Silt vs Bare Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side ā with what reviewers say about each.
Silt
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Silt is a calm place to think on the page. It's built for two kinds of writing ā essays and journaling ā and for the reading that feeds them. Choose your intent and the room changes to suit it: an open canvas for an essay, a quiet daily page for a journal, a focused reader for a book. Most writing apps forget what you've read. Silt doesn't. As you write, it brings the relevant lines from your reading alongside the paragraph you're working on ā so the right quote or idea is there when you reach for it. WRITE WITH INTENTION ⢠Start from a prompt ā "What are you here to think about?" ā not a blank page. ⢠Separate modes for drafting and revising: get the words down first, shape them later. ⢠Every paragraph keeps its own version history. Try a line three ways and never lose the one you liked. ⢠Set a gentle deadline and a daily writing reminder. A LIVING READING CORPUS ⢠Bring in highlights from Kindle and Obsidian, or highlight as you read inside Silt. ⢠While you write, Silt surfaces the passages that match what you're saying, ranked by relevance. ⢠Drop any highlight straight into your draft as a quote. READ INSIDE THE APP ⢠Open your own PDFs and EPUBs in a clean, distraction-free reader. ⢠Your books stay on your device. ⢠Highlights you make flow back into your corpus, ready to resurface later. ONE LIBRARY, EVERYTHING IN ITS PLACE ⢠Notes, journal entries, highlights, and books ā organized and searchable. ⢠Light and dark, with accent colors you can tune to your taste. PRIVATE BY DESIGN ⢠Your writing is end-to-end encrypted (AES-GCM-256). Only you hold the key. ⢠Local-first: the app works fully offline, with no account required. ⢠Optional sync keeps your work in step across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Silt runs natively on iPhone, iPad, and Mac ā one app, all your devices. Writing settles like sediment, layer on layer, until something solid forms. Silt is where it settles.
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 ā 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: Silt at none against Bare Reader's 1. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price Ā· Rating Ā· Positive reviews Ā· Number of ratings Ā· Update frequency Ā· Ads Ā· In-app purchases Ā· Monetization Ā· Best chart rank Ā· Devices Ā· Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Bare Reader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Silt asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Silt | Bare Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | ā | Every 5 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No ā better | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac ā better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.6 ā better |
| Further details ā not scored | ||
| Size | 4 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Santiago Sonzini | Nathaniel Rayestu Abdulrachman |
In-app purchases
Silt
No in-app purchases
Bare Reader
- Support Development$1.99









