Comparison

Litsy 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

Litsy

This app connects readers to share and discover books through "reading moments." Users can post blurbs, photos, quotes, and reviews linked to specific books, fostering a community-driven recommendation system. It's designed for spontaneous sharing and easy browsing of bookish thoughts.

Highlights
  • Share reading moments
  • Discover favorite books
  • Community recommendations
  • Post blurbs, photos, quotes, reviews
  • Link posts to books
  • Add books to reading stack
  • Litfluence scoring system
Features
Read full description

Where books make friends. The only thing that matches the joy of reading a great book is sharing that joy with friends.  That’s why we created Litsy.   Litsy is the place to share and discover your favorite books with your favorite people. As readers, our favorite books are recommended by people we respect, not algorithms. The Litsy community is a groundswell of passionate readers, authors and influencers creating short posts about their "reading moments." These posts are made of blurbs, photos, quotes and reviews, and each post is linked to one book. Since enjoying a book has no end, Litsy is 100% mobile and allows you to capture whatever bookish thoughts you have, whenever you have them. Litsy also makes it easy to “go down the rabbit hole," browsing your feed while on the go. When you find your next book, it’s easy to add it to your stack for future reading. Talking about books is a feel-good activity. It shares a piece of yourself, and it helps others. To recognize this, we thought it would be fun to invent the world’s first “Litfluence” scoring system. Litfluence is our way of showing that what you say about the books you read matters. It’s fun.  It’s simple.  It’s rewarding. It’s spoiler-free and free to use. And it’s all about the book.   Sign up and get a little Litsy. We recommend iOS 9 or newer for the best experience.

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

Litsy4 screens
Serial Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Serial Reader at 4.8 against Litsy's 4.3. Serial Reader also leads on review sentiment (95% vs 76%) and ratings volume (4.1K vs 331). Litsy's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 5) and update cadence (monthly vs every 3 months). On price, ads 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. Serial Reader sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Litsy asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Serial Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Serial Reader has 4.1K ratings behind it against 331, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 76% of Litsy's written reviews are positive against 95% of Serial Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Litsy ships an update monthly, Serial Reader every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on October 15, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Litsy versus Serial Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLitsySerial Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.3 (331 ratings)4.8 (4.1K ratings) — better
Positive reviews76.3% of reviews95.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings3314.1K — better
Update frequencyMonthly — betterEvery 3 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS9.3 — better15.6
Further details — not scored
Size77 MB29 MB
Age rating4+12+
DeveloperLibraryThing.comMichael Schmitt

Customer experience

Litsy

All ratings331 ratings
Positive84.6%
Neutral4.2%
Negative11.2%
Written reviews177 reviews
Positive76.3%
Neutral6.2%
Negative17.5%

Serial Reader

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

User reviews

Litsy

From 331 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Unique concept for book lovers
  • 🤝 Friendly and welcoming community
  • 📚 Great way to discover new books
  • 💬 Ability to share quotes and reviews

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Bugs and crashes reported
  • 🔍 Difficult to search and find books
  • 🔀 Cluttered interface and navigation
  • 🔒 Login and account issues

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

Litsy

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • App not loading or freezing
  • Logging in and account problems
  • Compatibility issues with newer devices
  • Syncing and data loss concerns

Requested features

4 requests
  • Ability to sort and organize books
  • Integrate with other book platforms
  • More customization and personalization options
  • Improved search and discovery features

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

None

Litsy

No in-app purchases

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 Litsy free?
Litsy is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Serial Reader free?
Serial Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Litsy or Serial Reader?
Serial Reader is rated higher. Litsy averages 4.3 out of 5 from 331 ratings, while Serial Reader averages 4.8 from 4.1K ratings.
Do Litsy or Serial Reader have ads?
Neither Litsy nor Serial Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Litsy or Serial Reader?
Litsy ships an update monthly, and Serial Reader every 3 months. Most recently, Litsy was updated on October 15, 2026 and Serial Reader on October 21, 2026.

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