Three apps, one reading engine

A nightstand, a shelf, a library.

One reader, three ways to keep your books.

What you choose here is not the reading — that part is the same in all three — but what stands around it. So the question is not which app reads better. It is how many books you keep, and what you do with them.

Reading one book at a time, downloading the next when you have finished the last? JustReader. Keeping a month ahead on a shelf and finding the next one in an OPDS catalogue? PlainReader. A real collection — hundreds or thousands of volumes, read across several devices? ContinuousReader. The reading core is the same in all of them; what changes is how the books are kept.

An isometric reading room: one book open on the desk, a shelf of books on the wall, and a full bookcase A bookFree A shelf$6.99 A library$19.99
One room, three ways to read in it. Each app does only what it is meant to do, and does not try to compete with the other two on their own ground.
JustReader · free

The nightstand.

One book at a time. Open a file, read it, close it. There is no library, no shelf and nothing to file — the book you are reading is the whole app.

Pick it if
  • One book at a timeNo shelf, no library — and nothing to file.
  • Someone sent you an EPUBIt opens straight away and reads properly.
  • Trying the engineIt is all here. If you later want more room, there is a level up — and only if you decide it is worth it.
  • You come back to booksA week later, a month later — the book opens where you closed it.

Free, with no trial period and the reader complete: every reading feature here is exactly the one the bigger apps have.

JustReader on the App Store

JustReader on iPad: one book on the screen — its cover, progress, and chapters and bookmarks one tap away
iPad · English
PlainReader · $6.99 once

The shelf.

A shelf with dividers: up to 999 books in named, coloured, foldable categories. Not a library to maintain — and every book on it keeps its own page open.

Pick it if
  • Several books at onceA novel, a manual and the one you fell asleep in — each in its own place, with its own open page.
  • Just enough orderNamed, coloured dividers and a filter over the whole shelf — no folders inside folders, no genres or series, no sync: that is what a library adds.
  • The whole readerEvery theme, every mode, translation and Read Aloud — nothing withheld.
  • Books from cataloguesOPDS is built in: found and downloaded with one button. An author worth following? A series still running? Leave a shortcut in the catalogue and come back to it.

A shelf answers a question a nightstand never raises: what am I reading tomorrow, and what am I coming back to after that?

PlainReader on the App Store

PlainReader on iPad: the shelf down the side in coloured categories, the chosen book open beside it
iPad · English
ContinuousReader · $19.99 once

The library.

Everything is here, and somewhere to put it: folders, colours, genres and series, search across every book at once, and watchers that keep an eye on OPDS catalogues for new arrivals. And a reading position that follows you from the Mac to the iPhone mid-paragraph.

Pick it if
  • Hundreds of booksFolders, colours, genres, series — and a global search through the full text of every book, its annotations and your notes. The one you want takes a second.
  • More than one deviceThe same book and the same paragraph on Mac, iPad and iPhone, both ways.
  • An old collection of a thousand booksMass import takes the whole folder in one go: every candidate is shown before a byte is written, and duplicates come marked in advance.
  • You read seriouslyBuild the reader you want: notes on the left, bookmarks on the right, navigation across the top. Panels that dock, windows that float, a key for everything.

The one to use when reading is not an occasional pastime but a real part of your life.

ContinuousReader on the App Store

ContinuousReader on the Mac: the library as a sortable table, the folder tree beside it, the info panel and a book card open
Mac · English
In all three

The same reading.

The part you actually spend your evening in is literally the same in all three — not three similar readers but one. Whichever you start with, and whenever you change the shell around it, there is nothing to get used to again.

Changing the shell means moving books, not learning an app. There is no upgrade path between them: each is its own purchase, and each is bought once. Your reading settings do travel, though — all of them, in one .crsettings file.

Which one is yours?

The prices, the full comparison and the App Store links are all on one page.

See all three Or read what the engine does