Toombler vs Heyzine
Heyzine has a generous free tier and lots of features; Toombler keeps it free and embeds straight from the storage you already use. An honest look at both.
Heyzine and Toombler solve the same first problem — a PDF that should read like a book — and then head in different directions. Heyzine is a design tool: it wants you to customise the viewer, add interactive elements, and make the publication feel like a small product. Toombler is deliberately plain: paste a link, get an embed, move on.
The short version
| Toombler | Heyzine | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no ads in your flipbook | Free tier with branding, then paid plans |
| Customising the viewer | A set of switches | Extensive: colours, logo, backgrounds, effects |
| Interactive extras | Links and bookmarks from your PDF | Add video, buttons, hotspots inside the flipbook |
| Where the PDF lives | Your own Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive | Uploaded and hosted |
| Updating | Replace the file; the link stays | Re-upload or edit in their editor |
| Branding on the free tier | No watermark over your pages | Provider branding |
Both products change. Check current plans before deciding on price; what is stable is the difference in approach.
Choose Heyzine when the flipbook is the campaign
If the publication itself is the marketing — a launch lookbook, an interactive brochure with video, a digital magazine where you want a hotspot on every product — then an editor that lets you add those layers is worth having. Toombler will not do that. It shows your PDF, faithfully, and whatever interactivity you want has to already be in the file.
The same goes for appearance. If the viewer has to match a brand down to the background texture and the colour of the page-turn shadow, a tool built for that will get you there faster.
Choose Toombler when the document is routine
Most documents are not campaigns. A menu that changes weekly, a price list, a manual, a programme, a newsletter: these need to be correct, current and readable on a phone. For those, the ability to replace the file in Drive and have every embed update itself matters more than any design feature.
That is the practical difference in daily use. On a hosted platform, updating means uploading again and, depending on the tool, re-embedding. With Toombler the flipbook is a pointer: the file stays yours, the link never changes, and updating a menu takes as long as saving a file.
What you are trading away
Being honest about it: no video inside the flipbook, no clickable hotspots you add afterwards, no theming beyond the settings we offer, and no lead-capture forms. If you need those, you need a different tool, and no amount of free changes that.
What you get instead is that your document is not on someone else's server, that there is no page limit or publication count, and that nothing is gated behind a tier. The trade is deliberate: fewer features, no ceiling.
Interactivity you can have without an editor
Before assuming you need an editor, check what your PDF already carries:
- Links. Anything clickable in the source document stays clickable — to a product page, an email address, a booking form or a map.
- Bookmarks. A PDF outline becomes a table of contents readers can jump around with.
- Real text. If the text is text rather than a picture of text, readers can select and copy it, and search inside the document.
For a catalogue, that covers most of what people actually click. The gap with an interactive editor is narrower than it looks — and it is entirely in your PDF, where you control it.
Switching over
Take the original PDF, put it in Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive, share it so anyone with the link can view it, and create the flipbook. Replace the embed on your site and keep the old one live for a while. If your Heyzine version had elements added inside their editor, those do not travel — rebuild them in the PDF, or accept a simpler document.
Frequently asked questions
Can I add video to a Toombler flipbook?
No. Toombler shows your PDF as it is. Links and bookmarks that are already in the file keep working, but video and hotspots added afterwards are not something we do.
Can I change the look of the viewer?
Within limits: cover style, page-flip sound, table of contents, thumbnails, zoom, fullscreen, auto-play and search are switches you control. Full theming is not available.
Is there a watermark?
No watermark over your pages. The inside cover carries a short “Made with Toombler” page; that is the only addition.
How do I update a document?
Replace the file at its source while keeping the same share link. Every embed shows the new version immediately, with no re-upload.
Is there a page or publication limit?
No. Any number of flipbooks, any number of pages. The practical limit is 100 MB per PDF.
What if I need the interactive features later?
Then a design-led tool is the right choice, and this comparison should not talk you out of it. Plenty of people use both: one for campaigns, one for everything routine.