MapleRead SE vs EPUB Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
MapleRead SE
This app offers a unique audio-visual reading experience for EPUB and PDF files. It allows for extensive customization of book styles, instant audiobook generation, and immersive reading that syncs audio and text. It also functions as an effective library management tool with cross-device syncing.
- Audio-visual reading experience
- EPUB and PDF reader
- Pseudo audiobook generation
- Immersion reading (audio/text sync)
- Library management and organization
- Cross-device syncing
- User-defined customization
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MapleRead is dedicated to enable unique audio-visual reading experience for everyone. ------------ Our MapleRead app family has 3 members, namely SE, CE and CX. - SE is our flagship product with all features. - CE is SE without PDF reader and built-in Library Server. - CX is CE with some limitation. Free to try. - No recurring subscription fees. No ads. Just buy it once. Gratuity optional. - Moreover, SE and CE can be run side-by-side via split-view multitasking. - Recommend SE for use on multiple devices with easy and fast book sharing via Library Server. - Recommend the SE-CE bundle for the best value. ------------ MapleRead includes a superb audio-visual EPUB e-book reader. - It lets you easily modify publisher's original book style to better suit your aesthetic taste. - It lets you instantly generate pseudo audiobooks with a choice of narrator voices over 40 languages. - It enables immersion reading so that you may read and listen to the same book in sync. - Background listening works well too. Compatible with Lock Screen Music Player and CarPlay. MapleRead UI is friendly to users of all ages. - Books can be read in regular and large print. - A choice of UI text sizes makes reading in non-book views much more comfortable. MapleRead is a great learning tool. - It lets you look up words, translate sentences, search text, highlight text and write notes. - It helps you collect vocabulary and organize notes with various priorities. - It provides hooks to user-defined dictionaries, translators, and other tools. - Immersion reading improves your comprehension, especially of foreign-language books. MapleRead is an effective and fast library management tool. - It is designed for you, a book lover, who may own a huge and/or growing book collection. - It lets you keep all your books in one place and well-organized automatically. - It lets you display your books elegantly in style. - It lets you easily repair individual book metadata. - If supports multiple book sets and multiple tags. - It offers multiple ways to import and export books, and works well with Calibre. MapleRead supports secure sync across devices via MapleRead Cloud and iCloud. - It syncs reading positions, notes, vocab, bookmarks, and book set membership (but not the books). - It syncs reading positions additionally via iCloud for even better user experience. - It enables web access to synced data via web browsers from desktop and mobile devices. MapleRead offers unprecedented user-defined customization options. - They include unlimited user-defined fonts, book themes, cover images and library scenes. - Each book theme includes various types of user-defined highlight colors. - Each book can have its own theme, and each EPUB book can have its own style. MapleRead SE includes also a great PDF e-book reader. - The PDF reader looks very similar to the EPUB reader for a sense of unified UI. MapleRead SE has a zero-configuration Library Server for easy book sharing. - All books in Library can be shared. - Smart batch download makes transferring of multiple books very convenient. [For more technical details, screenshots, FAQ and reviews, please visit our website.]
EPUB Reader
Customize your reading experience with extensive font and layout options. Effortlessly manage your library, track reading habits, and enjoy eye-care features. Sync your books across devices via cloud storage without proprietary lock-in.
- 200+ built-in fonts and custom font import
- Adjustable text and layout settings
- Smart dark mode with intelligent image inversion
- 20-20-20 eye health reminders
- Library management for 5,000+ books
- Cloud sync via iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive
- Highlighting, notes, and bookmarking
- Reading progress tracking and goal setting
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EPUB, PDF, comics, and audiobooks in one native iOS reader. Fast, deeply customizable, and built to disappear so you can simply read. FOUR FORMATS, ONE SHELF Read EPUB 3 and PDF. Read CBZ and CBR comics and manga, with two-page spreads, double-tap zoom, and a reading direction you set per book. Listen to audiobooks with chapters, a sleep timer, Car Mode, and CarPlay. Or follow along with EPUB 3 narration, where the text highlights in time with the voice. READ ALOUD Any book can be read to you, by any Apple voice on your device or by natural neural voices in 31 languages that you download once and then run offline. The sentence highlights as it is spoken and the pages turn on their own, with speed presets, sentence skips, a sleep timer, and Lock Screen controls. Prepare a book in advance and keep listening with the screen off. TYPOGRAPHY YOU CONTROL 200+ fonts, or import your own. Tune size, weight, line and paragraph spacing, alignment, hyphenation, and separate margins for portrait and landscape. Save settings per book so a novel, a textbook, and poetry each look right. Build your own color themes and let them switch at sunset. Choose which buttons the reader toolbar shows and where a tap opens it, and give links their own color and style. Smart dark mode keeps images natural, and in-reader brightness, Line Focus, and eye-care break reminders protect your eyes. NO LOCK-IN, EVER Your books stay ordinary files in an ordinary folder, never a proprietary database. Point justread at any folder: on device, iCloud Drive, or one your cloud app syncs through Files. Import from a Calibre server or any OPDS catalog. Email a book to your Kindle or PocketBook. IN SYNC WITH YOUR E-READER Your reading position follows you to any e-reader running KOReader, a Kobo included, in both directions. Connect a self-hosted Grimmory server to browse and download its books, send books to it, and keep status, ratings, highlights, notes, and bookmarks in step both ways. A LIBRARY THAT SCALES Thousands of books with no lag, and a book opens in about a second. Instant search by title, author, or series. Automatic metadata and series detection, 11 sort modes, saved filters, collections, and tags. Edit any book's details by hand, description included. Spotlight opens any book from your home screen. HIGHLIGHTS, NOTES, BOOKMARKS Highlight, underline, and attach a note. Browse every highlight across your whole library in one place, share a quote as a card, or export to Markdown, PDF, or Readwise. YOUR READING, IN NUMBERS Daily goals, a yearly books goal, streaks, and milestone badges. An hourly heatmap shows when you read best. Monthly and yearly recaps, plus a story-style Reading Wrap that turns your year into cards worth sharing. AND THE REST Home screen and lock screen widgets. Dictionary and translation. Full-text search and a nested table of contents. iCloud sync, so you resume on the exact line on any device. Right-to-left and Japanese vertical text. A page curl, if you want one. Free for 14 days, then a subscription or a lifetime purchase, both with Family Sharing. Available in 18 languages. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://justread.app/en/privacy_policy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: EPUB Reader at Free against MapleRead SE's $8.99. EPUB Reader also leads on rating (4.7 vs 4.1) and update cadence (every 5 days vs every 2 months). MapleRead SE's advantage is chart position (#192 vs unranked) and ratings volume (125 vs 36). On ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
EPUB Reader is free to download; MapleRead SE costs $8.99 up front. MapleRead SE sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and EPUB Reader sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
EPUB Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.1. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 125 and 36 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 68% of MapleRead SE's written reviews are positive against 89% of EPUB Reader's.
MapleRead SE ships an update every 2 months, EPUB Reader every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | MapleRead SE | EPUB Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $8.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.1 (125 ratings) | 4.7 (36 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 68.3% of reviews | 88.9% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 125 — better | 36 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Best chart rank | #192 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 18.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 30 MB | 124 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Maplepop LLC | PETR JAHODA |
Customer experience
MapleRead SE
EPUB Reader
Bugs and requests
MapleRead SE
Reported bugs
3 issues- Freezing and crashing issues, especially on iOS 14
- Inconsistent behavior when switching between portrait and landscape modes
- Unreliable OPDS server integration and book downloads
Requested features
5 requests- Automatic reading progress sync across devices
- Improved PDF handling and annotation support
- Expanded highlighting and note-taking capabilities
- Streamlined library import and management
- Cleaner and more intuitive user interface
EPUB Reader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
MapleRead SE
- Gratuity Level 1$0.99
- Gratuity Level 2$1.99
- Gratuity Level 5$4.99
EPUB Reader
- Monthly Premium14 Days trial$2.991 Month
- Monthly: Read Aloud Offline$4.991 Month
- Yearly – Launch Price7 Days trial$12.491 Year
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- Yearly Premium14 Days trial$24.991 Year
- Yearly: Highlights & Notes$29.991 Year
- Lifetime – Launch Price$29.99
- Lifetime: Library & Kindle$79.99





