ZFiles vs Jianben Cat
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side β with what reviewers say about each.
ZFiles
Read full descriptionHide full description
ZFiles is an iOS file browser for personal file management. Browse the iOS Files app, SMB shares on your local network, SFTP servers, WebDAV servers, and hidden files and folders. After downloading, all included features are available with no subscriptions or in-app purchases. Save frequently used servers, jump back into folders with bookmarks, preview images, videos, Markdown, JSON, and common documents, and manage transfers from one place. ZFiles has no ads and does not track users. Server settings and bookmarks stay on your device, and passwords are stored in the system keychain.
Jianben Cat
Read full descriptionHide full description
Jianben Cat is a professional, local-first plain-text editor for iPhone and iPad. It works directly with Apple's Files app. Create, open, edit and save documents on your device, in iCloud Drive or in other file locations supported by iOS. Your documents remain real files instead of being locked inside the app. COMMON TEXT FORMATS Open and edit TXT, Markdown, CSV, TSV, JSON, XML, YAML, logs, source code, scripts and configuration files. Jianben Cat preserves file extensions and supports Save, Save As, Rename and the system share sheet. Jianben Cat focuses on plain text. It does not edit rich-text Word documents such as DOC or DOCX, and it does not add hidden formatting to your files. ENCODING AND LINE ENDING CONTROL Work with UTF-8, GB18030, GBK, UTF-16 little-endian and big-endian, Windows-1252, ISO Latin-1 and ASCII. UTF byte-order marks are detected and preserved. If a legacy encoding cannot be identified safely, the app asks you to choose an encoding and can reopen the original file with that selection. Detect and convert LF, CRLF and CR line endings, including files that contain mixed line endings. This keeps text predictable when moving between iOS, macOS, Windows and other systems. TOOLS FOR SERIOUS EDITING β’ Line numbers and Go to Line β’ Plain-text and regular-expression search β’ Case-sensitive matching and previous/next navigation β’ Replace and Replace All β’ Character, word, line and file-size statistics β’ Undo, redo and essential hardware-keyboard shortcuts β’ Monospaced editing without autocorrection, smart quotes or spelling interference WARMTH FOR EVERY EDIT Subtle cat animations and gentle encouragements bring warmth to the clean, professional interface. While you edit, the cat occasionally offers a short, lighthearted message without interrupting your typing. You can also tap it whenever you would like a little motivation to keep going. The messages are available in multiple languages and stay unobtrusive without covering the main editing area. YOUR WRITING JOURNEY Writing Journey summarizes the characters you have entered and the documents you have worked on, along with your earliest start and any late-night writing sessions. It also awards milestone badges as your work grows. It is not a cold leaderboard, but a personal retrospective that gives every keystroke a place in your story and reminds you to appreciate your persistence. LOCAL SNAPSHOTS AND RECOVERY Create local snapshots automatically while editing or save a recovery point manually. Browse and restore snapshot history, with the current version protected before a restore. A damaged snapshot is isolated so it does not affect the rest of the history. BUILT FOR LONG TEXT Incremental line indexing, delayed statistics and background search help keep long documents responsive. Search results and highlights are bounded, while large and extremely large files use reduced workloads and additional safeguards. LOCAL FIRST No account is required. There are no ads or tracking, and no analytics SDK is included by default. Documents stay on your device or in a Files/iCloud Drive location you choose. Recovery snapshots stay in the app's local sandbox. Jianben Cat is designed for people who work directly with logs, configurations, Markdown, structured data, source snippets and long-form text. The interface stays restrained so your text remains the focus and your files remain under your control.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: ZFiles at Free against Jianben Cat's $0.99. Jianben Cat's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 weeks) and iOS requirement (16.7 vs 26.0). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Β· Rating Β· Positive reviews Β· Number of ratings Β· Update frequency Β· Ads Β· In-app purchases Β· Monetization Β· Best chart rank Β· Devices Β· Requires iOS
ZFiles is free to download; Jianben Cat costs $0.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
ZFiles ships an update every 3 weeks, Jianben Cat every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 17, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ZFiles | Jianben Cat |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free β better | $0.99 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 3 days β better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 16.7 β better |
| Further details β not scored | ||
| Size | 13 MB | 6 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | δΉι ε | Andongdaolai Technology Co., Ltd. |
In-app purchases
ZFiles
No in-app purchases
Jianben Cat
No in-app purchases









