Comparison

Ghost Reader Live vs Folio

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

Head to head
About

Ghost Reader Live

This app transforms documents and web content into spoken audio using on-device voices. Listen privately while following along with highlighted text, with options to adjust speed, navigate, and use lock-screen controls. A free tier offers limited daily listening, with premium options for unlimited access.

Highlights
  • On-device TTS narration
  • Focus mode with highlighting and auto-scroll
  • Adjustable listening speed (0.5x to 2x)
  • Document navigation and resume playback
  • Lock-screen and headphone controls
  • Sleep timer and MP3 export
  • Privacy-focused, no account required
Features
Read full description

Turn reading into listening — privately. Ghost Reader narrates PDFs, EPUBs, web articles, Markdown, and plain-text files with natural on-device voices. Import a document or paste a link, then listen while following the text in Focus mode. YOUR DOCUMENTS STAY WITH YOU Narration is generated on your iPhone. Your documents, extracted text, and audio are not sent to our servers. No account is required. MADE FOR LISTENING • Follow along with sentence highlighting and auto-scroll • Pick a voice and adjust listening speed from 0.5× to 2× • Navigate to any part of a document and resume where you stopped • Use lock-screen and headphone play/pause controls when narration is ready • Set a sleep timer or export narration as an MP3 FREE TO START Enjoy 30 minutes of narration each day for free. Upgrade through the App Store for unlimited listening with Monthly or Lifetime Access. Requires iPhone 12 or newer. Privacy Policy: https://bighippolabs.com/page-ghostreader/privacy.html Terms of Use: https://bighippolabs.com/page-ghostreader/terms.html

About

Folio

Features
Read full description

Every PDF tool you need — and not one byte of your document ever leaves your device. Online PDF tools are convenient until you read the fine print. Your contract, your payslip, your client's financial statement — uploaded to a server you don't control, retained for purposes you didn't agree to, mined for data you didn't consent to share. Folio makes that trade-off unnecessary. Folio is a full-featured PDF toolkit that runs entirely on your iPhone and iPad. No network connection. No account. No cloud sync. No analytics. Your files go in, your files come out — nothing in between. WHAT YOU CAN DO Organise — Merge multiple PDFs into one document — Split a PDF into separate files by page range — Reorder, rotate, or delete individual pages Reduce & Prepare — Compress PDFs to shrink file size without rebuilding content — Add watermarks or page numbers — Flatten form fields and annotations into a fixed document Convert (best-effort, on-device) — PDF to images: export pages as JPG or PNG — Images to PDF: combine photos into a single document — PDF to Word, Excel, or PowerPoint — conversion is handled entirely on-device using Apple's document frameworks; complex layouts may not reproduce with pixel-perfect fidelity, but no file is ever sent to a remote service to achieve it Protect — Password-protect a PDF with your chosen password — Remove password protection from a document you own Fill & Sign — Fill text fields in PDFs — Add your signature to any document Extract & Search — OCR: turn a scanned or photographed document into searchable, selectable text using Apple's on-device Vision framework — Extract all text from a PDF for copying or reference ZERO NETWORK DESIGN Folio ships with no networking capability. It cannot phone home. It cannot upload a file even if it wanted to. Every operation — compression, conversion, OCR, signing — runs on your device's own processor using Apple's built-in frameworks. This is not a marketing claim; it is a technical constraint we built in by design. This matters most when you are handling documents that should never leave your hands: NDAs, medical records, legal filings, HR documents, financial statements, tax returns. NO ACCOUNT REQUIRED Open the app. Use every feature. Close the app. No sign-up screen. No email address. No subscription prompt. No paywall on any v1.0 feature. BUILT FOR PEOPLE WHO HANDLE SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS Folio is built for lawyers, accountants, HR professionals, and anyone else who regularly works with documents that are nobody else's business — and for anyone who is simply tired of feeding their files to free websites that profit from what they read. Your documents are yours. Folio keeps them that way.

Screenshots

Ghost Reader Live4 screens
Folio3 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Folio at none against Ghost Reader Live's 2. On price, ads, 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. Ghost Reader Live sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $0.49 per month. Folio asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Ghost Reader Live versus Folio: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGhost Reader LiveFolio
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 11 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad — better
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size340 MB1 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperJan AncajasVuyo Nkadimeng

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Ghost Reader Live

Subscriptions1
  • Ghost Reader7 Days trial$0.491 Month
One-time1
  • Lifetime Access$14.99
None

Folio

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Ghost Reader Live free?
Ghost Reader Live is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Folio free?
Folio is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Ghost Reader Live or Folio have ads?
Neither Ghost Reader Live nor Folio shows ads.

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