Comparison

Leaf & Spine vs Leaf

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

Head to head
About

Leaf & Spine

Enhance your reading experience with a distraction-free app that supports various formats like PDFs, EPUBs, audiobooks, and comics. Build daily reading habits with powerful tools, track your progress with detailed analytics, and personalize your digital library.

Highlights
  • Supports PDF, EPUB, CBR, CBZ, and Audiobooks
  • Smart EPUB annotation and note-taking
  • Text-to-Speech for audiobooks
  • Customizable themes and 3D bookshelf
  • Daily reading habit tracking and analytics
  • Immersive focus sessions with ambient environments
Read full description

Your library, your shelf, your reading habit. Leaf & Spine is a calm, distraction-free home for your EPUBs, PDFs, comics and audiobooks. Arrange them on a 3D bookshelf, read with highlights, notes and drawings, listen with the screen off, and watch a daily reading habit take shape. Read for free, or upgrade to Premium for stats, focus sessions, backups and your own servers. BRING IN YOUR BOOKS • Read EPUB, PDF, CBZ and CBR, and listen to audiobooks. Audiobooks require Premium. • Add a whole folder at once, or pick files yourself. • Discover free public-domain books and audiobooks from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks and LibriVox. • Connect your own server (Premium): Calibre, Calibre-Web, Kavita, Komga, Audiobookshelf, or a WebDAV folder such as Nextcloud or a NAS. Browse it, search it as you type, and download books to read offline. READ YOUR WAY • Highlight, take notes, draw with pen, pencil and highlighter, and look words up in the dictionary or translator. • Listen: the page is read aloud with the sentence lit up, using natural voices made on your device, and an EPUB that comes with a recording plays the narrator. • Focus mode for reading a sentence at a time, and a reading ruler. • Presets, typefaces (including Atkinson Hyperlegible and OpenDyslexic), heading styles and page-turn speed. Premium readers can import their own fonts. AUDIOBOOKS THAT KEEP PLAYING • Keep listening with your phone locked or while you use another app, with play, pause and skip on the lock screen. • Chapters, bookmarks, notes, speed and a sleep timer that works with the screen off. ORGANISE YOUR SHELF • A 3D bookshelf with categories, sub-categories, tags and series, sorted and grouped by author or series, with bookends you can fold into a box set. • Spines take their colour from each book's cover, or customise spines, patterns and covers yourself. • A page for every book: progress, the next in its series, description, chapters and your marks. • Fix a book's details, or fill them in from Open Library (Premium). • The Notebook gathers every highlight, note, drawing and looked-up word from your whole library, and one search covers it all. BUILD A HABIT • Goals in minutes a day or days a week, reminders at a time you choose, and streak freezes so one missed day doesn't erase months. • Home follows the series you are reading, and finishing a book offers the next one. • Home screen widgets with your current book and a highlight worth rereading. • Premium stats: time read and listened, pages, chapters, books finished, genres, highlights and words looked up, by week, month, year or all time. FOCUS SESSIONS (Premium) • Set a timer and read inside an immersive environment: a fireplace, a beach, a waterfall or a rainy window, each with its own ambience and music, which keep playing with the screen locked. YOUR PLACE, EVERYWHERE (Premium) • Back up automatically to iCloud or Google Drive, and keep your place across your devices. • Sync your progress with Audiobookshelf, Komga, Kavita and KOReader. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No account or sign-up needed to start reading. • Your books, highlights, notes and progress stay on your device. Backups go to your own iCloud or Google Drive, never to our servers. • Six themes, light and dark (two free), and the app in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese. PERFECT FOR • Students who highlight, draw and track study time. • Fiction readers who want EPUBs and audiobooks in one place. • Comic and manga readers with CBZ and CBR collections. • Anyone with a Calibre, Kavita, Komga or Audiobookshelf library. CONTENT NOTICE Leaf & Spine does not sell or host books. Discover lists free public-domain titles from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks and LibriVox; everything else is your own files and your own servers. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Leaf

Organize and read your DRM-free EPUB books with customizable reading settings and smart library management. Sync your progress across devices using iCloud and discover new titles through integrated sources.

Highlights
  • Customizable reading experience
  • Smart library organization
  • iCloud sync for progress and settings
  • Offline reading support
  • Import from various sources
  • Public domain classics included
Read full description

Give your books a home of their own. Leaf brings beautiful EPUB reading and thoughtful library management together on iPhone and iPad. Import the DRM-free books you already own, make yourself comfortable, and pick up where you left off. READ YOUR WAY Choose from carefully selected fonts, including accessibility-friendly options. Adjust your reading theme and font size, or use Leaf Pro to import your own fonts and fine-tune typography and book formatting. Give individual books their own settings. On iPad, choose one column, two columns, or an automatic layout that adapts to the space available. Customize the reader's header and footer to keep the book and progress details you care about in view. KEEP THE PLACES THAT MATTER Save bookmarks as you read and return to them from the book's contents. See the surrounding text to remind yourself why you saved a place. With Leaf Pro, add personal notes to your bookmarks. A LIBRARY THAT FEELS LIKE YOURS Browse by author, series, and genre; search and sort your collection; and edit titles, authors, covers, descriptions, and more. Smart Shelves gather books by reading status and download availability. Leaf Pro adds custom shelves for your own collections. Rate books, mark favorites, and write down your thoughts when you finish. Leaf remembers reading time, completion dates, and the books you have finished this year, then helps you choose what comes next. PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF Optional iCloud sync keeps your books, library details, and reading progress available across your iPhone and iPad using your own Apple Account. Keep a local library if you prefer. No Leaf account is required to import and read your books. Download books for offline reading, remove local copies when you need space, and return to your current book from the Home Screen widget. Read on an e-ink device too? With Leaf Pro, exchange reading positions for matching EPUBs with a compatible KOReader Sync server. Compare chapter titles and text previews before choosing a position. FIND YOUR NEXT BOOK Import EPUBs from Files or send them to Leaf from another app's share sheet. Browse and download public-domain books from the built-in Project Gutenberg Source, or start with the included classics from Standard Ebooks. Connect your own OPDS, Grimmory, or BookOrbit Sources and browse your libraries in Leaf. Downloading from your own Sources requires Leaf Pro. START READING FOR FREE Import and read your DRM-free EPUBs, save bookmarks, and use iCloud sync without a subscription. Leaf Pro adds bookmark note creation, custom shelves, downloads from your own Sources, KOReader progress sync, premium themes, custom font imports, and advanced reading controls. Leaf Pro is an optional annual subscription. Leaf currently supports DRM-free EPUB books. TERMS OF USE https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Leaf & Spine4 screens
Leaf4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Leaf at 100% against Leaf & Spine's 55%. Leaf also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.4). Leaf & Spine's advantage is iOS requirement (15.5 vs 26.1). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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. Leaf & Spine sells 10 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and Leaf sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Leaf holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 6 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 55% of Leaf & Spine's written reviews are positive against 100% of Leaf's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Leaf & Spine ships an update fortnightly, Leaf every 10 days. Both last shipped on November 15, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Leaf & Spine versus Leaf: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLeaf & SpineLeaf
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (8 ratings)5.0 (6 ratings) — better
Positive reviews54.5% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings8 — better6
Update frequencyFortnightlyEvery 10 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.5 — better26.1
Further details — not scored
Size121 MB56 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperAqeeb RizwanDeadpan, LLC

Customer experience

Leaf & Spine

All ratings8 ratings
Positive75.0%
Neutral12.5%
Negative12.5%
Written reviews11 reviews
Positive54.5%
Neutral18.2%
Negative27.3%

Leaf

All ratings6 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

10 purchases

Leaf & Spine

Subscriptions2
  • Premium Monthly7 Days trial$0.991 Month
  • Premium Yearly7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time8
  • Teal Stripes$0.79
  • Teal Hearts$0.99
  • Teal Duotone$0.99
Show 5 more
  • Teal Diamonds$1.49
  • Teal Stars$1.49
  • Teal Leaves$1.49
  • Teal Spiral$1.99
  • Premium Unlock$14.99
1 purchases

Leaf

Subscriptions1
  • Leaf Pro Annual7 Days trial$4.991 Year

Questions

Is Leaf & Spine free?
Leaf & Spine is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Leaf free?
Leaf is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Leaf & Spine or Leaf?
Leaf is rated higher. Leaf & Spine averages 4.4 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while Leaf averages 5.0 from 6 ratings.
Do Leaf & Spine or Leaf have ads?
Neither Leaf & Spine nor Leaf shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Leaf & Spine or Leaf?
Leaf & Spine ships an update fortnightly, and Leaf every 10 days. Most recently, Leaf & Spine was updated on November 15, 2026 and Leaf on November 15, 2026.

Other comparisons