Drowsebook vs Blubb Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Drowsebook
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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: โข Read imported books with typography tuned for long sessions โข Listen with Apple system voices through AVSpeechSynthesizer โข Continue audio in the background with Lock Screen controls and ยฑ15s jumps โข Clean noisy PDFs by hiding page numbers, footnotes, short headers, captions, or custom patterns โข Keep per-book PDF dictionary rules for documents that need manual cleanup โข 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.
Blubb Reader
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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
Verdict
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
Both are free to download. Drowsebook sells 2 one-off in-app purchases. Blubb Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Drowsebook | Blubb Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | โ |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No โ better |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad โ better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 โ better | 18.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 255 MB | 215 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ๆธๅ ่ก | Chuanjie Duanmu |
In-app purchases
Drowsebook
- Drowsebook Buy Once$19.99
- Drowsebook Supporter$39.99
Blubb Reader
No in-app purchases









