Restricted Section vs Halftone
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Restricted Section
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Never buy a book you already own. Restricted Section is your personal book catalog for iPhone. Scan the barcode on any book to add it instantly — cover art, author, series, and metadata included. When you're browsing a store or a friend's shelf, scan to check ownership in seconds. SCAN TO ADD Point at any book's barcode. Restricted Section looks it up via Google Books and adds it to your library automatically. No typing required. ENTER ISBN MANUALLY Can't scan the barcode? Type the ISBN directly and get the same instant lookup. CHECK BEFORE YOU BUY A single tap launches the Check scanner. Scan any book for an immediate answer — green checkmark if you own it, red X if you don't. No more duplicates. TRACK YOUR READING Mark books as Unread, Reading, Finished, or Wishlist. Add a 1–5 star rating and personal notes to any book in your collection. BROWSE BY SERIES Group your books by series and see which volumes you have — and which are still missing. BUILT FOR PRIVACY Everything stays on your device. No account. No cloud sync. No analytics. The only network requests the app makes are ISBN lookups to fetch book metadata — nothing personal ever leaves your phone. Restricted Section is free, open source, and built for people who take their bookshelves seriously.
Halftone
This app provides a seamless reading experience for comics and manga from various sources like Komga, Kavita, and cloud storage. It features unique zoom controls for comfortable one-handed reading and supports multiple file formats.
- Connects to Komga, Kavita, and other OPDS catalogs
- Hold Zoom for one-handed reading
- Page-level progress sync
- Supports various file formats (CBZ, CBR, PDF)
- Webtoon mode for long-strip scrolling
- Privacy features like Incognito reading
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The reader your comic and manga server deserves — and the comfiest way to read on a phone. Halftone connects straight to the places you already keep comics: Komga and Kavita (native, not just OPDS), Audiobookshelf, any OPDS catalog, SMB shares on your NAS, WebDAV, Dropbox, OneDrive, and the files on your device. No account with us. No middleman server. No ads. PANEL VIEW Read one panel at a time, in the right order — manga's right-to-left included. Tap or swipe to step through the page, hold to peek at the whole thing, and pick Overlay or Fade to dim everything but the panel you're on. HOLD ZOOM Press and hold anywhere and the page magnifies; pan with the same finger — one-handed, made for dense pages and small lettering. Rest your thumb at a screen edge and the page keeps moving. Free for everyone — no unlock, no trial, no asterisk. YOUR SERVER, FIRST-CLASS • Komga and Kavita: native API clients — series, collections, page-by-page streaming • Audiobookshelf: your server's comics, with its covers and progress • Two-way, page-level progress sync — stop on your iPhone, and the server's web reader opens on the same page • OPDS for everything else: Codex, Ubooquity, Calibre-Web, Stump, and more • SMB and WebDAV — your NAS, found automatically • Dropbox, OneDrive, iCloud Drive, and any Files-app folder • Stream page by page without importing (CBZ and most CBR/RAR), or pin chapters for offline with one tap • Synced folders: point Halftone at a folder on your NAS or cloud drive and it mirrors the whole tree, subfolders and all • iCloud sync carries your place to your other devices through your own iCloud — for imported comics and every source with no sync of its own A READER BUILT FOR COMICS • Apple Books–style page curl that folds at the spine — or a classic slide • Double-page spreads with one-tap pairing fixes, spine shadow, and paper margins • True right-to-left for manga: page order, tap zones, curl, and scrubber all follow • A proper webtoon mode: smooth long-strip scrolling, detected automatically • AI Upscale: low-resolution scans are sharpened on-device as you read • Crop Borders trims scanned margins so the art fills the screen, and can drop credit strips • Tap zones your way: Left-Right, L-Shaped, Top-Bottom, or off • Match Page backgrounds: margins take the page's own color — or Backdrop, a soft blur of the page itself A LIBRARY THAT KEEPS UP • Built for thousands of files: search down to the single comic, collections, merge and move • Folders for loose comics — one-shots and odd issues, no fake series required • Reads ComicInfo.xml on import: real series names, correct chapter order, right-to-left detected • Wi-Fi transfer from any computer's browser • Bookmarks and a farthest-read marker — re-read an earlier chapter without losing your place • One-tap backup to a folder you pick; export as standard CBZ with ComicInfo.xml • Privacy tools: Incognito reading, Face ID app lock, hidden comics READS EVERYTHING CBZ/ZIP, CBR/RAR, CB7/7z, PDF, image-based ePub (DRM-free), and plain folders of images. FAIR PRICING, NO DARK PATTERNS Free is genuinely free: your whole local library, no series limit, full quality, spreads, right-to-left, webtoon scrolling, Hold Zoom, and the Panel View preview — and it never expires. Premium adds the connected half — servers, cloud drives, streaming, synced folders, iCloud sync, backup, privacy tools — plus the full reader: Panel View, AI Upscale, page curl, Crop Borders, spine shadow, and Match Page. Try it free for 24 hours. Lifetime unlock, or a small subscription. Nothing you imported or downloaded is ever deleted if you stop paying. SAMPLE ARTWORK IN SCREENSHOTS "Pepper&Carrot" by David Revoy (CC-BY 4.0, peppercarrot.com) · "Give My Regards to Black Jack" by Shuho Sato (author's free-use declaration) · US public-domain Golden Age comics. Privacy Policy: https://halftonereader.app/privacy.html Terms of Use: https://halftonereader.app/terms.html
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Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Restricted Section at none against Halftone's 3. On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Halftone sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.49 per month. Restricted Section asks for nothing beyond the download.
Restricted Section ships an update every 2 weeks, Halftone weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 18, 2026 and October 8, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Restricted Section | Halftone |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 16.4 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 5 MB | 61 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Elijah Winter | Bony Yousuf |
In-app purchases
Restricted Section
No in-app purchases
Halftone
- Premium Monthly3 Days trial$1.491 Month
- Premium Yearly3 Days trial$14.991 Year
- Lifetime Unlock$19.99









