Booklover vs shelff
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Booklover
Organize and read a vast collection of eBooks, including PDFs, manga, and scanned books. Seamlessly sync with iCloud Drive and customize your reading experience with advanced reader settings and library management tools.
- Manage and view eBooks (PDF, ZIP/CBZ, RAR/CBR)
- iCloud Drive syncing
- Organize books by genre and bibliographic details
- Powerful search and Library Navigator
- Customizable reader settings
- Bookmarks and PDF annotations
- Support for archived image files
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Booklover is a highly responsive and robust eBook reader. It excels at handling PDFs, manga, and scanned books. The metadata-driven library management system makes it easy to organize and enjoy a large collection of books in PDF, ZIP/CBZ, and RAR/CBR formats. Seamlessly integrated with iCloud Drive, books in the iCloud Drive/Booklover folder automatically appear in the app’s library and can be downloaded on demand. In the library, you can organize books by genres and arrange them using various bibliographic details such as title, author, publisher, and more. With the search field and powerful Library Navigator, you can quickly locate a book among thousands in your collection. Customize your reading experience with settings for each book, including page layout, transition axis and style, cropping, filters, progress direction, background, and more. Booklover supports bookmarks with titles and notes, as well as PDF text annotations (highlights), text search, and a table of contents. Main Features: # General • Manage and view eBooks (PDF, ZIP/CBZ, RAR/CBR) • Support for archived image files in JPG, PNG, GIF, HEIF, WEBP, AVIF, and JPEG XL formats • Automatic syncing of book files placed in iCloud Drive/Booklover. On-demand caching (download) of the remote files • Import files via iTunes (Windows), Finder (Mac), AirDrop, Drag & Drop, "Open with..." etc. • Import files via apps from various cloud storage services, such as Dropbox and OneDrive, as well as other services accessible through the iOS Files app. • Slide Over / Split View (iPad) • Hardware keyboard support (mainly in the reader) # Library • Section books by genre (ON/OFF) • The Library Navigator (ON/OFF) • Histories of added and opened books • Context Menu for individual books (long-press a book cover) • Change sort order: By Title, Author, Publisher, Filename, Added Date, etc. • Alphanumeric Index Labels (ON/OFF) • Toggle display of cover accessories • Adjust cover grid size • Responsive Shadow (shows page volume with shadow) • Filter books by Status, Genre, Tags, etc. • Search books by various bibliographic details, file name, and tags # Reader • PDF text annotations (highlights) with notes, text search, and a table of contents • Bookmarks with titles and notes • Lists of bookmarks and PDF annotations • Page transition settings: Axis (Horizontal, Vertical), Style (Scroll, Continuous Scroll, Stack, Crossfade, Zoom fade, Instant) • Progress direction setting: Left to Right, Right to Left (for vertical text, manga, Arabic, etc.) • Page layout setting: Automatic, Single-Page, Two-Pages (spread) • Separate page layout settings for view orientation (Portrait / Landscape) • Page trimming (for images only) • Page sizing: Show All, Width-Fit, Height-Fit • Page thumbnail view (overview, bookmarks) • Image correction filters • Dynamic background (When the "Background Color" option for a book is set to "Dynamic") • Adjust page spread position (Insert adjuster page at the beginning of the book body) • Text recognition within images (with compatible devices only) • Export (share) the currently displayed page # Book Management • Edit metadata: Title, Author, Genre, Publisher, Published Date, ISBN, etc. • Edit Tags (Can be used as filter criteria in the side menu) • Extract metadata (title/author) from PDFs • Extract various metadata from file names with configurable extraction rules • Automatic/Manual cropping of book covers • Batch modification of book settings and metadata • Transfer book files: "Open with...", AirDrop, Drag & Drop, etc. • Can manage the content files and data separately ("Ghost Book") ——————————————— # Acknowledgments [Books used in the screenshots] • "Give My Regards to Black Jack" by SHUHO SATO (Manga on Web: http://mangaonweb.com) • Public domain books from Feedbooks (http://www.feedbooks.com) • Public domain comics from digitalcomicmuseum.com (http://digitalcomicmuseum.com)
shelff
This app provides a dedicated reading experience for PDF documents stored in iCloud. It offers robust organization tools, including folders, tags, and collections, along with a full-text search capability. Users can also manage PDF metadata and highlight content with comments.
- iCloud PDF management
- Organize with folders and tags
- Full-text search
- Highlighting with comments
- Metadata editing
- Customizable reading layouts
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shelff is a bookshelf for the books you own as PDFs — technical books, scanned books, DRM-free ebooks. One-time purchase, no subscription, no account. And no ads. Everything lives in your iCloud Documents. You are never locked into a proprietary database. Metadata is saved as JSON files alongside your PDFs, so even if you stop using the app, your data remains yours. ■ Library - Organize with folders or browse in a flat list - Filter by categories and tags - Group multi-volume works and magazine back issues into collections, with custom ordering - Sort by title, author, date added, or last read - Filter by reading status (unread, reading, finished) - Full-text search across your PDFs - Switch between grid and list views ■ PDF Reader - Immersive full-screen reader - Single page, two-up, and two-up with cover layouts - Left-to-right (LTR) and right-to-left (RTL) support - Highlights with optional comments - Jump from table of contents or annotation list - In-document text search - Crop margins per book, with mirrored or separate settings for facing pages and optional cover exclusion - Brightness adjustment - Encrypted PDFs supported ■ Metadata Management - Edit title, author, publisher, publication date, and more - Auto-extract initial values from PDF metadata - Automatic reading status transitions (starts reading, finishes at last page) ■ Siri, Shortcuts, and Spotlight - Open a book, continue reading, or change reading status from Siri and Shortcuts - Find and open books in your library from Spotlight ■ Data Transparency - All data stored as files in iCloud Documents - Metadata and display settings (layout, crop, etc.) in JSON; annotations in the PDF itself - Annotations are saved as incremental updates, so existing content such as OCR text layers in scanned books stays intact - Accessible anytime from the Files app - On your Mac, an AI agent with shelff-mcp can search and organize the metadata JSON in your iCloud
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: shelff at every 4 days against Booklover's every 2 weeks. shelff also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 87%). Booklover's advantage is price ($3.99 vs $6.99). On ads, in-app purchases, monetization model and chart position 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
Booklover costs $3.99 and shelff $6.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Booklover ships an update every 2 weeks, shelff every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Booklover | shelff |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $6.99 |
| Rating | 4.6 (57 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 87.3% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 57 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 4 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Best chart rank | #127 | #72 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 22 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Plastic Software, Inc. | Satoshi Kojima |
Customer experience
Booklover
shelff
In-app purchases
Booklover
No in-app purchases
shelff
No in-app purchases









