Dwellum vs ChapterPals
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Dwellum
Organize your reading lists, track your books, and discover new titles with a focus on beautiful cover art and a private, guilt-free experience. This app offers custom lists, author catalogs, and import/export options, all synced via iCloud.
- Customizable reading lists
- Drag and drop reordering
- Bulk book editing
- High-resolution cover art display
- Search powered by Apple Books
- Import/export library data
- iCloud sync
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A calm, private home to track your books, navigate your reading lists, and get back to what you love: reading. No streaks, no goals, no ratings, no guilt. Not a habit tracker, not a stats dashboard, not a social network. Just your books, their beautiful covers, and the order you intend to read them. Organize - Five reading lists: Reading, Reading Next, Someday, Read, and Set Aside - Drag and drop to reorder books in the exact order you intend to read them - Bulk edit to move, favorite, or remove a stack of books at once - Edit the cover and details of any book in your library - Mark books as owned to keep track of what's on your shelf Covers, front and center - Book covers are treated like the art they are - Tap the cover on its detail page to open it in full screen - Zoom in to discover details you've never noticed before - Displayed in high resolution throughout the app Find your next book - Search powered by Apple Books - Book detail pages with cover art, description, genres, and more from the author - Tap any author to view their full catalog - Follow any author to keep their catalog a couple taps away - Add books that aren't in Apple Books, with your own covers and details - A Coming Soon list that tracks upcoming releases automatically Reflect - Add notes on any book in your library - Review all the notes taken across your entire library in the Notes List - A reading timeline showing what you finished, and when - Start a re-read from any finished book, keeping your first reading intact - Favorite the books you loved, then drag and drop to rank them Browse your library - Masonry grid and list views - Filter and sort by genre, author, date, favorites, ownership, and availability - Search directly within your library and individual reading lists Bring your books with you - Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph, or CSV - Export your full library as CSV - iCloud sync across all your devices Designed for iOS - Built natively for iOS26+27 from the ground up with Liquid Glass and system styling - Feels like a cohesive, first-party Apple app - Light, Dark, and System themes Private by design, and no data collection - No accounts. No sign-up. No profile. - No analytics, no tracking, no data collection - Your library lives on your device and syncs through iCloud Atlas was built to highlight your covers, your lists, and the order you decide to read your books in. Reading doesn't need to be gamified, optimized, or made public. It just needs a quiet space to keep your books, plan what's next, and remember where you've been. Reading is one of the few things left that's slow, quiet, and entirely yours. Atlas is built to keep it that way.
ChapterPals
This app helps you track your reading progress and manage your book club. Organize your reading lists, log progress, and discover new books. It also facilitates book club discussions, voting on the next read, and tracking member progress.
- Track reading progress by page or percent
- Organize books into custom shelves
- Set and track reading goals
- Create and manage book clubs
- Vote on next book selections
- Chapter-based discussion threads
- Daily 'Guess the Book' puzzle
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Track every book you read, and keep your book club actually running. ChapterPals does both in one calm, friendly place. Most reading apps track books alone. Most club tools are a group text that slowly goes quiet. ChapterPals puts the two together, so the book you are reading and the people you are reading it with live side by side. TRACK YOUR READING Shelves for what you are reading, what you finished, and what you want to read next, plus custom shelves for anything else you want to keep. Log your progress by page or percent, rate books when you finish, and write reviews you will actually want to reread later. Set a reading goal and watch it fill in over the year. Already have a list somewhere else? Import it and pick up where you left off. Point your camera at a real bookshelf and ChapterPals will read the spines and find the titles, or scan a barcode to add a single book fast. Browse by genre, follow an author, or see a whole series in order. RUN YOUR BOOK CLUB Start a club in under a minute, or join one with an invite code from a friend. You can also browse public clubs by city, filter for in person or virtual, and search by the vibes you are after. Pick the next book together with a vote, so nobody has to be the one who decides. Set the night and the place, let everyone RSVP going, maybe or cannot make it, and add it to your calendar in a tap. See how far along everyone is, so nobody arrives half a book behind. Discussion threads stay organized by chapter, so you can talk about what you have read without spoiling what you have not. Stuck for something to say? Starter questions are ready when you need them. Every book your club has read together is kept as a history you can look back on. READ WITH FRIENDS Add pals and see what they are reading right now. Share a shelf, recommend a book straight to someone, and get a nudge when a friend finishes something you have been eyeing. AND A LITTLE FUN Guess the Book is a new puzzle every day. A blurred cover, five tries, and a fresh clue with every guess. Build a streak and compare notes with your club. Tier boards let you rank everything you have read exactly how you want, then share the result. ChapterPals is free to use, works on your phone and in your browser, and never sells your reading history. Reading is better with friends.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: ChapterPals at none against Dwellum's 3. ChapterPals also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 3 weeks) and device support (3 vs 1). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Dwellum sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. ChapterPals asks for nothing beyond the download.
ChapterPals holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 5 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Dwellum ships an update every 3 weeks, ChapterPals every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Dwellum | ChapterPals |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (6 ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6 — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.2 | 15.5 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 9 MB | 55 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 9+ |
| Developer | Austin Thompson-Truchan | Edward Buchholz |
Customer experience
Dwellum
ChapterPals
In-app purchases
Dwellum
- Sticker Tip$1.99
- Coffee Tip$4.99
- Book Tip$9.99
ChapterPals
No in-app purchases









