Star Document Reader vs Bare Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Star Document Reader
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Star Readers is a smart, modern reading tool for people who want to read documents, e-books and text files with clarity and comfort. Use AI features to summarize texts and understand them even faster. Whether you open PDF, EPUB, MOBI, TXT, CSV, Markdown, JSON or log files, Star Reader brings many useful formats into one clean app and keeps the focus where it belongs: on your content. It turns your mobile device into a versatile, elegant reader for everyday use, study, work and personal reading journeys. Highlights: - Elegant, minimal reader design - EPUB chapter view with navigation - MOBI reading with chapter and section navigation for DRM-free files - PDF viewer with annotations and image export - Share PDF annotations as images - Read text, Markdown, JSON and log files - View CSV files as a table or raw text - Favorites and recently opened files - Automatic reading position saving - Adjustable text size, line height and font style - Light, dark and system theme modes - English and German language options - File explorer for supported local files on your device Star Readers is built for longer reading sessions, with calm colors, clear typography and an interface that stays out of the way. Open local files, return to important documents faster and read e-books, notes, logs or tables in one app. Ideal for: - E-books and long-form reading - PDFs with visual annotations - Local document collections - Markdown notes - CSV files - JSON and log files - Focused reading by day or night Supported file extensions: .txt .csv .md .markdown .json .log .epub .pdf .mobi
Bare Reader
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Bare Reader is a calm, distraction-free way to read your EPUB books on iPhone. No accounts. No ads. No sync nags. No feed pulling you away from the page. Just your library and your books โ stored privately on your device. Less than 5MB in size, Bare Reader is as lightweight as it gets. READING, THE WAY IT SHOULD FEEL Open a book and everything else disappears. A clean, paginated reading view lets you move through pages the way that feels natural to you: swipe, tap the edges, or use the on-screen page buttons. PRIVATE BY DESIGN LeafReader works entirely offline. Your books and your reading never leave your device: there's no account to create and no data collected. What you read is nobody's business but yours. Bring your own EPUBs and enjoy a reader that gets out of the way. Bare Reader is completely free to use. If you enjoy the app, you can optionally purchase a one-time license to remove the occasional support reminder. Purchasing doesn't unlock anything or change how the app works; it's simply a way to support ongoing development.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Star Document Reader at none against Bare Reader's 1. Star Document Reader also leads on update cadence (daily vs every 5 days) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 16.6). On price, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Bare Reader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Star Document Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
Star Document Reader ships an update daily, Bare Reader every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on May 22, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Star Document Reader | Bare Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Daily โ better | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No โ better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 โ better | 16.6 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 41 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Markus Stadi | Nathaniel Rayestu Abdulrachman |
In-app purchases
Star Document Reader
No in-app purchases
Bare Reader
- Support Development$1.99





