bibisco vs Simple Pdf Utils
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
bibisco
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bibisco is a writing software designed to help aspiring novelists turn ideas into complete, well-structured stories. Writing a novel is a complex process. Ideas grow, characters evolve, and plots change direction. Without guidance, it is easy to lose clarity, coherence, or motivation. bibisco was created to support writers throughout this journey, providing structure while preserving creative freedom. bibisco works as a personal narrative lab: a focused environment where you can develop your story step by step, from the initial idea to the final manuscript. bibisco is free to use on your device. You can create projects, write, and save your work locally without creating an account or making any purchase. If you want to sync your projects across multiple devices, you can optionally subscribe to bibisco Everywhere. With bibisco, you can organize notes, scenes, chapters, and ideas in one place, maintaining a clear overview of your novel at all times. You can develop believable characters using dedicated tools and guided character interviews that help create consistent protagonists and supporting characters with clear motivations and conflicts. You can structure your story by planning chapters, scenes, timelines, storylines, and settings, helping you maintain narrative coherence and avoid plot inconsistencies. You can also track your personal writing progress and goals within your projects, supporting steady progress even during difficult moments. These tools work together to support the entire novel-writing process, from early planning to final revision. bibisco is designed specifically for writing novels. It does not aim to be a generic text editor or a tool for every kind of writing. Its focus is on fiction, long-form storytelling, and narrative structure. The interface is clean and intuitive, designed to be easy to use from the start while still offering depth as your project grows. You do not need to study manuals to begin writing. bibisco is built to support your workflow naturally. bibisco does not write for you. It does not replace your voice or make decisions on your behalf. It supports you quietly and consistently, helping you stay focused on the story you want to tell. Whether you are working on your first novel or organizing a complex narrative, bibisco helps you write with clarity, confidence, and purpose. bibisco Everywhere is available as an optional auto-renewable subscription. It enables cloud sync across your devices. The subscription costs $4.99/month, billed monthly. A 14-day free trial is included. Payment is charged to your Apple ID account at the end of the trial period unless canceled. The subscription automatically renews unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscription in your Apple ID account settings. Terms of Service: https://bibisco.com/terms-of-service-bibisco-everywhere/ Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://bibisco.com/privacy-policy-bibisco/
Simple Pdf Utils
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Your documents never leave your iPhone or iPad. Simple Pdf Utils merges, edits, and compresses PDFs, photos, and Word files entirely on your device ā no uploads, no account, no ads, and literally no networking code. It even works fully in Airplane Mode. It's free, with no subscriptions and no "premium" tier. WHAT IT DOES ⢠Combine PDFs, photos, and Word documents (.docx) into one file ⢠Reorder pages by dragging, or swipe a row left/right to mark it for removal ⢠Add text to any page ā pick font, size, and color; drag to reposition ⢠Rotate any page 90° clockwise with one tap ⢠Preview any page full-screen with pinch to zoom ā swipe up or down to move between pages, and rotate right from the preview ⢠See each page's byte cost to find what's bloating your file ⢠Compress oversized pages instantly ā choose page-by-page ⢠Combine multiple photos onto a single page in a grid layout ⢠Save through the share sheet to wherever you want ā Files, Mail, iCloud Drive, Messages, or anywhere else PRIVATE BY DESIGN Built for the documents you'd never want sitting on someone else's server ā contracts, receipts, medical records, scans, and IDs. Most PDF tools online, and many on the App Store, upload your file to a server to do their work. Simple Pdf Utils never does: ⢠No accounts, no sign-up, nothing to log in to ⢠Does not collect, transmit, store, or share any data ⢠Contains no networking code at all ⢠A strict Content Security Policy blocks every outgoing connection from inside the app ⢠Asks for no special permissions ā the system file picker and share sheet handle everything You can verify all of this with Airplane Mode. The app works identically. GOOD FOR ⢠Combining receipts before submitting an expense report ⢠Tidying up scans of paperwork ⢠Stripping irrelevant pages from contracts before sharing ⢠Merging photos from your camera roll into a single PDF ⢠Adding a handwritten note or signature line to a document ⢠Shrinking image-heavy PDFs that are too big to email ⢠Converting a Word draft to PDF when you only have the file HOW IT WORKS ⢠The app uses the system document picker for input. ⢠Images you pick (including HEIC from your iPhone or iPad Photos) are converted to JPEG and wrapped as PDF pages, all on-device. ⢠Word documents are converted to HTML locally (via the open-source mammoth library) and rendered to PDF using the device's built-in print engine ā no third-party cloud involved. ⢠When you add multiple photos at once, you can choose to lay them out as a grid on a single page rather than one page per photo. ⢠Text annotations are baked into the page at export time using pdf-lib, a fully on-device PDF library. ⢠When you save, the result goes to the standard share sheet. You decide where it ends up. ⢠Per-page compression rasterizes the chosen page to a JPEG sized to fit the budget ā useful for image-heavy scans (compressed pages become image-only, so text is no longer selectable). NOTE ON WORD DOCUMENTS .docx conversion works best for straightforward documents (body text, simple tables, headings). Complex formatting ā multi-column layouts, text boxes, charts, headers/footers ā may look different or be omitted. The app shows a warning when a Word file is loaded. NO CATCHES Free. No upsells. No ads. No subscriptions. No "premium" tier. The app is what's on this page. Have a question or a bug to report? See the support page linked below.
Screenshots
Verdict
bibisco and Simple Pdf Utils are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters ā price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them ā neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
bibisco ships an update every 5 weeks, Simple Pdf Utils every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 1, 2026 and September 26, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | bibisco | Simple Pdf Utils |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 5 weeks | Every 3 weeks ā better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 14.0 ā better | 15.1 |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 49 MB | 45 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Andrea Feccomandi | Guy Hefetz |
In-app purchases
bibisco
No in-app purchases
Simple Pdf Utils
No in-app purchases









