Top 8 Reading Apps to Rediscover Your Love for Reading

Discover the top 8 reading apps to find the books you need quickly, join community discussions, and build healthy reading habits. 

The e-book market is projected to grow 1.44% yearly from US$14.61bn in 2024 to US$15.69bn in 2029. What does this mean?

A reader of tomorrow will face a wider selection of digitized literature and a high chance of missing something unique.

Yet, following ambitions is simpler with a proper choice of a reading app.

In this article, we shall speak about the eight most popular and high-quality reading apps for a modern reader:

You’ll discover: 

• A general overview of every reading app

• The benefits and downsides of every item in the review

• Special features of good reading apps

Let’s get started!

eReading: Market Overview

If you were to give a reading app market overview, you could do it in three simple words: everything is growing.

This refers to

• the percentage of people using reading apps (grown from 17% in 2011 to more than 30% now)

• revenue of the eBooks market worldwide (from US$14.6 billion in 2024 to US$15.69bn in 2029)

•  overall online reading market size (expected to grow at 7.6% by 2028 and reach US$ 6.26 billion – a double increase from 2020: US$3.76 billion)

• Number of people with there-is-an-app-for-everything philosophy (mobile app downloads have risen from 140.68 billion in 2016 to 257 billion in 2023)

• Number of users preferring e-reading (projected to reach 1.2 billion in 2029)

What do these numbers mean for an average reader?

The answer is simple: to avoid getting lost in the growing pool of e-books, apps, and readers, one should select simple and effective tools to satisfy literary cravings.

Therefore, we have prepared this overview of the eight most popular book-reading apps that follow.

App #1: Headway

Overview: Headway is a habit-building reading app tailored to help readers rediscover the joy of reading. Its features are oriented to streamline the book selection, reading, and completion. What is more critical, ​​​​​​​​15-minutes audio summaries of books let you make a reading list for the evening right through the daily routines. Therefore, it is one of the best reading apps for completing your reading goals on-the-go.

Key Features: 

• Progress tracking and reading challenge

• Content and gamified reading challenges tailored to different categories, like Wealth or Healthy Relationship

• Daily quote for microlearning

• Turn favorite quotes into flashcards

• Audio versions of ​​​​​​​​book summaries

Pros: Headway is loved for its unique and fresh approach to reading, an instrument of personal growth and skill training. Other perks include:

• Huge library of books

• User-friendly interface

• Hands-free reading experience

Cons: There’s no integration with ReadWise or Notion

Ideal User Profile: Headway offers a perfect escape from informational overload to those who love reading but get tired of seeking quality titles to curb literary cravings. It is also for busy professionals, looking  for continuous learning and developing new skills.

App #2: Amazon Kindle

Overview: Kindle is one of the free reading apps, boasting 850,000 books in stock. It shares the interface of the popular Kindel readers, making the features available on phones and tablets.

Key Features

• Customizations: quickly change the font, color, text size, and other attributes

• Mark up and annotate text passages.

• Enhanced search: X-ray feature to get details on characters, search for specific text, dictionary, and Wikipedia lookup

• Audible narration

• Progress tracking

Pros: 

• Vast selection of titles (4 million)

• Synchronization with Goodreads

• The shorts section offers book snippets

Cons: Some Kindle functionality lags and crashes, which is a sin for even the best reading apps. Other cons include:

• Customizations lost after updates

• Some features are not user-friendly

• The library is limited unless you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription

• Kindle Unlimited is available in 12 countries only.

Ideal User Profile: The reading app offers the most profound features and selection of items for Amazon Prime subscribers. It is also great for people who love to read multiple titles simultaneously and have a long history of using Goodreads.

App #3: Goodreads

Overview: Goodreads is one of the oldest book-reading apps. The service launched in 2006. In a year, the site had 650,000 members and 10,000,000 books uploaded. The first iPhone app was launched in 2010, and a year later, the Android app was released.

Key Features:

• Messaging, shared reviews, groups

• Personalization

• Shared reading lists

• Ability to borrow books

• Scan book covers to find and review books

Pros: Because Amazon bought the app, it inherits Amazon’s personalization algorithms. Other pros include:

• “Readers Also Enjoyed” section

• Enhanced recommendations

• Interact with the review lists of your friends

• Progress tracking

Cons: at the same time, the app lacks high-tech updates, like text-to-speech. Other cons are:

• Bad-faith stalk reviews

• The interface feels a bit clunky and not intuitive

• Lack of customization: no dark mode

Ideal User Profile: This reading app is perfect for people who wish to share their reading challenges and discuss books in a community.

App #4: Libby

Overview: Libby presents itself as a library reading app with 10 million downloads, stressing its focus on book lending instead of selling. It shares Overdrive’s e-book management system and functionality.

Key Features: 

• Search by titles, topic collections

• Lending features, extend lend, preview books for lend

• Streaming: stream books to a phone or a tablet to save space

• Notifications

• Customizations: dark or light mode, text position, text size, background color, book design

• Sleep timer and play speed adjust for audio player

• Read-along feature (play audio recordings of some books as you read).

Pros: Libby is loved for its user-friendly interface. Other perks are:

• Cost-effective

• Curated content

• Offline mode

Cons: Literature selection is limited by library content

Ideal User Profile: Libby is one of the best free book-reading apps, perfect for readers with a library subscription, as Libby is a special app for the Overdrive book-sharing program, which has a large base of libraries participating.

App #5: Wattpad

Overview: Wattpad is a GenZer-oriented reading app boasting a vast audience of readers and writers in this age category. It invites its users to read and submit their own writing.

Key Features

• Shared reading lists

• Offline support

• New titles alerts

• Synchronization across devices

Pros:

• A friendly community of co-spirited readers

• User-friendly interface

Cons: too many ads.

Ideal User Profile: Wattpad is one of the best free reading apps for adults and teenagers who wish to share their reading experiences, discuss and vote for favorite books, or contribute to the creation of new ones.

App #6: Apple Books

Overview: Apple Books is a great general reading app featuring millions of titles, including some of the rarest historical ones.

Key Features:

• Audio Player

• Curated collections

• Personalization

• Progress tracker and reading goals

• iCloud synchronization

• Trending e-books

Pros: Apple Books is recognized for flawless functionality. People also like:

• No limits to the number of books you add to the library

• Doesn’t need a monthly subscription

• Integration with Siri

Cons: not available for Android

Ideal User Profile: this reading app is perfect for Apple users, as it works best within the Apple ecosystem.

App #7: Kobo by Rakuten

Overview: Kobo is among the best online reading apps, trendy in Canada and France. It features 5 million e-books from the Kobo store and will let you upload your content.

Key Features:

• Enhanced sort and filtering functionality

• Notes, highlights, lookups

• Intuitive audio-player

• Screen customization options (orientation, night mode, text style, and size)

• Synchronizing between different devices

Pros:

• User-friendly interface: one tap to toggle between books and audio

• Crisp design

• Multi-language support: English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Dutch, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, or Japanese

• Books are updated every hour

Cons:

• No offline mode

• Customizations and downloads lost at updates

• No progress tracker

• Slow customer service

Ideal User Profile: A reading app like Kobo is perfect for ardent, consistent readers tracking loyalty programs and discounts. The app has an excellent system of awarding points for regular users.

App #8: Google Play Books

Overview: The app stores the largest collection of new releases and classic books. It is available for iOS and Android, and there is a web version as well. Google Play Books is one of the most popular free reading apps, with over 1 billion downloads and a rich feature set, including AI integrations.

Key Features

• Offline mode support

• Various formats: Supports PDFs and EPUBs

• Synchronization: Bookmarks, reading positions, and notes get synced with all the signed-in devices

• Enhanced search: lookup works in dictionary, Wikipedia, web, or within book text

• Customization: change fonts, sizes, color themes

• Text-to-Speech: listen to book text.

Pros:

• AI-based audio-narration of almost all titles

• User-friendly interface

Cons: This reading app is not available for iPhone

Ideal User Profile: Google Play Books is perfect for users of the other products in Google’s work environment and those wishing to switch between reading and audio experiences.

Special Features and Tips

While every of the compared books finds its perfect audience segment, there are features that most users would prefer to see in every reading app. Let’s review them one by one:

Offline reading capabilities: offline mode is presented with every reading app in the category except Kobo by Rakuten. So, this app is not the best choice for reading at the campfire.

Accessibility features: Having audio versions of all the text in the library is a dream for every reader. As of now, only Google Play Books and Headway offer audio narrations for most of their titles, which is great for people with special needs and those who want quick access to a favorite book on the go.

Integrations with other platforms: Integrations with other platforms give perks in the form of discounts, shared plans, and loyalty programs. For example, Kindle users benefit from Amazon Prime subscriptions. Google Play Books, Apple Books, and Libby each integrate with the parent platforms for updates and other benefits.

Community features: Being able to share impressions drives people together and makes reading an unforgettable community experience. Every reading app in the list has community features like comments, ratings, shared reading plans, or challenges. Still, only Goodreads and Wattpad can boast a strong community of like-minded readers. Headway is another good example of socializing while reading. The gamified reading challenges offer an excellent opportunity to discuss progress with fellow readers.

Conclusion

On average, people have about 15 minutes a day to spend on reading, and with proper planning and assistance, the whole process can be a good place. Reading apps allow you to turn reading into quality time, enhancing the experience and productivity while achieving intelligent goals, as the Headway app allows. The items we’ve described in the selection belong to the best reading apps on the market and allow users to rediscover the joy of reading in today’s ever-hustling world.