Focus Reader vs Bare Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Focus Reader
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Lose your place in long documents? Focus Reader reflows PDF and EPUB books to fit your screen and keeps only the part you're reading in sharp focus. Open the books you already have and adjust text size, font, line spacing, and column width to suit your eyes. No more fighting cramped PDF columns or tiny print. Features - PDF & EPUB reflow: the current page or chapter is re-typeset into one comfortable column. - Focus band: a clear reading band with the rest of the page dimmed, so your eyes stay on the line. Adjust the band's height, dim level, and position. - Typography: serif and sans-serif fonts for Latin and Korean, with size, line height, and UI scale controls. - Reading themes: paper, sepia, green, solar, night, and dim. - Dictionary lookup: long-press a word for an offline definition in the bundled English-Korean and Korean dictionaries. - Library: saved books with reading progress. - Korean and English interface. Free and Pro The core reading features and dictionary lookup are free. Focus band fine-tuning, all reading themes, and column width are unlocked with Focus Reader Pro โ a one-time purchase, not a subscription. The Korean App Store price is โฉ4,000; prices in other regions are set by Apple. Supported formats: PDF, EPUB
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 โ 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
Focus Reader and Bare Reader are too close to call on the numbers: across 6 compared parameters โ price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases among them โ neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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. Focus Reader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Bare Reader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Focus Reader ships an update every 6 days, Bare Reader every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 13, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Focus Reader | Bare Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Every 6 days | Every 5 days โ better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 โ better | 16.6 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 58 MB | 3 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Daejin hyun | Nathaniel Rayestu Abdulrachman |
In-app purchases
Focus Reader
- Focus Reader Pro$1.99
Bare Reader
- Support Development$1.99
Questions
Is Focus Reader free?
Is Bare Reader free?
Do Focus Reader or Bare Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, Focus Reader or Bare Reader?
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