Finding the right e-book reader apps (also called eReaders) can be difficult. There are a variety of e-book types, plenty of file formats to deal with, and then there are different kinds of books (novels, comics, etc) that make the whole experience a little complicated. However, with the right app, you can turn any phone or tablet into an e-book reader fairly easily.
Additionally, the technology has kind of plateaued a little bit. Thus, e-book reader apps are about as good as they’ve ever been, and we don’t see them getting much better without some serious innovation in the future. The good news is that whatever you pick should last you a good long time as long as the developer remains active. Here are the best e-book reader apps for Android.
The best e-book reader apps for Android
Aldiko Book Reader
Price: Free / $4.99
Aldiko Book Reader is one of the older e-book reader apps. It’s also a great simple option for those who need it. It features support for EPUB, PDF, and Adobe DRM encrypted e-books as well as e-book support for library books on rental. The app also comes with a clean, if somewhat antiquated interface, customization options, phone and tablet support, and global text searches inside of books. The free version comes with ads. The paid version does not. Otherwise, they’re basically the same.
AIReader
Price: Free / Up to $9.72
AIReader is one of the newer e-book reader apps, comparatively speaking. It also supports much older versions of Android. That’s becoming a bit rarer these days. The app also supports most common e-book formats, including EPUB (no DRM), RTF, MOBI, PRC, and many others. The interface comes with customization options, auto-scrolling, page-turning animations, and various view modes for your comfort. The app is free to use, but you can buy one of the various donation versions if you want to. They range from $0.99 to $9.72.
Amazon Kindle
Price: Free / Book costs vary
Amazon Kindle is one of the obvious e-book reader apps. It has one of the largest and most consistent e-book stores on the internet. Additionally, the app has a ton of reading features, cross-device syncing, and even a large collection of free books. The UI is riddled with ads. However, the actual book reading part is free of any such nonsense. There are also a variety of customization settings while reading. It’s a rock-solid option for book availability alone. You can also download books for offline use if needed.
Barnes & Noble Nook
Price: Free / Book costs vary
Nook is yet another competitor to Amazon, Kobo, and Google Play Books. Unlike most, this one actually has physical book locations. You can visit Barnes&Noble, the parent company of Nook. The eReader is about as standard as it gets. It comes with customized reading options as well as support for books, comic books, manga, and more. Like most, it also offers cross-device syncing. It even supports magazines and newspapers. It’s a rock-solid experience, actually.
FBReader
Price: Free / $5.99
FBReader is another older eReader app. Like Aldiko, it’s a great option for most basic use cases. That includes support for AZW3, EPUB (up to EPUB3), fb2, RTF, HTML, and even plain text documents. It uses a proprietary Google Drive cloud service to sync books between your devices. We also really liked the UI. It’s a bit old, but it’s effective and easy on the eyes. It even has gesture support. For now, anyway, the app is entirely free to use.
Foxit PDF Reader
Price: Free / $0.99
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Foxit is one of the most popular PDF reader apps. It’s a good mixture of productivity and reading. The app supports basically all types of PDF files. Additionally, it offers annotation features, form-filling features, and ConnectedPDF for privacy. For reading, it can read PDFs out loud and also supports audio and video stuff. It has probably the best cross-platform support of any eReader or PDF app. You can find Foxit on Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, and Android. That’s the big five!
FullReader
Price: Free / Optional donations
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
FullReader (formerly FReader) is a popular and modern e-book reader app. It supports a wide range of e-book file types as well as less popular ones like CBR and CBZ (comic books) plus MP3 for audiobooks. The UI is classic Material Design and the app layout is simple enough for almost everybody. Some more power-user features include cloud backup support with Google Drive and Dropbox, an AMOLED dark mode, and a translator that works with 95 languages. The app is entirely free as far as we can tell. There are optional donations if you want to support development.
Google Play Books
Price: Free / Book costs vary
Google Play Books is a competitor to e-book reader apps like Amazon Kindle and Barnes&Noble Nook. It’s a virtual bookstore. The selections include books, magazines, and all sorts of other stuff. It supports several e-book formats, comic book formats, and other types of e-book formats. You can even upload your books to the cloud and read them anywhere. That gives you a really good storage option that you can access on any device with an internet connection. Some other features include book rentals, a Rapid Skim Mode, and a Quick Bookmarks feature. The app is free, but many of the books cost money.
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
Kobo Books is another online bookstore like Amazon, Nook, and Google Play Books. The app is extremely basic. It seems like all it can do is read purchased books from the service. However, the service does support both audiobooks and normal e-books. Other features include cross-device syncing, downloading for offline use, and a Night Mode for late-night reading. The discovery features are actually pretty decent as well. The app is free to download. Books cost money, obviously.
Moon+ Reader
Price: Free / $4.99
Moon+ Reader is definitely one of the best e-book reader apps out there. It supports a wide range of e-book formats, including EPUB, PDF, MOBI, most comic book formats, and more. It even has OPDS support. The app also includes over ten themes, gesture controls, auto-scrolling, EPUB3 support, and cross-device syncing via Dropbox. It’s one of those eReader apps that has all the right bells and whistles. You can remove ads for $4.99.
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
OverDrive is an excellent e-book reader and it’s not because it supports your current library. OverDrive connects you to your local library and you can actually borrow e-books you don’t own for free, just like you can at your local library. It includes some neat features like no late fees, and it’ll remember where you left off next time you read. It doesn’t have a lot of the power user features of other e-book readers. However, it is one of the truly great and legal sources of free e-books. You can try out the official app (linked at the button below) or Libby (Google Play link), which does the same thing in a slightly different way.
Ploter is an up-and-coming ebook reader app. It’s a cloud library that contains your ebooks. It works similarly to YouTube Music or Apple Music. You upload your ebooks to the service and access them from the app wherever you are as long as you have an Internet connection. It works with most ebook and audiobook formats. It also works cross-platform with Windows and Kobo branded ebook readers.
You get 500MB of free storage, which the developer estimates are around 200 ebooks worth. They plan to add premium tiers with more storage later on, but it hasn’t launched yet as of the time of this writing. It’s new, so there are bugs, but we like the idea, and we hope the app does well in the future.
PocketBook Reader
Price: Free
PocketBook is another one of the older e-book reader apps. Don’t let that fool you, though. This app has enough features to justify its existence here. That includes support for most common e-book file types, comic books, and even Adobe DRM and PDF. You can highlight text, export notes, lock your screen orientation, and more. There is also OPDS support for those who need it. The highlight of this one is its price. There aren’t a ton of completely free e-book readers these days and this app is easily among the best in that category.
Prestigio Book Reader
Price: Free / $2.99 / Up to $100.99
Prestigio changes its name almost every year. However, it’s still one of the better e-book reader apps. The app supports over 25 languages, text-to-speech functionality, and 50,000 books available for download. Additionally, the app can sync across devices (account required). Some other features include a Night Mode, various customization options, and a decently modern UI. The app is free. You can remove ads for a single $2.99 in-app purchase. There is also an optional donation button for $1, $5, $10, $50, and $100 in case you want to support development.
Joe Hindy / Android Authority
ReadEra is a surprisingly popular e-book reader app. It has all of the basics, including various reading modes along with support for PDF, EPUB, WORD, MOBI, FB2, DJVU, TXT, and the super rare CHM formats. It doesn’t require any services or anything like that. There is also a split-screen mode where you can read multiple books or documents at the same time. However, we really only recommend that on larger screen phones or tablets. This one is surprisingly good, easy to use, and the UI looks nice. We’re also relatively certain this one is entirely free.
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