Penguin vs PixComic

A comic reader for the books you already own. CBZ, CBR, PDF and EPUB open straight from Files, your Mac, or your NAS — no unpacking, no account, no ads, and no internet needed once a book is on the device. Japanese pages you cannot read? Penguin Viewer translates the speech bubbles on your device and paints the English back into the balloon. ■ Manga and novels in one library - Drop in CBZ, CBR, CB7 (7z), ZIP, RAR, PDF or an image folder. TXT, MD and EPUB novels land on the same shelf. - Auto margin cropping fills the screen with books you scanned yourself. ■ A library in your own folders - Make folders like in Finder, nested at any depth, and drag books between them. - New imports land in the open folder, dozens at a time. Move or delete in bulk, or drag books into your own order. - The folder layout and book order follow you over iCloud. Files are not uploaded and use no iCloud storage. ■ Translation that ends on the device - A manga or webtoon bubble is read sentence by sentence, translated, and painted back where the original lettering was. Vertical Japanese is recognized too. - In novels, translate a sentence or page to read beside the original, or look up words. - Translate a book in advance and pages turn with no wait. Nothing is sent anywhere. ■ Read novels your way - Font, size, line spacing, margins and background change in Text and Layout, live. - Jump chapters from the contents. Position and bookmarks carry between devices. ■ Your NAS and server library - Connect over SMB (NAS), WebDAV or OPDS, compatible with Komga and Kavita. - OPDS-PSE streaming resumes at your page without downloading, so a huge library takes no storage. - Reading position syncs over iCloud, and server credentials stay in the device keychain. ■ Read it the way you want - Single Page, Two-Page, or Smart Two-Page picking by screen ratio, plus right-to-left binding. - Webtoons scroll vertically, or run 120Hz auto-scroll through a binge. Pan sideways while zoomed in. - Multi-gigabyte volumes turn without stutter, and pinch zoom works in spreads too. - A night theme blacks out the reader on your schedule, and Mac turns pages from the keyboard. ■ A library that sorts itself - Smart shelves file books as unread, reading or finished, and ComicInfo groups a scattered series. - Set grid columns and cover size, sort by recently opened, search by title, author or series. ■ A record that grows as you read - Reading statistics, streaks and milestones build the habit. - The reading calendar shows how much you read, iOS widgets show today's, and Face ID locks the app, hiding books from widgets and search. ■ Local AI Translation Benchmark - Measure how fast your iPhone, iPad or Mac translates a manga page. Run it from Translation in Settings. - The result is a single PVScore. A bigger number means a faster device. - The results screen is CRT arcade, scanlines and all. Beat your best and NEW RECORD appears. - Save and share the score as a PNG card, device name and chip included. - Enter a nickname (up to 12 characters) to see the worldwide PVScore top 500. ■ Honest pricing - Almost everything is free. The free library holds 30 books, and sharing the app opens 10 more. - The benchmark and leaderboard are free, with unlimited runs. - An unlimited library is one lifetime Pro purchase, not a subscription. No ads anywhere. ■ Privacy by default - Local first: files, translation, statistics and benchmark results stay on the device. - Leaderboard posts send nickname, score, run log and device info (model, chip, RAM, OS), all shown first. - Linking MyAnimeList sends it your title searches and volumes read. - No account, no sign-up, not a single tracking SDK. Open it and read. - Export your library and reading history, and restore it on a new device. ■ Good to know - Penguin Viewer supplies no manga or novels. It reads files you already own. - The interface comes in 17 languages. Requests left in reviews get built quickly. Novel reading came out of one.

PixComic is a local comic reader. It does not provide any comics — it reads the archives you already own, and it reads them fast. WI-FI TRANSFER, NO CABLE Start the server on your phone, open the address it shows in your computer's browser, and drag your files in. Uploads are chunked and resumable, so a multi-gigabyte archive survives a dropped connection, a locked screen or a closed tab — it picks up where it left off. The same page lets you browse what is on the device, pull a book back to your computer, delete one, and check free space. Importing from the Files app, AirDrop and "Open in" from other apps all work too. EVERY FORMAT, NO MOJIBAKE CBZ / ZIP, CBR / RAR, PDF, and plain folders of images. Scan releases from Japan and Greater China routinely store filenames in Shift-JIS or GBK rather than UTF-8, which turns into garbage text in most readers. PixComic detects the encoding automatically, and sorts chapters naturally — page 2 comes before page 10, not after it. THREE READING MODES · Manga: right-to-left, automatic two-page spreads in landscape, cover on its own page so the spreads line up the way print does · Standard: left-to-right · Webtoon: seamless vertical scrolling, pinch to set the page width A wide double-page scan can also be split into two screens, so spreads are comfortable to read on a phone held upright. BUILT TO STAY SMOOTH Every image is decoded off the main thread and downsampled to your screen, with pages preloaded in both directions. Page dimensions are measured once in the background — you can read the whole time it runs — and cached, so reopening the same book skips the rescan, the "Analyzing pages" strip along the bottom, and the one relayout that lands when it finishes. FOUR THEMES Standard, Sci-fi, Pixel and Paper. Not just a tint — corners, borders, typeface and light/dark all change together. ALSO Double-tap for a quick zoom and pinch all the way to native pixels (6x at most on very large scans), thumbnail navigation, bookmarks, a scrubber with page preview, automatic border trimming, screen-awake and brightness lock. PixComic is free and ad-supported: a banner on the shelf and an occasional interstitial before a book opens — never while you are reading.