Booklover vs MDNovel
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)
MDNovel
This app offers a professional Markdown writing space with split-screen functionality and immersive reading features. It supports Markdown and Mermaid charts, smart chapter parsing, and secure cloud sync. Personalize your bookshelf with custom covers and enjoy data freedom with easy export options.
- Split-screen writing
- Markdown and Mermaid support
- Smart chapter parsing
- 3D page curl animations
- Ultra-fast search
- Native cloud sync
- Fail-safe background save
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The epic evolution of MDNovel is here! It is no longer just an ultimate reading app, but a professional-grade Markdown creation space tailored for you. Whether you are a novel enthusiast or a writer needing to jot down inspiration and build world settings on the go, MDNovel delivers an unparalleled experience. Professional Writing Workspace Split-Screen Writing: Optimized for large screens! Open your outline or lorebook on the left while typing immersively on the right. Typewriter Mode: Keep your typing cursor perfectly centered on the screen. Maintain a comfortable viewing angle and stay focused on your story. Markdown & Mermaid Support: Render beautiful Markdown text and natively generate Mermaid charts. Creating character relationship maps and story timelines has never been easier. Smart Export Compilation: Merge an entire folder into a single file with one tap. Flexibly exclude folders like drafts, outlines, or settings from your final manuscript. Immersive Reading Experience Smart Chapter Parser: Our top-tier parsing engine perfectly identifies chapters and volumes across multiple languages (English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean). It instantly assembles hundreds of loose files into a well-structured book with a table of contents. Realistic 3D Page Curl: Enjoy physical-book-like page-turning animations. Customize your experience with Light, Dark, and Parchment themes, along with adjustable font sizes and line spacing. Ultra-Fast Search: Instantly search keywords across hundreds of thousands of words, with highlighted context snippets for easy reference. Custom Book Covers: Personalize your bookshelf by choosing cover images directly from your photo library. Top-Tier Data Security Fail-Safe Background Save: Extreme background retention ensures your hard work is safely written to local storage even if the system unexpectedly terminates the app. Native Cloud Sync: Fully integrated with the system's file ecosystem, automatically keeping your novels synced across all your devices. No More Mojibake: Our exclusive multi-encoding engine automatically detects and decodes UTF-8, GBK, Big5, and Shift-JIS, rescuing older text files from unreadable characters. Data Freedom: Your words belong to you. Export your work anytime and share it anywhere. No data lock-in. If you love the new MDNovel, please take a minute to leave us a review. Your support means the world to independent developers!
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Booklover at 87% against MDNovel's 0%. Booklover also leads on ratings volume (57 vs 1) and price ($3.99 vs $8.49). MDNovel's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.6). On update cadence, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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 MDNovel $8.49 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
MDNovel holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Booklover has 57 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 87% of Booklover's written reviews are positive against 0% of MDNovel's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Booklover ships an update every 2 weeks, MDNovel every 10 days. Both last shipped on October 18, 2026.
| Parameter | Booklover | MDNovel |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $3.99 — better | $8.49 |
| Rating | 4.6 (57 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 87.1% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 57 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 10 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Paid |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 18.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Plastic Software, Inc. | Li'er (Qingdao) Software Development Co., Ltd. |
Customer experience
Booklover
MDNovel
In-app purchases
Booklover
No in-app purchases
MDNovel
No in-app purchases









