Comparison

Granta vs Serial Reader

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Granta

Access a curated collection of acclaimed literary journalism, fiction, poetry, memoir, and photography. Enjoy exclusive weekly content and a vast archive of past issues spanning thirty years. Stay updated with quarterly releases from established and emerging authors.

Highlights
  • Quarterly literary magazine
  • Mix of fiction, poetry, memoir, journalism
  • Exclusive weekly content
  • Archive of 30+ years
  • Work by established and emerging authors
  • Photography included
Features
Read full description

Granta is one of the world's most respected literary magazines, acclaimed for the quality of its writing and for its mix of established and emerging authors. Published quarterly in book form Granta is respected around the world for its eclectic combination of journalism, fiction, poetry, memoir and photography. Alongside exclusive free weekly content, readers can access each new issue of Granta on the day of publication, as well as over one thousand pieces of writing and photography from previous Granta magazines over the last thirty years by purchasing an annual subscription. Annual subscriptions can be purchased and these subscriptions will auto-renew until you choose to cancel. N.B. - The price of the annual subscription is £23.99 - Payment will be charged to your iTunes Account at confirmation of purchase - Your subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period - Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period - You can manage your subscription and switch off the auto-renewal by accessing your Account Settings after purchase - No cancellation of the current subscription is allowed during active subscription period Please see here for our privacy policy and terms: http://granta.com/privacy-statement/ http://granta.com/terms/ Our archive contains work by writers like Margaret Atwood, Ann Beattie, Roberto Bolaño, Anne Carson, Raymond Carver, Lydia Davis, Don DeLillo, Bret Easton Ellis, Nadine Gordimer, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Munro, Haruki Murakami, Salman Rushdie, Paul Theroux, Binyavanga Wainaina, Jeanette Winterson and many more. ‘In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world.’ – The Observer

About

Serial Reader

Read classic literature in daily, manageable segments. This app breaks down over 900 books into daily issues, each readable in 20 minutes or less, helping you build reading habits and tackle lengthy classics. Customize your reading experience with various themes, fonts, and sync options.

Highlights
  • Daily book installments
  • Over 900 classic books
  • Serialize your own EPUBs
  • Sync with Goodreads/Readwise
  • Word lookup
  • Reading streaks and badges
Features
Read full description

Read classic books in daily bite-sized bits!  Serial Reader helps you fit more reading into your busy life. Choose from more than 900 books — or add your own! — and the app delivers a new issue from the book every day. Build great reading habits and tackle daunting classic books. Each daily issue can be read in 20 minutes or less, making it easy to fit reading into your spare time! Picked as one of Apple's Best New Apps and Best New App Updates. "This free app will make you ridiculously well-read in 20 minutes a day" — Mashable "For those who are intimidated by thick, leather-bound tomes, Serial Reader is a good way to break it all down" — The Washington Post • Read hundreds of popular classic books for free • Large variety of themes & fonts • Serialize your own EPUB books • Sync to Goodreads and Readwise • Lookup words with quick dictionary & Wikipedia access • Earn fun badges and track your reading streaks Plus, with the Serial Premium upgrade: • Read tomorrow's issue early • Sync your reading across multiple devices • Save quotes & notes while reading • Save books to Read Later • Pause delivery of new issues • Pick specific delivery days and hours for new issues • Custom app icons "Serial Reader’s subscription format makes it a little bit more fun to crank through the classics" — Lifehacker "A useful tool that makes it easy in our modern world to make classic books part of your reading diet" — MacStories More than 900 books available in the app with new titles added each week. Every book is free to read! A preview of available books: Most Popular • Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen • A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens • The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald • Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky • War & Peace - Leo Tolstoy • Les Misérables - Victor Hugo • The Time Machine - H.G. Wells • The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde • The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway American Lit • Moby-Dick - Herman Melville • Little Women - Louisa May Alcott • My Antonia - Willa Cather • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain Adventure • The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas • Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson • Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe • The Odyssey - Homer • King Solomon's Mines - H. Rider Haggard Romance • Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte • Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy • Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespeare Science Fiction • The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - Jules Verne • A Princess of Mars - Edgar Rice Burroughs Horror • Dracula - Bram Stoker • The Dunwich Horror - H.P. Lovecraft • Frankenstein - Mary Shelley • The Fall of the House of Usher - Edgar Allan Poe • The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers • The Wendigo - Algernon Blackwood Mystery • The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle • The Mysterious Affair at Styles - Agatha Christie • The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins Biography • The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass • Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup Children's • Peter Pan - J. M. Barrie • Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll • The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame • Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery Fantasy • The Well at the World's End - William Morris • Time and the Gods - Lord Dunsany • The Wood Beyond the World - William Morris Philosophy • The Republic - Plato • Leviathan - Thomas Hobbes • Rights of Man - Thomas Paine Nonfiction • Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft • On the Origin of Species - Charles Darwin • The Federalist Papers • The Communist Manifesto - Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels Westerns • Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey • The Virginian - Owen Wister • Gunman's Reckoning - Max Brand Religion • King James Bible • The Dhammapada • The Quran Build great reading habits and finish classic books in days with Serial Reader!

Screenshots

Granta4 screens
Serial Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is review sentiment: Serial Reader at 95% against Granta's 9%. Serial Reader also leads on rating (4.8 vs 1.4) and monetization model (freemium vs subscription). Granta's advantage is iOS requirement (12.0 vs 15.6). On price, ads, in-app purchases and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Granta sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $31.99 per year and Serial Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Serial Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 1.4. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Serial Reader has 4.1K ratings behind it against 34, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 9% of Granta's written reviews are positive against 95% of Serial Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Granta ships an update every 6 months, Serial Reader every 3 months. Both last shipped on November 6, 2026.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Granta versus Serial Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterGrantaSerial Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating1.4 (34 ratings)4.8 (4.1K ratings) — better
Positive reviews8.5% of reviews95.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings344.1K — better
Update frequencyEvery 6 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationSubscriptionFreemium — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS12.0 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size20 MB29 MB
Age rating17+12+
DeveloperGrantaMichael Schmitt

Customer experience

Granta

All ratings34 ratings
Positive5.9%
Neutral5.9%
Negative88.2%
Written reviews82 reviews
Positive8.5%
Neutral8.5%
Negative82.9%

Serial Reader

All ratings4,104 ratings
Positive97.3%
Neutral1.7%
Negative1.0%
Written reviews227 reviews
Positive95.2%
Neutral1.3%
Negative3.5%

User reviews

Granta

From 34 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 💎 Excellent content quality
  • 📚 Access to back catalogue

Room to improve

  • 🐛 App frequently crashes
  • 😩 Constant login prompts
  • 😵 Unintuitive navigation
  • ⚫ Lacks dark mode
  • 📏 No text size adjustment

Serial Reader

From 4.1K App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Bite-sized reading
  • 📚 Wide selection of classics
  • 👍 Simple and intuitive interface
  • 💰 Free with affordable premium upgrade
  • 🎉 Motivating achievements and badges

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Sync issues across devices
  • 🔍 Limited customization options
  • 🕰️ Inflexible delivery schedule
  • 🤔 Lack of modern/non-classic book selection

Bugs and requests

Granta

Reported bugs

132 issues
  • Subscription restore issues
  • Weekly feature not refreshing
  • App requires login almost every time
  • Internet connection required message despite connection
  • Blank screen when tapping articles
Show 127 more
  • Weekly section not working
  • Issue cover disappears
  • Share link goes to homepage
  • Login details not remembered
  • No landscape support
  • Menu navigation unclear
  • Moving images for show
  • Annoying navigation
  • Weird division between 'the weekly' and 'the library'
  • Keeps signing out
  • Cannot adjust font size
  • Needs night mode
  • Scrolling off-center sends to another article
  • Doesn't remember reading position
  • Cannot bookmark within an article
  • App has been problematic for years
  • Login function hidden
  • Sign-in info not remembered for long
  • Last lines of articles cut off
  • App doesn't work on iPad
  • Screen rotation hit-or-miss
  • Overall experience stinks
  • App needs a refresh
  • Text size is too small
  • Roulette wheel of chance when reading
  • Sign in EVERY time
  • App crashes all the time
  • Looks hideous and uncomfortable to use
  • Cannot access account after forgetting password
  • Email for recovery not recognized
  • App only works in portrait mode
  • Images are pixelated
  • Photo features lump photographs together
  • Cannot bookmark one's location
  • App has not been updated in ages
  • App doesn't remember login details
  • Cannot swipe to next article
  • App just doesn’t work on an IPad
  • Screen rotation is hit-or-miss
  • Navigation is really unintuitive
  • App is in desperate need of a refresh
  • Type size too small
  • Scrolling up the page is wrong
  • Cannot bookmark a single page
  • No night time mode
  • App crashes constantly
  • Asks to login almost every time
  • App makes reading a hassle
  • Cannot alter text size
  • Sign in Each time I open the app
  • Won’t take me past title pages
  • Deleting and redownloading doesn't solve problem
  • App freezes when accessing the Weekly
  • Magazine pages do not display
  • Only table of contents displayed
  • App updates seem to fix issues
  • Cannot download anything beyond the title
  • No app support found
  • No bug fixes or developments in over a year
  • App doesn’t work
  • Magazine doesn’t reply to emails
  • White screen when trying to read downloaded issue
  • Obscure app
  • Online only subscription a mistake
  • Cannot access any editions (blank pages)
  • Struggling to read issues
  • Cannot read any of the articles
  • Blank screen where text should be
  • App is usually not functional
  • App does not work. Period.
  • Horrible app
  • App totally unusable
  • Refuses to provide support
  • Emails to support not answered
  • App does not work with recent iOS 11
  • Weekly pieces section not opening
  • App is basically becoming useless
  • Free section doesn't work
  • Just a 'G' in the middle of the screen
  • App doesn't support landscape mode
  • Logins on app and website don't recognize user
  • Publisher doesn't respond to requests
  • No functionality for reading offline
  • No search functionality
  • Navigation and menus not labelled or intuitive
  • App is too much like hard work to read
  • User experience is terrible
  • Developers didn't ask users for feedback
  • Developers didn't look at other apps
  • Forces portrait format
  • No method of storing read content
  • Bookmarking does nothing
  • Doesn't remember book or page place
  • Interface is barren and not user friendly
  • Content can't be accessed offline
  • No access to content after subscribing
  • App won't let me sign in
  • Authentication info incorrect
  • Customer service hasn't answered email
  • Password reset email not received
  • Logs out every time
  • Tedious to login every time
  • Download doesn't mean offline viewing
  • Need for internet connection is a waste
  • Interface is clunky and confusing
  • Takes me to the last issue I was reading
  • Have to delete and reinstall to look at another issue
  • Nothing shows up
  • Not optimized for newer iPhones
  • App goes nowhere near doing justice to content
  • Can't sign in because App Store didn't give subscription number
  • Surly customer service agent
  • Not in the system
  • Text is not adjustable
  • Impossible to read on iPad pro
  • Scrolling often switches to a different one
  • Lose place when scrolling
  • No way to delete downloaded editions
  • Menu bar flashing distractingly
  • Hard to navigate
  • Lacks good overview of contents
  • Frequently lose what I'm reading
  • No way to connect print subscription
  • Nothing helpful on the website
  • App signs me out automatically
  • Doesn't keep your spot in a piece
  • App needs to be re-designed

Requested features

13 requests
  • Ability to adjust text size
  • Dark mode
  • Pagination options
  • Share link to article
  • Landscape mode support
Show 8 more
  • Offline reading
  • Search functionality
  • Bookmark specific pages
  • Mark articles as read
  • Hide read articles
  • Delete downloaded editions
  • Sync print subscription
  • Kindle download access

Serial Reader

Reported bugs

2 issues
  • App crashes when changing fonts
  • Issues with new chapter delivery not working

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add more modern/non-classic book options
  • Improve sync functionality across devices
  • Allow more customization of reading experience
  • Provide flexible delivery schedule options

In-app purchases

1 purchases

Granta

Subscriptions1
  • Granta Digital Subscription$31.991 Year
5 purchases

Serial Reader

One-time5
  • Tip Jar - Essay$1.99
  • Serial Premium$2.99
  • Tip Jar - Short Story$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Tip Jar - Novel$9.99
  • Tip Jar - Epic$14.99

Questions

Is Granta free?
Granta is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Serial Reader free?
Serial Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Granta or Serial Reader?
Serial Reader is rated higher. Granta averages 1.4 out of 5 from 34 ratings, while Serial Reader averages 4.8 from 4.1K ratings.
Do Granta or Serial Reader have ads?
Neither Granta nor Serial Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Granta or Serial Reader?
Granta ships an update every 6 months, and Serial Reader every 3 months. Most recently, Granta was updated on November 6, 2026 and Serial Reader on November 6, 2026.

Other comparisons