Learning Ally Audiobooks vs Bookshare Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Learning Ally Audiobooks
Access a vast library of human-read audiobooks, including bestsellers, classics, and textbooks. This app offers interactive learning tools like synced text highlighting, speed control, and note-taking to support students with reading deficits or visual impairments.
- Human-read audiobook library
- Synced text highlighting
- Adjustable playback speed
- Bookmarking
- Note-taking
- Textbook access
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This app provides access to Learning Ally’s library of human-read audiobooks, offering an extensive selection of books students want and need to read, including bestsellers, classic literature and textbooks. Now students have interactive learning tools geared to help them succeed, including: highlighted text synced with the audio narration, speed control, bookmarking, highlighting, and note-taking. Learning Ally membership is required to use this app. Learning Ally is for students with dyslexia or other reading deficits who struggle with decoding, fluency or comprehension, who are blind or visually impaired, or who have a physical disability that prohibits them from reading standard print. If you need help getting started with the Learning Ally Audiobook App, please call our Customer Care team at 800-221-4792 or visit LearningAlly.org/Contact-Us to email us.
Bookshare Reader
Access a vast library of ebooks designed for individuals with reading barriers. Enjoy high-quality audio narration and customize your reading experience with adjustable fonts, colors, and speeds. Continue reading seamlessly from where you left off.
- Access millions of ebooks
- High-quality audio narration
- Customizable reading experience
- Adjustable font size and colors
- Follow along with highlighted text
- Offline reading
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Get the official Bookshare Reader app. Access millions of ebooks from Bookshare, the world's largest library of ebooks for people with reading barriers like dyslexia, blindness, low vision, and physical disabilities. Listen to books in high quality audio and customize your reading experience in ways that work for you. Read bestsellers, new releases, textbooks and educational books, children’s books, young adult, mysteries, biographies, and more. Read your way with these customizable features: • Listen to books in high quality audio • Adjust reading speed, font size, and colors • Follow along with highlighted text • Navigate by page and chapter • Stop reading and pick up from your last spot • Download books and read offline To use Bookshare Reader, you must have a Bookshare membership. Learn more by visiting the Bookshare website.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Bookshare Reader at free against Learning Ally Audiobooks's subscription. Bookshare Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 4 months). Learning Ally Audiobooks's advantage is ratings volume (757 vs 67) and iOS requirement (11.0 vs 16.4). On price, rating, review sentiment and ads 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 3.4 for Learning Ally Audiobooks against 3.3 for Bookshare Reader. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Learning Ally Audiobooks has 757 ratings behind it against 67, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 42% of Learning Ally Audiobooks's written reviews are positive against 36% of Bookshare Reader's.
Learning Ally Audiobooks ships an update every 4 months, Bookshare Reader every 3 weeks. Both last shipped on October 1, 2026.
| Parameter | Learning Ally Audiobooks | Bookshare Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.4 (757 ratings) — better | 3.3 (67 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 41.9% of reviews — better | 35.7% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 757 — better | 67 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Subscription | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 11.0 — better | 16.4 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 17 MB | 81 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Learning Ally | Benetech |
Customer experience
Learning Ally Audiobooks
Bookshare Reader
User reviews
Learning Ally Audiobooks
From 757 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Amazing for people with dyslexia
- 🚀 Helps with reading and learning
- 💡 Allows customization of text and audio
- 👍 Useful for students and college readers
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent playback issues and app crashes
- 🐛 Loses user's place in books
- 🔋 Drains battery when screen is locked
- 🐛 Glitchy user interface and navigation
Bookshare Reader
From 67 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Great for dyslexic readers
- 👍 Realistic text-to-speech voices
- 👍 Offline book downloads
- 👍 Essential for blind users
- 👍 Significant improvements made
Room to improve
- 🐛 Prolonged pauses in speech
- 🐛 Library not syncing across devices
- 🐛 Reading lists don't sync
- 🐛 Progress not saved across devices
- 🐛 Stuck on copyright page (manga)
Bugs and requests
Learning Ally Audiobooks
Reported bugs
4 issues- Inability to log in or access account
- Books fail to download or disappear from library
- Inconsistent performance across different devices
- Syncing issues between mobile and desktop apps
Requested features
4 requests- Add more recent and popular book titles
- Improve audio playback controls and options
- Implement a sleep timer or auto-off feature
- Better integration with other devices and platforms
Bookshare Reader
Reported bugs
42 issues- Prolonged pauses in text-to-speech
- Library not syncing across devices
- Reading lists not syncing
- Reading progress not saved across devices
- Manga stuck on copyright page
Show 37 moreShow fewer
- Pages disappear during reading
- Trouble downloading books
- Frequent app crashes
- App won't load books
- App shuts down when typing
- App crashing repeatedly
- Books disappearing from library
- Cannot download added books
- Search tab closes the app
- Poor VoiceOver compatibility
- App crashes on any click
- Text-to-speech voice change kicks user out
- Copyright issues preventing audio playback
- Download errors
- Playback stops when screen is locked
- Clunky user interface
- Picture books not displaying images
- Unable to play videos from other sources
- Form controls not coded correctly for VoiceOver
- Cannot delete searched titles from library
- App requires screen to be on for reading
- Blank screen after orientation change
- Too many bugs and crashes
- Next chapter fails to load
- Blank white page after pausing and resuming
- Table of Contents only shows first few chapters
- App displays as phone screen on iPad
- Cannot access reading lists
- Synthesized speech has limited control
- Speech randomly cuts off
- Reading stops if phone ringer is off
- Pause/Play restarts from chapter beginning
- Text-to-speech voices do not indicate language
- Voice selection process is cumbersome
- No functional stop and start button
- Limited speaking speed options
- Paragraph by paragraph reading limitation
Requested features
38 requests- Fix prolonged pauses in text-to-speech
- Sync library across devices
- Sync reading lists across devices
- Save reading progress across devices
- Fix manga page navigation
Show 33 moreShow fewer
- Fix disappearing pages bug
- Improve book download reliability
- Fix app crashes
- Fix app shutdown when typing
- Improve VoiceOver compatibility
- Allow adjustment of speaking rate by specific value
- Make reading lists accessible
- Add highlighting for textbooks
- Improve navigation of Contents menu
- Highlight current location in Contents menu
- Include missing video content in textbooks
- Fix copyright issues for audio playback
- Allow background playback
- Add ability to listen to human-narrated audiobooks
- Add 'Read Now' for periodicals
- Add VoiceOver gestures for page turning
- Add percentage of reading completed on mobile devices
- Make downloaded books tab default on opening app
- Fix inability to delete searched titles
- Add 'where am I' feature (page/percentage)
- Fix blank screen after orientation change
- Make app accessible for students without teacher assignment
- Fix next chapter loading issue
- Fix blank white page after pause
- Fix incomplete Table of Contents
- Improve app scaling on iPad
- Fix inability to access reading lists
- Allow users to choose which word reader begins reading
- Fix paragraph by paragraph reading limitation
- Indicate language for text-to-speech voices
- Improve voice selection process
- Add functional stop and start button
- Increase speed options for text-to-speech
In-app purchases
Learning Ally Audiobooks
No in-app purchases
Bookshare Reader
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Learning Ally Audiobooks free?
Is Bookshare Reader free?
Which has better reviews, Learning Ally Audiobooks or Bookshare Reader?
Do Learning Ally Audiobooks or Bookshare Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, Learning Ally Audiobooks or Bookshare Reader?
Other comparisons
