Comparison

Resona vs Libratory

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

Head to head
About

Resona

Features
Read full description

Resona turns your books and documents into a beautifully narrated reading experience. Import EPUB and PDF files, paste text, or scan printed pages with OCR. Listen with natural on-device voices while Resona follows along with sentence and word highlighting. Switch to Diary Mode for an immersive handwritten reading experience. Features: • Natural offline narration powered on your device • EPUB and PDF reading • OCR scanning for printed pages • Sentence and word-level highlighting • Diary Mode with animated handwriting • Multiple narrator voices and reading controls • iCloud sync for books, reading position, playback position, and selected voice • Discover free public-domain classics from Project Gutenberg • No account, ads, analytics, or tracking Your books and narration stay private. Resona is designed for focused, accessible reading on iPhone and Mac.

About

Libratory

Features
Read full description

Libratory plays an audiobook over the real pages of the book, lighting up the sentence and the word being spoken as it reads. Double-tap a sentence to hear it again. Books are made on your Mac with the free Libratory desktop tool, which pairs a book with its narration and saves both as one synced EPUB. Send that file to your iPhone or iPad with AirDrop or the Files app, tap + on the shelf, and press play. Nothing is streamed, no account is needed, and everything works offline. The app comes with a short three-chapter guide already on the shelf. It is itself a synced book, so reading it is the fastest way to see what the app does. READ AND LISTEN • The voice plays over the printed page, with the sentence and the word highlighted as they are spoken • Double-tap a sentence to hear it from there • Three views of a synced book: Page shows the whole sheet with its pictures and tables, Column crops to the printed words, Text reflows the words at a size you choose • Playback continues with the screen locked, with the chapter, cover and controls on the lock screen • Change the speed and the highlight keeps up READ IN TWO LANGUAGES • A book exported with a translation opens with the original and the translation together, each with its own voice • Tap a word to hear the book from there, or to see what it means in the other language • Sentence pairs reads each sentence and then its translation; each language keeps its own speed, plays each sentence up to five times, and can pause to let you say it back • The original can stay on its printed page beside the translation JUST READ, OR JUST LISTEN • Open an EPUB ebook you already own and read it in Text view • Open an M4B audiobook, pick a chapter, and listen with the screen off PICK UP WHERE YOU LEFT OFF • The app remembers your place in every book and shows which parts you have heard • Hold a word to save it, put it in a group, and add a note; find it again in Marks • Search the book and your saved words, then jump back to read or listen KEEP YOUR LIBRARY IN ORDER • Folders and tags for your books, and a search across the whole library • Each book says which chapters light up word by word and which sentence by sentence SHELVES • Pair your phone with the desktop app by scanning the code on its Phone page, and every book it has made is a tap away over your own Wi‑Fi or Tailscale • A public shelf of free, narrated classics is built in, with a two-language Frankenstein among them • Each book says what it offers — read + listen, two languages, words or sentences lit — with its voice, length and a description PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No account, no sign-in, no tracking. The app talks only to the shelves you add and the public shelf, to list and download books; what you read stays on your device. Works on iPhone and iPad with iOS 15.6 or later. On iOS 15 and 16, a simpler reader includes Pages and Text, playback, highlighting, chapters, saved progress, and two-language books in two panes. Bookmarks, search, folders and tags require iOS 17 or later. Synced books are made with the Libratory desktop app for Mac, free at libratory.dev. Plain EPUB ebooks and M4B audiobooks open as they are.

Screenshots

Resona3 screens
Libratory4 screens

Verdict

The call

Resona and Libratory are too close to call on the numbers: across 5 compared parameters — price, ads, in-app purchases and device support among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ScorecardNo meaningful differences
Resona versus Libratory: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterResonaLibratory
PriceFreeFree
Update frequency—Every 4 days
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size129 MB9 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperARIF KENANPetar Sabev

In-app purchases

None

Resona

No in-app purchases

None

Libratory

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Resona free?
Resona is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Libratory free?
Libratory is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Resona or Libratory have ads?
Neither Resona nor Libratory shows ads.

Other comparisons