The best reading apps for Android in 2026

The short version: Kindle if you buy books, Libby if you borrow them, ReadEra if you read your own files and want something free and clean, Moon+ Reader if you want every setting there is. If your real problem is that you pick up your phone to read and end up on Instagram, that’s what FirstPage, a reading app blocker, is for.

We make FirstPage, so it’s on this list. It’s not the best choice for most of the jobs below, and we say which ones.

How we picked

• Where the books come from. A store, your library, a subscription, or files you already own.
• Your own files. Whether you can open a DRM-free EPUB or PDF you already have.
• Price. Free, ads, a one-time upgrade, or a subscription.
• Reading comfort. Themes, fonts, highlights, dictionary, and reading aloud.

Kindle: best for buying books

The biggest store and the app most people already have. Amazon says you can buy books inside the Android app again, and the purchase can use the payment method on your Google Play account. Preorders and gifts still go through the website. Kindle Unlimited and Prime Reading add subscription catalogs, and you can send your own EPUB and PDF files to your Kindle library with Send to Kindle. The reader has a dictionary, X-Ray, highlights and notes, and syncs your place across devices. 4.8 stars from 4.8 million reviews.

Skip it if you want to open your own EPUB as it is. Amazon converts it first.

Libby: best for free library books

Sign in with your library card and borrow ebooks, audiobooks and magazines for free. It’s clean, has a dictionary, highlights and notes, and plays audiobooks with a sleep timer. In the US you can send loans to a Kindle. 4.8 stars from 751,000 reviews.

Skip it if your library doesn’t use OverDrive, or you mostly read your own files. Popular books often have a wait.

Google Play Books: best for buying and uploading in one place

Buy ebooks and audiobooks with no subscription, and upload your own EPUB and PDF files to the same library. Notes sync to Google Drive. Read Aloud works on books whose publisher allows it. 4.7 stars from 3.2 million reviews.

Skip it if you want deep control over fonts, margins and layout. It keeps things simple.

ReadEra: best free reader for your own files

No ads, no in-app purchases and no account. It finds the books already on your phone and opens PDF, EPUB, MOBI, AZW3, DJVU, FB2, DOCX and more. ReadEra Premium, a separate one-time $14.99 app, adds Google Drive sync and reading aloud in the background. 4.9 stars from 1.6 million reviews, the highest of any app here.

Skip it if you need a store or library loans. It only reads files you bring.

Moon+ Reader: best for power users

If a setting exists, Moon+ Reader probably has it. More than 20 formats, online catalogs and Calibre servers, themes, a reading ruler, translation, and backup and sync through Dropbox or WebDAV. The free version shows ads. Moon+ Reader Pro, $11.99 once, removes them and adds reading aloud and reading statistics.

Skip it if you want an app that works well without setting anything up.

Lithium: best simple EPUB reader

EPUB only, and good at it: clean pages or scrolling, highlights and notes, night and sepia themes, and no ads. Lithium Pro, $1.99 once, adds sync of your place and notes through Google Drive.

Skip it if you read PDFs or want books read aloud.

Kobo Books: best if you already use Kobo

Kobo’s store and the Kobo Plus subscription, synced with Kobo e-readers. In the US, buying a book takes you to Kobo’s website to pay. You can add DRM-free EPUBs, but they stay on that one phone and PDFs can’t be imported.

Everand: best subscription for ebooks and audiobooks

Formerly Scribd. Plans start at $11.99 a month and unlock a set number of titles each month from a large catalog, with thousands more readable without an unlock. It includes Fable Plus for reading goals and streaks.

Skip it if you want to read your own files, or you don’t read enough each month to justify a subscription.

FirstPage: best for reading more instead of scrolling

Every app above is good at showing you a book. None of them stops you leaving it for Instagram. FirstPage keeps the apps you choose locked until you’ve hit a daily goal in pages or minutes, then unlocks them on its own. The reader opens your EPUB and PDF files and free classics from Project Gutenberg, reads aloud in six languages with voices that run on your phone, translates words and passages, and keeps your highlights and quotes in one place.

Skip it if you don’t want a lock, or you need a store or library loans. The free plan keeps one book in your library at a time; Pro is $6.99 a month or $49.99 a year in the US. See it on Google Play.

Which one should you pick?

• You buy most of your books: Kindle, or Google Play Books if you’d rather not use Amazon.
• You want books for free: Libby with a library card, or public-domain classics from Project Gutenberg.
• You have a folder of EPUBs and PDFs: ReadEra, or Moon+ Reader if you like to tinker.
• You keep meaning to read and end up scrolling: FirstPage. You can still buy books elsewhere and read the DRM-free ones in it.

App names are trademarks of their owners. Prices are US prices from each app’s Google Play listing or official site and can change.