# Bookends vs PDFGenius

The clearest difference is rating: Bookends at 4.7 against PDFGenius's 4.3. Bookends also leads on review sentiment (76% vs 63%) and update cadence (every 2 months vs every 4 months). PDFGenius's advantage is iOS requirement (15.6 vs 18.6). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model there is nothing between them.

Both are free to download. Bookends sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $14.99 per year and PDFGenius sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

Bookends holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Bookends has 398 ratings behind it against 35, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 76% of Bookends's written reviews are positive against 63% of PDFGenius's.

Bookends ships an update every 2 months, PDFGenius every 4 months. The most recent releases landed on October 12, 2026 and October 7, 2026 respectively.

## The numbers

| Metric | Bookends | PDFGenius |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | **[4.7 (398 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bookends/id739087947/reviews)** | [4.3 (35 ratings)](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pdfgenius/id1194023259/reviews) |
| Number of ratings | **398** | 35 |
| Positive reviews | **76.4% of reviews** | 62.5% of reviews |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Ads | No | No |
| Update frequency | **Every 2 months** | Every 4 months |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Size | 114 MB | 12 MB |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | **15.6** |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | **iPhone, iPad, iPod** |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | [Sonny Software, LLC](https://appshunter.io/developer/417583547) | [RootRise Technologies Pvt. Ltd.](https://appshunter.io/developer/594431033) |

## What reviewers say

### Bookends

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/bookends/id739087947)

Manage your research references and PDFs on your mobile device. Search online databases, import metadata, annotate PDFs, and organize your library. Offers basic functionality for free with optional one-time purchase and yearly subscription for advanced features like cloud sync and unlimited imports.

**Highlights:** Search online reference databases, Import metadata and PDFs, PDF annotation and markup, Barcode scanning for references, Cloud sync across devices, Share online libraries, Create multiple libraries

**Features:** Family Sharing, Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases (2)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Premium | $14.99 | per year |
| Standard | $14.99 | one-time |

**What reviewers like**

- 🚀 Seamless sync across devices
- 👍 Excellent PDF annotation tools
- 🔒 Reliable and stable
- 💡 Powerful reference management features
- 👍 Responsive and helpful developer support

**What reviewers complain about**

- 🐛 Sync issues with iCloud and PDF files
- 🔒 Subscription model for essential features
- 👎 Outdated and clunky user interface
- 🔒 Limited functionality on iOS without subscription

**Reported bugs**

- Incompatibility with iCloud Optimized Storage
- Unreliable sync between desktop and mobile versions
- Occasional data loss or corruption

**Requested features**

- Nested folders and tags for better organization
- Automatic PDF metadata extraction
- Improved search and filtering capabilities
- Seamless integration with third-party services


### PDFGenius

[App page](https://appshunter.io/ios/app/pdfgenius/id1194023259)

This app offers a comprehensive suite of tools for manipulating PDF documents. It allows users to combine, split, compress, convert PDFs to images, extract pages, and edit content like inserting, deleting, and reordering pages. Advanced features include password protection, page cropping, and text extraction.

**Highlights:** Combine multiple PDFs, Split PDFs by various criteria, Compress PDF file size, Convert PDF to images (JPG, PNG, TIFF), Extract text from PDFs, Edit pages (insert, delete, reorder, rotate, crop), Add/remove password security

**Features:** Vision Pro support

**In-app purchases (3)**

| Purchase | Price | Billing |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Premium : Monthly Access | $0.99 | per month |
| Premium : Yearly Access | $6.99 | per year |
| Premium : Lifetime Access | $9.99 | one-time |


## Frequently asked questions

### Is Bookends free?

Bookends is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Is PDFGenius free?

PDFGenius is free to download, with in-app purchases available.

### Which has better reviews, Bookends or PDFGenius?

Bookends is rated higher. Bookends averages 4.7 out of 5 from 398 ratings, while PDFGenius averages 4.3 from 35 ratings.

### Do Bookends or PDFGenius have ads?

Neither Bookends nor PDFGenius shows ads.

### Which is updated more often, Bookends or PDFGenius?

Bookends ships an update every 2 months, and PDFGenius every 4 months. Most recently, Bookends was updated on October 12, 2026 and PDFGenius on October 7, 2026.

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*Compared by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/) from daily US App Store data. Review summaries are generated from verbatim App Store reviews.*