Excerpta vs Marka
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Excerpta
Track your reading progress, journal your thoughts, and capture favorite quotes with this comprehensive book companion. It supports various reading formats and offers insightful statistics about your reading habits.
- Capture quotes via camera, photos, or typing
- Track reading progress and daily habits
- Organize books on custom shelves
- Read EPUBs and comics within the app
- Sync library and progress across devices
- Import data from other reading platforms
- Analyze reading statistics and trends
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Excerpta is a book tracker that doubles as a reading journal. Every book gets its own timeline: the lines that stopped you, the notes you wrote, the pages you read each day, and how it all felt. Point your camera at a page to keep a quote. It keeps the rest too: your shelves, where you left off, and how your year in reading is going. KEEP THE WORDS – Capture quotes with the camera, from photos (a few pages at once), or by typing. The text is read on your phone. – Tap a paragraph to keep it whole, or drag the highlighter across just the words you want. – Pick one of six highlight colors, add a note, and mark the page or chapter. – Tag the character who said it and add how it made you feel. Your moods can go to Apple Health too. – Quotes that don't belong to any book land in your Commonplace book. READ YOUR EPUBS AND COMICS Add an EPUB or a comic (CBZ, CBR) to any book and read it here, with search, six themes, and your own font. Manga reads right to left. Keep a passage or a panel as a quote, and the reader logs your reading for you. HOWEVER YOU READ Print, e-book, or audiobook. Owned, borrowed, or gifted. They all share the same shelves. – Add books by searching, scanning the barcode, or typing them in yourself. – Browse by book, author, character, or series. Series fill themselves in, or build your own. – Make as many shelves as you like. A book can sit on several. – Rate in half or quarter stars, write a review, and start a reread with a fresh timeline. – Add a new release as Upcoming and get a note the day it's out. KNOW WHERE YOU LEFT OFF – Start the reading timer and pause it from the Lock Screen, or set your page, your percent, or the time left in an audiobook. – Give a book a finish date, or your whole year a goal. – The Calendar shows each day you read as a cover, ringed by your mood, with your streak up top. SEE HOW THE YEAR IS GOING Stats shows what your reading looked like: Books Read, Pages Read, Genres, Mood, Top Authors, and more. Reading Nooks gathers the photos you took and maps the places you read. Pick the cards, then look at a month, a year, or all time. FIND THE NEXT ONE Discovery brings in the Apple Books charts, by genre. Connect Hardcover for what's trending, the most anticipated books, and your own Vibes, plus each book's moods and similar books. BRING YOUR BOOKS ALONG – Import from Goodreads, StoryGraph, Kindle highlights, Kobo, Apple Books, or a spreadsheet. – Sync between your devices with iCloud. – Sync your library and shelves both ways with Hardcover, and your progress with KOReader. – Export any time, as one Markdown file per book, ready for Obsidian, Bear, or Notes. Export is always free. AROUND YOUR PHONE – Widgets for a quote, your current book, and your reading calendar, on the Home Screen and Lock Screen. – Screen Saver plays your quotes on a slow loop while your phone charges. – Capture a quote from Shortcuts or the Action button. – Share a quote as an image card, or send a friend a link to a book. – Ten reading fonts and an app icon in your highlight color. YOURS TO KEEP Your library lives on your phone and in your own iCloud. Pick a plan and add your first book. That's the whole sign-up. Your next favorite quote is waiting to be remembered. EXCERPTA UNBOUND Excerpta Unbound opens up everything above. Try it free for 7 days with the yearly plan, go monthly, or pay once and keep it for good. Family Sharing included. If your plan ends, your library stays readable and export stays free. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase. Subscriptions renew automatically unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Any unused part of a free trial ends when you buy a subscription. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://excerpta.ink/privacy
Marka
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Marka is a reading tracker for people who want to know what they read, how fast they read it, and which lines stayed with them. Now with a cozy pixel farm that grows while you read. No account, no ads, no subscription. Paperbacks, hardcovers, eBooks and audiobooks all work: track by page, by percentage, or by listening time. GROW A READING FARM • Every 5 minutes on the reading timer puts a drop of water in your well. Water your plots and watch tomatoes and carrots grow. • Read more and the farm opens up, clear the wild, till new plots, and welcome hens, ducks, a goat and a cow, an orchard, a barn and a greenhouse. • Free up to nine plots, with the hens and carrot seeds. The one-time unlock opens every reward after that, and Away Mode. BUILD YOUR LIBRARY IN MINUTES • Scan a whole stack of books, one barcode after another. Books already in your library are flagged, and "Add all" files the rest in one tap. • Search by title, author or ISBN. Cover, description, publisher, page count and genre are filled in for you. • Import a Goodreads or StoryGraph export with your shelves, ratings, and start and finish dates. TIME YOUR READING • A one-tap timer that keeps counting while you leave the app, with pause and resume. • Live Activity and Dynamic Island controls: check the time or finish a session without unlocking your phone. • Forgot to start it? Log a past session by date and time. • Marka works out your pages per hour, and how long is left in the book you are reading. NOTES WHILE YOU READ • Save a quote, thought, question or summary in the middle of a session. The timer pauses while you write. • Scan text straight from the page: photograph it, tap the first and last word, and the passage drops into your note. Recognition runs entirely on your device. • Search every note across every book, filter by kind, and keep your favourites together. • Turn any quote into a card and post it to your Instagram Story or save it to Photos. GOALS AND PACE • A daily reading-time goal, with a calendar that checks off every day you hit it. • A yearly book goal that fills with the covers of the books you finish. • See the days left in the year, whether you are ahead or behind, and the pace it would take to finish. STATISTICS • Total reading time, pages read, average speed, longest session, current and longest streak. • A chart of your reading speed over the last 7 days, 30 days or the whole year. • The genres you return to, and a calendar of covers showing what you read each day. YOUR BOOKCASE • Stand your books on a wooden bookcase, move the decorations around the shelves, and switch the string lights on. • Put the bookcase on your Home Screen as a widget and rearrange it from there. WHAT TO READ NEXT • Can't decide? Shake your phone and one book jumps out of your To Be Read pile. Toss the covers around, or shake again for another. • Recommendations drawn from the books you rated highly, each one showing why it was suggested. • Keep a wishlist of the books you want, apart from the library you own. SHARE YOUR READING • Cards for a finished book, a favorite quote, a month's reads, your year, your reading calendar, goal progress, your bookcase and your farm. • Post to Instagram Stories, save to Photos, or share anywhere. WIDGETS • Farm, Continue Reading, Currently Reading, Goal and Bookcase, on the Home Screen. The Goal widget also fits the Lock Screen. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No sign-up, no email, no password, no ads, no analytics. • Your library, sessions, notes and goals stay on your device and sync only through your own iCloud account. • Tracking, notes, goals and statistics work offline. A connection is only needed to look books up. Terms of Service: https://quitehillstudio.com/marka/terms Privacy Policy: https://quitehillstudio.com/marka/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Excerpta at 3.5 against Marka's 1.0. Marka's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.2). 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
Both are free to download. Excerpta sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Marka sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Excerpta holds the better App Store score, 3.5 against 1.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.
Excerpta ships an update every 6 days, Marka every 8 days. Both last shipped on November 10, 2026.
| Parameter | Excerpta | Marka |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.5 (2 ratings) — better | 1.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 60.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days — better | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Freemium | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.2 | 18.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 72 MB | 20 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Trevor Tarakjian | Tedi Kurniadi |
In-app purchases
Excerpta
- Excerpta Unbound Monthly$1.991 Month
- Excerpta Unbound Yearly7 Days trial$14.991 Year
- Excerpta Unbound Forever$49.99
Marka
- Marka Supporter$39.99









