Books are often considered great companions, but we’re sure many struggle to concentrate and remain engaged while reading one. However, there’s a 21st-century solution for everything, and for books, it is audiobooks. You can listen to books while completing chores, working out, or walking. So, here are some of the best free audiobook apps for iPhone and Android.
Yes – you read it right, several apps let you listen to audiobooks for free. While Amazon’s Audible is the most popular audiobook platform, you can only listen to books if you purchase a subscription. With the apps in the following list, you can listen to audiobooks without a subscription.
Meanwhile, keep your expectations in check – you cannot listen to all the latest books and popular titles for free. With these apps, you can access several classics, and books uploaded for free on the internet and the public domain. That said, you will certainly find a good collection of free audiobooks. Let’s begin.
1. LibriVox Audio Books: Listen to 40,000 Full-Length Audiobooks for Free
LibriVox is one of the best free alternatives to Audible. It is an online platform that offers free public-domain audiobooks. It relies on volunteers who record chapters of books that are no longer under copyright, making classic literature accessible to everyone through audio recordings.
This app is essentially a client that lets you access the LibriBox library. The user interface of the app is minimal and easy to use. You can browse audiobooks by titles, authors, and new books. You can also sign in to the app to sync your audiobooks and reading progress.
While you are listening to an audiobook, you can play/pause the narration, add a bookmark, skip forward or go back 15 or 30 seconds, and increase or decrease the playback speed. Additionally, you can also automatically end the playback after a certain period, a feature that’ll help if you listen to audiobooks while you sleep.
You can also download books for offline listening and save your favorite books for quick access. However, all these free features come at the cost of advertisements – which do not interfere with your listening but are nestled between the titles of the audiobooks and appear in the audiobook player. You can purchase the premium version to remove the advertisements.
Pros
- Simple to use interface.
- Download audiobooks for offline listening.
- A good amount of detail regarding the audiobook.
- The family-friendly option hides NFSW content.
- The app can be used without a signup.
Cons
- The default font size on the app could have been increased.
- The size of the playback control icons could have been increased as well.
- Ads sneak in between the list of audiobooks, which may lead to an accidental redirection.
- No option to filter books by genre.
Price: Free; Pro Version: $0.49 per month
2. Audiobooks Now: Great Collection of Fiction and Non-Fiction for Free
Audiobooks Now is another free app where you can listen to a plethora of audiobooks for free on your iPhone and Android devices. The app also contains several new and popular audiobooks that require purchasing. Furthermore, the app also features a great collection of free non-fiction books.
Once you visit the free audiobooks section, you can search for books from various genres or view all audiobooks at once. You will have to buy the free audiobook for $0.00, and it will be added to your library.
While you listen to a book, you get all the essential playback controls to adjust the narration speed or skip/go back 30 seconds and jump to the next chapter in the book. You can also add a bookmark while a chapter is being narrated. Overall, we like the app, thanks to its collection of audiobooks. Apart from all the free classic audiobooks in the public domain, you can also listen to newer books from upcoming authors for free in this app.
Pros
- Great collection of free fiction and non-fiction books.
- Many options to sort and filter books by genre/category.
- Several playback controls.
- Download books for offline listening.
- Free from ads.
Cons
- The user interface can be improved.
- The number of options and buttons may feel cluttered.
- You must sign in to listen to books.
Price: Free; Pro Version: $19.99 onwards (provides a subscription for the paid audiobooks)
3. Freed Audiobooks: Over 14,000 Classics
Freed is another app that acts as a wrapper for LibriVox. This app is available only on Android devices. You can start discovering your next favorite audiobook by using the category search within the app. The audiobook collection mostly consists of classical books available for free in the public domain. The audiobook playback interface is the closest that looks like Audible among all the other apps in this list.
While listening to an audiobook, you get all the necessary controls to handle the playback per your needs. The app also features a history tab that helps you look back at all the books you’ve listened to. Unfortunately, there isn’t any way to save all your favorite books for easy access. However, you can download audiobooks for offline listening.
Pros
- Best audiobook playback interface.
- Several options for playback control, including a ‘Skip Silence’ option for efficient narration.
- Audiobook categories make it easy to browse the collection.
- Download audiobooks for offline listening.
Cons
- No ‘favorites’ or ‘saved’ tab to access your books faster.
- Too many pop-up ads that take up the entire screen space.
- Unintuitive user interface which often left us confused as we tried to navigate within the app.
Price: Free; In-App Purchase: $1.99 onwards
4. Audiobooks: Lightweight App for Free Audiobooks on iPhone
This audiobook app for iPhone – calls itself ‘Audiobooks,’ and like the name, the app is a no-fuss, simple, and lightweight application that gets straight to the point from the first time you open it. The app will display all the categories of free audiobooks. Our favorite part is that you can find books based on their durations, narrators, and recently added audiobooks to the app.
You can also search audiobooks and discover books from the free and paid ‘Plus Only’ section. Most of the popular classics are free in this app. The playback section of the app is well-designed, and the controls are divided into two sections – the top one has the essential controls, and the bottom one has controls that add a few enhancements to the playback – like a sleep timer, chapter list, book information and a toggle to switch to dark/light mode.
If you are using Wi-Fi, audiobooks are downloaded by default within the app. You will have to turn on ‘stream audiobooks’ only to download audiobooks manually. Overall, we’re fans of the app, and it is certainly one of the best free audiobook apps for the iPhone.
Pros
- Great user interface.
- We like the option to sort books by duration.
- Various playback control options.
- You can download audiobooks for offline listening.
Cons
- Some may not like the larger font size
- At times, we found the app to be unresponsive until restarted.
- Ads are present, however they do not interfere with the listening experience.
Price: Free; Plus Subscription; $7.99; Remove Ads: $0.99
Enjoy Audiobooks for Free
We hope this list of best free audiobook apps helps you find a free alternative app for Audible. If you enjoy listening to content for long hours, you can always check out podcasts and listen to them on your iPhone and Android devices!
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Last updated on 04 January, 2024
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