishlist or a shelf with one tap. Discover suggests book series and audiobook series picked by your taste, search puts the series you look for first, and you get notified when a new volume is released. RATINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Rate your books in quarter stars and see ratings from Thalia and other ShelfBuddy readers alongside. "Popular on ShelfBuddy" shows what the community is reading a lot right now, next to recommendations picked by your taste and "Next in your series". TRACK YOUR READING Reading tracker and reading journal in one: status, start and finish dates, reading progress, notes and quotes, also for books you have read more than once. "Read as" remembers when you read a book as an eBook or a borrowed copy while the print edition stays on your shelf. READING SESSIONS WITH A READING TIMER Start a reading session and the timer runs along. When you're done, enter your page and ShelfBuddy updates your progress and reading pace. Log past reading time after the fact, and start your next session from the home screen, the app icon or a widget, with a Live Activity on the Lock Screen. INSIGHTS: GET TO KNOW YOUR READING HABITS A reading calendar shows which days you read and how much. See the time of day and the weekdays you read most, which genres get most of your reading time, your records, your spending per week, month and year, and a short written summary of your reading year. Insights are part of ShelfBuddy Premium. YOUR READING RECAP Share your reading year or month as an image: six templates, headline styles, reading time or pages, your covers and highlights. ADD BOOKS IN SECONDS Scan the ISBN barcode, search millions of books or add books by hand. Import your library from Goodreads, StoryGraph, Reado and other apps, genres and covers included. "Missing details" fills in page counts and publishers, and you can export your whole library as a .csv spreadsheet. AUTHORS AND LENDING Follow your favorite authors in several languages and get notified about new titles. Lending remembers who has which book, with a reminder to get it back, and borrowed books remember when you got them. YOUR DATA, YOUR CHOICE Keep everything 100% local on your device, or sync via iCloud or Google Drive. Export a complete backup at any time. With ShelfBuddy Premium you can also open your library in the browser on your computer at app.shelfbuddy.de, linked with a QR code, no account needed and encrypted on your device. ON IPHONE, IPAD AND IPHONE DUO On iPad you work with a sidebar and the book page side by side. Optimized for iPhone Duo: unfolded, ShelfBuddy uses the large screen like a tablet. ALL YOURS Dark mode, selectable accent colors and available in four languages.

About

Litmark

Features
Read full description

A book tracker for your whole reading journey, kept like a library card. Litmark helps you track what you're reading, remember the lines that stuck with you, and build a habit you can see — no account, no sync required. Your library lives on your phone. BRING YOUR SHELF WITH YOU Already track your books somewhere else? Export your library from Goodreads or The StoryGraph, and Litmark reads that file straight in — so the books you've already read come with you instead of starting from an empty shelf. SCAN THE BARCODE, SKIP THE TYPING Hold your camera over the barcode on the back of a book and its details fill themselves in. Or type everything in yourself, if the barcode won't cooperate. TRACK YOUR SHELF Move books through Want to Read, Reading, and Read. Log reading sessions and pages as you go, and watch your progress build automatically. See your library as a list, a grid, or standing on real wooden shelves, and filter or search it by genre and status when it grows. SEE WHERE THE TIME WENT Every book keeps its own stats — pages read, time spent, when you added it — and a full reading history of every session behind it. CAPTURE QUOTES BY SCANNING THE PAGE Point your camera at a page and Litmark reads the text for you — no manual typing. Save the lines worth remembering, then turn any quote into a shareable card, with your own background color or photo. BUILD A READING STREAK A visible, day-by-day streak turns reading into a habit instead of a resolution you forget by February. Weekly, monthly, and yearly summary cards show how far you've actually come. A LAMP FOR PAPER BOOKS Turn the screen itself into a warm, dimmable reading light — candle-warm through to daylight-white — for finishing a chapter in bed without waking anyone. DECORATE YOUR SHELF Set plants, creatures, framed art, lamps, and small ornaments along the shelf, and arrange them wherever you like — a library corner that looks like yours rather than a database. EARN STAMPS AS YOU READ Reading milestones unlock collectible stamps — Glancer, Skimmer, Explorer, Devourer, Bookworm — like stamps in a passport for your library card. YOUR OWN MEMBER CARD A personal card design that reflects your reading identity, shareable like a stat card for your shelf. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No account, no cloud sync, no ads. Your books and quotes stay on your device, and you can back up your whole shelf and restore it whenever you need. LITMARK PRO Unlock every appearance and sound, your full streak history, 10 additional premium stamps, and the full set of shelf decorations — as a monthly subscription, a yearly subscription, or a one-time purchase. Everything else works without it. Whether you're rebuilding a reading habit, collecting quotes from your favorite books, or just want a library card for your own shelf — Litmark keeps it. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://litmark.hidayata.dev/privacy

Screenshots

ShelfBuddy4 screens
Litmark4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Litmark at none against ShelfBuddy's shown. ShelfBuddy's advantage is update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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. ShelfBuddy sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Litmark sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

ShelfBuddy ships an update every 2 days, Litmark weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 28, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
ShelfBuddy versus Litmark: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterShelfBuddyLitmark
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (6 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings6 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 2 days — betterWeekly
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size57 MB104 MB
Age rating4++4
DeveloperJAN-HENNING BUNSArif Hidayat

In-app purchases

1 purchases

ShelfBuddy

One-time1
  • ShelfBuddy Freischaltung$19.99
4 purchases

Litmark

Subscriptions2
  • Litmark Pro Monthly$2.991 Month
  • Litmark Pro Yearly$6.991 Year
One-time2
  • Litmark Pro (Early Bird)$4.99
  • Litmark Pro$19.99

Questions

Is ShelfBuddy free?
ShelfBuddy is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Litmark free?
Litmark is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do ShelfBuddy or Litmark have ads?
ShelfBuddy shows ads; Litmark does not.
Which is updated more often, ShelfBuddy or Litmark?
ShelfBuddy ships an update every 2 days, and Litmark weekly. Most recently, ShelfBuddy was updated on October 28, 2026 and Litmark on October 25, 2026.

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