Papyrus vs Tibby
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Papyrus
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Papyrus turns everything you've read into a warm, real bookshelf — right on your iPhone home screen. A cozy private library you actually want to look at. BRING YOUR LIBRARY HOME Every book you've read, standing on a beautiful shelf you can glance at without opening anything. As you finish books, the newest ones slide to the front — so your home screen quietly tells the story of what you've been reading, all year long. Still fully customizable, move the books around how you want, make changes to the shelf and background. THE WIDGET One of our premium paid features is to add the Papyrus widget in small, medium, or large. Your shelf lives on your home screen, gorgeous and glanceable. If you aren't interested in seeing the books then you can see your reading statistics - how many books and pages you've read this year. IMPORT IN SECONDS Bring your reading history over from Goodreads, StoryGraph, or any CSV in a single tap. Your past library fills your shelf instantly. No problem if you don't have any accounts - you can add books individually from our massive library. THREE WAYS TO SEE YOUR SHELF - Spine view with procedurally illustrated, cover-matched spines - Cover view to show off your front covers - A 3/4 perspective "crate" mode that feels like a real shelf Press and scrub to browse, and drag to reorder your books exactly how you like them. STATS THAT FEEL LIKE A FOLIO, NOT A DASHBOARD See how you rate, your fiction vs. nonfiction split, the decades you read across, and your favorite authors and genres — all rendered in big serif numerals with room to breathe. Look back on your year with Reading Wrapped. YOUR DATA STAYS YOURS Export your whole library any time — as a spreadsheet (CSV/XLSX) or a self-contained offline webpage. Free or Pro, your library is always yours to take with you. FREE TO START Try everything with up to 10 books in your collection — a real, full-fidelity trial, not a locked demo. Your wishlist is always unlimited and free. Upgrade to Pro to remove the collection cap and unlock your full library. Upgrade to Pro to unlock the full experience: - Unlimited collection — shelve every book you've ever read, no cap - Your complete library on every widget size and display mode - Full reading stats and Reading Wrapped across your entire history - Export your whole library any time — CSV, XLSX, or a self-contained offline webpage - No ads, no tracking, and your data is never sold — free or Pro Built by one person who wanted their bookshelf on their home screen. No ads. Your data is not sold. Just a beautiful place to keep the books you love. Bring your library home. Terms of Use (EULA): https://papyrus-b03fd.web.app/terms.html Privacy Policy: https://papyrus-b03fd.web.app/privacy.html
Tibby
Organize your physical book collection by scanning your shelves or individual books. Track your reading progress, set goals, and customize your virtual bookshelf with various themes and decorations. Share your progress and shelf photos with friends.
- Scan physical bookshelf for automatic book entry
- Manual arrangement of books on virtual shelves
- Track reading time, pages, and goals
- Customizable bookshelf themes and decorations
- Import libraries from other apps or spreadsheets
- Home screen widgets for quick access
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A book tracker built around your own bookshelf, with a ginger tabby called Tibby. Scan your shelf, check the matches, and your books land in the order they stand. Then arrange them by hand: lean one, stack a few, leave a gap. Tibby welcomes you and helps you set up your shelf. Add books your way: Scan Your Shelf for a whole row at once, Scan Barcode for one book after another, Search by title, author or ISBN and pick the edition, Say Titles to read out a list, or Type a Book. After a shelf scan you check the matches against your own spines, cut from the photo in the order they stand, then they go straight onto the shelf. Coming from another app? Bring your library over from an export file or a spreadsheet, or share a book's link to Tibby. Pick a scene, or choose the wall, the shelves and the decorations yourself, including your own photos. Keep more than one bookcase, and see your books as a shelf, a list or a grid. Keep track of your reading. Time a reading session in a calm scene made from your shelf's look, with your book under a warm lamp. When you finish, your streak catches, your pages count up and your book fills in on your goal. Or update your page, or tap I Read Today. Set a goal for the next 12 months and keep a streak: one missed day won't break it. A daily reminder comes at the time you choose. In Tibby's Picks, swipe through books Tibby picks for you and save the ones you want to read. The You tab shows your reading by week, month, year and all time: time, pages, books finished, and the books you own against the ones you've read. Each month is a calendar of covers, one for every day you read. Share a picture of your shelf in story, square or wallpaper size, and keep a bookcase on your Home Screen with the widget, in small, medium or large. Tibby works on iPhone and iPad. There's no account to make: your library is saved on your device, and you can export it or save a backup. When you scan a shelf or say titles, an AI service reads the titles from your photo or recording, only if you agree. Your first books go on your shelf before you choose a plan. Full access needs Tibby Pro, a weekly, monthly or yearly subscription. It covers adding more books, arranging the shelf, every look and decoration, more bookcases, importing a library, logging your reading, your goal and saving books from Tibby's Picks. The price and renewal terms show before you buy, and you can cancel any time in your Apple Account settings. Privacy Policy: https://tibbyreads.com/privacy Terms of Use (Apple's standard EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Questions or feedback: hello@tibbyreads.com
Screenshots
Verdict
Papyrus and Tibby 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
Both are free to download. Papyrus sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and Tibby sells 5 in-app purchases, starting at $7.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
| Parameter | Papyrus | Tibby |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 4.6 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 66.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 5 — better |
| Update frequency | — | Every 2 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | — | Freemium |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 20 MB | 132 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Tyler Nam | Appthalmology Inc. |
In-app purchases
Papyrus
- Papyrus_monthly$1.991 Month
- papyrus yearly$14.991 Year
- papyrus lifetime$39.99
Tibby
- Tibby Pro Monthly$7.991 Month
- Tibby Pro Weekly$7.997 Days
- Tibby Pro Yearly$19.991 Year
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- Tibby Pro Yearly7 Days trial$29.991 Year
- Tibby Pro Yearly$29.991 Year









