Comparison

Spine vs Leaf

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

Head to head
About

Spine

This app enhances audiobook listening with features like listener levels, daily streaks, and shareable year-end recaps. It offers a beautiful, integrated player and syncs with Hardcover, all while keeping your data private on-device.

Highlights
  • Integrated audiobook player
  • Listener levels and daily streaks
  • Hardcover sync
  • On-device AI summaries
  • Shareable year-in-review recap
  • Lock screen and widget controls
Features
Read full description

Spine is the audiobook app you'll actually leave open. It streams from your own cloud library, syncs with Hardcover, and turns the habit of listening into something worth coming back to with listener levels, daily streaks, and a year-in-review Recap bright enough to share. Built native for iOS 26, with Liquid Glass, serif typography, and a player carved into the book's detail page. No subscription. No ads. No in-app purchases. No account to create with us. Bring your own library, keep your own data. WHAT MAKES IT DIFFERENT • ONE PAGE FOR THE BOOK: No separate Now Playing screen. Cover, scrubber, transport, speed, sleep timer, chapters, and bookmarks all live inline on the detail page, on an ambient backdrop tinted by the cover. • CHAPTERS THAT JUST WORK: Single-file M4B audiobooks expose their chapters automatically. Cloud folders with multiple M4Bs split into separate library entries. No manual editing, no reprocessing. • HARDCOVER SYNC: Just listen. Spine logs progress and finished books to Hardcover, pulls cover art, genre, and structured series data, and keeps your shelves in sync. • ON-DEVICE INTELLIGENCE: Open the next book in a tracked series and Spine writes a two-sentence "previously on…" recap from what you've already finished. It also rewrites bloated marketing descriptions into a calm summary, captions your Recap, and cleans up filename-salad titles. All on Apple's on-device foundation model. Nothing about your library leaves the phone. • LEVELS, STREAKS, AND GOALS: Lifetime hours unlock six tiers, from Sapling to Oracle. A unified daily/yearly goal card, a streak chip, and a year-spanning heatmap show the shape of your habit at a glance. • A RECAP YOU'LL WANT TO SHARE: Five bright screens covering hours, finished books, top author and genre, monthly rhythm, and the books you marked Read on Hardcover. One tap stitches the whole thing into a postable image. • PLAYBACK THAT PAYS ATTENTION: Step away for a moment and Spine rewinds a few seconds when you press play. The sleep timer fades audio gently to zero. Finish a series entry and the next book surfaces automatically. • LIVE ON THE LOCK SCREEN: Live Activities follow the current book onto the Lock Screen and Dynamic Island, with a tappable Play/Pause. The home-screen widget mirrors the same control on a cover-tinted backdrop, toggle playback in one tap, even when Spine isn't running. • BOOKMARKS WORTH KEEPING: Tap to mark any moment with a written note. Tap to jump back later. • SEARCH THAT POINTS SOMEWHERE: Open the search tab cold and you get a trending-genre card tuned to what you actually listen to, a Discover list of Audible new releases, and trending shortcuts. Most people aren't searching their own shelf, they're looking for the next thing. • EVERY BOOK IS A DOORWAY: Detail pages carry "More by author", "Top in genre", and a "Part of {Series}" rail that interleaves the books you own with the Hardcover siblings you don't, in reading order, right under your bookmarks. • CLOUD LIBRARY, REPAIRED IN ONE TAP: When a cloud title expires or goes stale, Spine flags it on the detail page and offers a one-tap re-download. No re-adding, no losing your progress. • SPOTLIGHT-INDEXED: Search your library from anywhere in iOS. PRIVACY BY DEFAULT Spine has no servers, no analytics, and no third-party SDKs. API keys live in the iOS Keychain. Your library, listening history, and bookmarks stay on your device (and sync via your own iCloud, if you enable it). The on-device AI features run on Apple Intelligence — your books never leave the phone. REQUIREMENTS • iPhone running iOS 26. • A cloud audiobook library. • A free Hardcover account is recommended for metadata, search, and read sync. • Apple Intelligence-eligible device is required for the optional AI features (everything else works without it).

About

Leaf

Organize and read your DRM-free EPUB books with customizable reading settings and smart library management. Sync your progress across devices using iCloud and discover new titles through integrated sources.

Highlights
  • Customizable reading experience
  • Smart library organization
  • iCloud sync for progress and settings
  • Offline reading support
  • Import from various sources
  • Public domain classics included
Read full description

Give your books a home of their own. Leaf brings beautiful EPUB reading and thoughtful library management together on iPhone and iPad. Import the DRM-free books you already own, organize them your way, and keep everything in sync with iCloud. READ YOUR WAY Make every book comfortable to read. Choose from carefully selected fonts—including accessibility-friendly options—and fine-tune the font size, line height, margins, letter spacing, word spacing, and alignment. Choose from a collection of color themes, follow your device’s appearance automatically, or give individual books their own settings. A configurable reader footer can show page count, percentage, chapter progress, chapter title, or book title. A LIBRARY THAT FEELS LIKE YOURS Create custom shelves and let Smart Shelves automatically gather books that are In Progress, Unread, Completed, Did Not Finish, or downloaded to your device. Browse by author, series, and genre; search and sort your collection; and edit titles, authors, covers, descriptions, publication details, and more. Rate books, mark the ones you loved, and write down your thoughts when you finish. Leaf remembers reading time, completion dates, and the books you have finished this year—then helps you choose what comes next. PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF Optional iCloud sync keeps your books, library details, settings, and reading progress available across your iPhone and iPad. No separate Leaf account is required. Download books for offline reading, remove local copies when you need space, and return to your current book from the Home Screen widget. FIND YOUR NEXT BOOK Connect to a self-hosted Grimmory library, browse Project Gutenberg through the built-in Source, add other compatible OPDS sources, or import EPUB files from Files. Leaf also includes a small collection of beautifully produced public-domain classics, so you can begin reading immediately. For readers who also use KOReader on e-ink devices, Leaf can sync reading progress with a compatible KOReader sync server. BUILT FOR IPHONE AND IPAD Leaf is designed for every screen it runs on: a focused reading experience on iPhone and a spacious library on iPad. Your books feel at home wherever you read. Leaf currently supports DRM-free EPUB books. TERMS OF USE https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

Screenshots

Spine4 screens
Leaf4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Spine at none against Leaf's 1. Spine also leads on ratings volume (25 vs 4). Leaf's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 86%) and rating (5.0 vs 4.8). On price, update cadence, ads 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 sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $4.99 per year. Spine asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Leaf holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.8. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Spine has 25 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 86% of Spine's written reviews are positive against 100% of Leaf's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Spine ships an update every 4 days, Leaf weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 14, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Spine versus Leaf: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSpineLeaf
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (25 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings) — better
Positive reviews85.7% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings25 — better4
Update frequencyEvery 4 days — betterWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, Apple WatchiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.0 — better26.1
Further details — not scored
Size15 MB51 MB
Age rating12+12+
DeveloperAccelyze Inc.Deadpan, LLC

Customer experience

Spine

All ratings25 ratings
Positive96.0%
Neutral4.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews14 reviews
Positive85.7%
Neutral14.3%
Negative0.0%

Leaf

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews2 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Spine

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

Leaf

Subscriptions1
  • Leaf Pro Annual7 Days trial$4.991 Year

Questions

Is Spine free?
Spine is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Leaf free?
Leaf is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Spine or Leaf?
Leaf is rated higher. Spine averages 4.8 out of 5 from 25 ratings, while Leaf averages 5.0 from 4 ratings.
Do Spine or Leaf have ads?
Neither Spine nor Leaf shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Spine or Leaf?
Spine ships an update every 4 days, and Leaf weekly. Most recently, Spine was updated on October 24, 2026 and Leaf on October 14, 2026.

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