BookShelves eBook Reader vs Kitava
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
BookShelves eBook Reader
This app allows you to read EPUB, PDF, and comic books with access to over 1.5 million free public domain books. Organize your library, customize your reading experience with multiple themes and fonts, and sync your progress across devices.
- 1.5 million+ free books
- EPUB, PDF, and comic reader
- Customizable themes and fonts
- iCloud sync across devices
- Smart library management
- Highlighting and note-taking
- Export highlights
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BookShelves is an EPUB, PDF, and comic book reader with a built-in catalog of 1.5 million free books. Discover public domain classics, organize your digital library, and sync seamlessly across iPhone, iPad, and Mac with iCloud (Pro). WHAT READERS SAY "Phenomenal book reading and management app, 'just works'." "My everlasting search for the perfect ePub reader might be coming to an end." "Among the best and actively developed." DISCOVER 1.5 MILLION+ FREE BOOKS • 1.5 million+ classic works — Pride and Prejudice, Moby Dick, more • 1,100+ premium editions from Standard Ebooks • Internet Archive — millions of historical texts and rare books • 1,200+ Spanish classics from the Biblioteca Nacional de España • 16,000+ Japanese classics from Aozora Bunko • Browse OPDS catalogs from external libraries and servers One tap to download. No account required. POWERFUL READING EXPERIENCE • Paginated or continuous scroll — read your way • 10 themes including Sepia, Dark Academia, Night Sky, and more • 10 bundled fonts including OpenDyslexic for accessible reading • Adjustable line spacing, margins, text justification, and font weight • Highlight in 5 colors and add notes to any passage • Export highlights to Markdown, JSON, or CSV • Dictionary look-up with language detection • Full-text search across chapters • Nested table of contents navigation • Bookmarks (iCloud sync with Pro) • Vertical text (tategaki) for Japanese and CJK books • Right-to-left reading for Arabic, Hebrew, and CJK texts • Full keyboard and trackpad support • Multi-window reading on Mac COMIC BOOKS AND MANGA • CBZ, CBR, and CB7 format support • Two-page spreads for landscape reading • Right-to-left mode for manga with reversed tap zones and swipes • Auto-detected from metadata or toggled manually SEAMLESS ICLOUD SYNC (Pro) • Books and cover images • Reading progress and current page • Shelves, tags, and ratings • Highlights, notes, and bookmarks • Reader preferences (font, theme, layout) Start reading on your iPhone, continue on your iPad, finish on your Mac. SMART LIBRARY MANAGEMENT • Edit metadata -- title, author, series, publisher, ISBN, and cover image • Automatic metadata and cover art fetching • System shelves: All Books, Recently Added, Reading, Finished, Favorites • Custom shelves for any collection • Color-coded tags for categorization • Search and filter by title, author, or tag • Grid and list views • 5-star ratings • Drag-and-drop import, Files app sharing, or OPDS catalogs • EPUB repair — auto-fixes broken navigation and missing metadata • Import from Calibre libraries with best-format selection FORMAT SUPPORT • EPUB — professional rendering with beautiful typography • PDF — native viewer with smooth scrolling and search • CBZ / CBR / CB7 — comic book archives • FB2 — FictionBook 2 format (auto-converts to EPUB) • MOBI / AZW3 / KF8 / KEPUB — auto-converts to EPUB for reading • TXT / Markdown — plain text and Markdown files (auto-converts to EPUB) MAC EXTRAS • Calibre wireless sync — connect KOReader or other devices over Wi-Fi • OPDS server — share your library on your local network PRIVACY FIRST • Your data stays on your devices • No personal data collected • No ads — clean, distraction-free reading • iCloud keeps your library private and secure FREE AND PRO Free: 10 books with all reading features. Pro unlocks unlimited books, iCloud sync, email to Kindle/reMarkable, highlight export, and OPDS server. Pro is available as a one-time purchase or subscription (monthly/annual, select regions). Subscriptions auto-renew unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage subscriptions in Apple ID account settings. Privacy Policy: https://getbookshelves.app/privacy/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Terms of Service: https://getbookshelves.app/terms/ All books from discovery sources are public domain or openly licensed.
Kitava
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Kitava is a reading tracker that behaves like a well-made notebook: paper, ink, and quiet. It keeps the books you are reading, the ones you mean to read and the ones you finished — and it never asks you to perform any of it for an audience. YOUR LIBRARY IS YOURS There are no profiles, no followers, no feed, no comments and no likes. Nobody else can see what you read. This is not a setting you switch on; there is nothing in the app that could show your library to another person. A SHELF, NOT A LIST Your books stand on shelves with their covers out, and a sliver of binding whose thickness comes from the page count. A book with no cover is not a grey box: it gets its binding cloth and its title in foil. If you would rather have a list, it is in Settings. TWO TAPS A DAY Tap your book and it comes off the shelf, page field and all. Logging tonight's reading is a tap and a number. SEARCH, SCAN OR ADD IT YOURSELF Search millions of books through Open Library, or scan the barcode on the back cover. When a book is not there — and for some languages it often is not — add it by hand in a few seconds; only the title is required. Every filled-in field can be corrected, page count included. BRING YOUR LIBRARY WITH YOU Import your Goodreads or StoryGraph export, or any CSV file with a title column. Kitava shows you what it found before it writes anything, and your library leaves just as easily, as a CSV file of its own. READ YOUR OWN BOOKS Add a PDF or EPUB from your phone and read it inside the app. Its title, author and cover are read from the file, and your page moves on its own as you read — for these books there is nothing to log at all. Kitava also counts the time you spend reading, with no timer to start. Pick one of six paper colours, from white to black; in an EPUB, also the typeface, the size and the line height. Your files stay on your phone and are never uploaded. KEEP WHAT YOU LIKED Bookmark a page, or underline a sentence in an EPUB; either can carry a note. Reading on paper? Type in a quote with its page. All of it is kept with your library, and backed up with it when you sign in. READ YOUR WAY Tag your books, set one aside when it is not working, read a favourite again and keep both finishes, or follow an audiobook in minutes instead of pages. NO ACCOUNT NEEDED Kitava opens straight to your shelf and works without a connection. Sign in only if you want your books backed up and brought back on a new phone — free, with no paid tier. YOUR READING YEAR Books and pages by month, how long a book takes you, the stars you gave, the publishers you read most, this year against the last, and a yearly goal if you want one. At the end of the year there is a card you can share if you feel like it. A QUIET REMINDER, IF YOU WANT ONE One notification at a time you choose, off by default: the book and the page you stopped at. No streaks, no "you missed a day", and nothing at all on a day you already read. WHAT IS NOT IN HERE No advertising. No tracking. No crash reporting, and no analytics. No subscription and no paywall. The camera opens only to read a barcode; the barcode is decoded on your device by the system, and the picture never leaves your phone. The app never asks for your location, contacts or calendar. Turkish and English throughout, with a light and a dark theme.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Kitava at none against BookShelves eBook Reader's 4. On price, update cadence, ads and device support 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. BookShelves eBook Reader sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Kitava asks for nothing beyond the download.
BookShelves eBook Reader ships an update every 8 days, Kitava every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | BookShelves eBook Reader | Kitava |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.8 (20 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 61.8% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 20 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.4 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 63 MB | 51 MB |
| Age rating | +4 | 4+ |
| Developer | CPE Verm. GmbH | MUHAMMED TAHA AKTAS |
In-app purchases
BookShelves eBook Reader
- Small Tip$2.99
- Medium Tip$3.99
- Large Tip$8.99
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- Unlock Pro$9.99
Kitava
No in-app purchases








