Comparison

Leaf & Spine vs FreeReader | Text to Speech

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

FreeReader | Text to Speech

Convert various document and web link formats into audiobooks using natural-sounding voices. This free application supports over 30 languages and offers unlimited use without signup. It's designed to assist users with reading difficulties like dyslexia or ADHD.

Highlights
  • Convert EPUB, PDF, DOCX, TXT, and more to audio
  • Read web links aloud
  • 30+ natural-sounding languages
  • Unlimited free use
  • No signup required
  • Access Gutenberg Project books
Features
Read full description

Turn your EPUBs, PDFs, DOCX, and TXT files into audiobooks for free. You can upload files or any web link and VoiceReader text-to-speech will turn it into an audiobook. This app is completely free and you can use it to read anything out loud. There are no limits or signup required. 30+ languages are supported with natural, human-sounding voices. Supported file types: - EPUB (.epub) - PDF (.pdf) - Plain Text (.txt) - Word (.docx) - Rich Text (.rtf, .rtfd) - HTML (.html, .htm) - Markdown (.md, .markdown) - OpenDocument Text (.odt) You can even browse free books from Gutenberg Project and indie authors to start listening to books right away. We believe that free text-to-speech should be available for everyone. This app is sponsored by FreeReader, a project dedicated to providing free TTS to everyone, especially those who have dyslexia or ADHD. Our TTS helps people focus and read more easily by reading words out loud to them while they read. Enjoy TTS in English, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Portuguese, Indonesian, Russian, German, Japanese, Vietnamese, Turkish, Korean, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, Dutch, Romanian, Greek, Czech, Hungarian, Swedish, Bulgarian, Danish, Finnish, Slovak, Croatian, Lithuanian, Slovenian, Latvian, Estonian Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ FreeReader Gold offers a 7-day free trial for eligible new subscribers. After the trial ends, your subscription will automatically renew unless canceled. Payment will be charged to your Apple Account when the free trial ends. Subscriptions automatically renew unless canceled. To avoid being charged, cancel at least 24 hours before your free trial ends.

Screenshots

Leaf & Spine4 screens
FreeReader | Text to Speech4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: FreeReader | Text to Speech at 5.0 against Leaf & Spine's 4.4. FreeReader | Text to Speech also leads on monetization model (free vs freemium) and update cadence (every 5 days vs every 2 weeks). Leaf & Spine's advantage is ratings volume (8 vs 2) and iOS requirement (15.5 vs 18.0). On price, ads, in-app purchases 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

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 FreeReader | Text to Speech sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

FreeReader | Text to Speech holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 8 and 2 respectively.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Leaf & Spine ships an update every 2 weeks, FreeReader | Text to Speech every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 31, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Leaf & Spine versus FreeReader | Text to Speech: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLeaf & SpineFreeReader | Text to Speech
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.4 (8 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews54.5% of reviews—
Number of ratings8 — better2
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.5 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size119 MB29 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperAqeeb RizwanPrism App Labs

Customer experience

Leaf & Spine

All ratings7 ratings
Positive71.4%
Neutral14.3%
Negative14.3%
Written reviews11 reviews
Positive54.5%
Neutral18.2%
Negative27.3%

FreeReader | Text to Speech

All ratings2 ratings
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
2 purchases

FreeReader | Text to Speech

Subscriptions2
  • FreeReader Gold$4.991 Month
  • FreeReader Gold Yearly7 Days trial$39.991 Year

Questions

Is Leaf & Spine free?
Leaf & Spine is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is FreeReader | Text to Speech free?
FreeReader | Text to Speech is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Leaf & Spine or FreeReader | Text to Speech?
FreeReader | Text to Speech is rated higher. Leaf & Spine averages 4.4 out of 5 from 8 ratings, while FreeReader | Text to Speech averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Leaf & Spine or FreeReader | Text to Speech have ads?
Neither Leaf & Spine nor FreeReader | Text to Speech shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Leaf & Spine or FreeReader | Text to Speech?
Leaf & Spine ships an update every 2 weeks, and FreeReader | Text to Speech every 5 days. Most recently, Leaf & Spine was updated on October 31, 2026 and FreeReader | Text to Speech on October 31, 2026.

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