Comparison

Drowsebook vs Blubb Reader

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

Head to head
About

Drowsebook

Features
Read full description

Read and listen to your own books with a quiet, local-first iPhone reader. Drowsebook imports DRM-free EPUB, PDF, TXT, MOBI, and AZW3 files. It keeps your bookshelf, reading positions, bookmarks, PDF cleanup rules, and listening progress on your device. What Drowsebook is built for: โ€ข Read imported books with typography tuned for long sessions โ€ข Listen with Apple system voices through AVSpeechSynthesizer โ€ข Continue audio in the background with Lock Screen controls and ยฑ15s jumps โ€ข Clean noisy PDFs by hiding page numbers, footnotes, short headers, captions, or custom patterns โ€ข Keep per-book PDF dictionary rules for documents that need manual cleanup โ€ข Export reading data as JSON or clear reading data from Settings Privacy and purchase: Drowsebook has no account system, no third-party advertising, no analytics SDKs, and no server dependency for reading or listening. Your imported book files are handled locally on your iPhone. Drowsebook is a one-time purchase utility for reading and listening to your own DRM-free ebooks. The optional supporter tier has the same app access and exists for users who want to support independent development. Family Sharing is enabled. Encrypted books and some newer Kindle variants are not supported. Drowsebook is for digital files only and does not scan paper books.

About

Blubb Reader

Features
Read full description

Blubb is a free reader for books and research papers. Import EPUB, PDF, text, and scans, then read and listen offline. For research papers with an available arXiv HTML edition, Blubb offers a formatted view that preserves equations, figures, tables, citations, and working links. Keep the original PDF at hand and change the reader's font, size, theme, and page or scrolling layout. On-device voices read aloud from your last position. Notes and highlights stay with each book. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is included to get you started. No account, subscription, ads, or tracking. Your imported books and notes stay on your device. iCloud sync is under development and unavailable in this release.

Screenshots

Drowsebook4 screens
Blubb Reader2 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Blubb Reader at none against Drowsebook's 2. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Drowsebook sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Blubb Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard1 real difference ยท 5 level
Drowsebook versus Blubb Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterDrowsebookBlubb Reader
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 2 weeksโ€”
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
DevicesiPhoneiPhone, iPad โ€” better
Requires iOS17.0 โ€” better18.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size255 MB215 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperๆธŠๅš ่ƒกChuanjie Duanmu

In-app purchases

2 purchases

Drowsebook

One-time2
  • Drowsebook Buy Once$19.99
  • Drowsebook Supporter$39.99
None

Blubb Reader

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Drowsebook free?
Drowsebook is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Blubb Reader free?
Blubb Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Drowsebook or Blubb Reader have ads?
Neither Drowsebook nor Blubb Reader shows ads.

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