Comparison

Bare Reader vs Readence

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ€” with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Bare Reader

Features
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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.

About

Readence

Read full description

Readence turns reading into something you do every day โ€” not something you mean to get back to. Fifteen minutes is the default goal. Meet it and the day is done: the ember fills, the streak survives, and tomorrow asks the same small thing. No targets you have to beat, no reading speed to defend. Consistency is the whole game. A LIBRARY THAT IS ALREADY YOURS Hundreds of classics from Standard Ebooks and the Hungarian Electronic Library, cleared title by title and free to open the moment you sign in. Browse by genre, see how long a book will actually take you, and start reading in one tap. BRING YOUR OWN BOOKS Add EPUB, PDF, TXT, DOCX, RTF, HTML or Markdown from your phone or iCloud. The file itself never leaves your device โ€” we keep the title, the author and a fingerprint, never the text. TWO WAYS TO READ Read the page the ordinary way, or switch on RSVP: one word at a time at a fixed point on screen, so your eyes stop travelling and your attention has nowhere to wander. Set the pace yourself, from a gentle 150 words a minute upwards. Long words are given a little longer. It is a reading mode, not a party trick โ€” and you can leave it off entirely. A STREAK WORTH KEEPING Daily goals, streaks, XP and levels, and eighteen hand-drawn achievements that mark real things: a first week, a month, a finished book, fifty finished books. Two streak freezes so one bad day does not undo a month. FRIENDS, QUIETLY Add the people you actually know โ€” both sides have to agree, so this list only ever fills up on purpose. See who kept the flame lit today, share a book you finished, and let a friend's streak be the reason you open the app at eleven at night. Your shelf is private until you say otherwise โ€” twice: once for the whole shelf, once per book. FREE, AND HONEST ABOUT IT Everything above is free. Ads appear when a session ends, never before it starts, and never in the middle of a chapter. Readence Plus removes them. After a one-time setup, Readence works offline. Your position, your streak and your books are on your phone first and synced when there is a signal. --- Terms of Use (EULA): https://readence.hu/terms Privacy Policy: https://readence.hu/privacy

Screenshots

Bare Reader4 screens
Readence4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Bare Reader at none against Readence's shown. Readence's advantage is update cadence (daily vs every 5 days). On price, in-app purchases, 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

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Bare Reader sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and Readence sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Bare Reader ships an update every 5 days, Readence daily. The most recent releases landed on October 9, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences ยท 4 level
Bare Reader versus Readence: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterBare ReaderReadence
PriceFreeFree
Update frequencyEvery 5 daysDaily โ€” better
AdsNo โ€” betterYes
In-app purchasesYesYes
DevicesiPhone, iPad โ€” betteriPhone
Requires iOS16.616.0 โ€” better
Further details โ€” not scored
Size3 MB43 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperNathaniel Rayestu AbdulrachmanLajos Gere

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Bare Reader

One-time1
  • Support Development$1.99
2 purchases

Readence

Subscriptions2
  • Readence Plus (Monthly)$2.991 Month
  • Readence Plus (Annual)7 Days trial$19.991 Year

Questions

Is Bare Reader free?
Bare Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Readence free?
Readence is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Bare Reader or Readence have ads?
Readence shows ads; Bare Reader does not.
Which is updated more often, Bare Reader or Readence?
Bare Reader ships an update every 5 days, and Readence daily. Most recently, Bare Reader was updated on October 9, 2026 and Readence on September 24, 2026.

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