Yom! Aozora Bunko vs Hoshi Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Yom! Aozora Bunko
Access and read over 17,000 literary classics from Aozora Bunko for free. Customize your reading experience with adjustable display settings, bookmarks, and search functions. An optional premium plan offers an ad-free experience.
- Read 17,000+ literary classics
- Customizable display (font, spacing, margins)
- Vertical and horizontal text options
- Bookmarks and favorites
- Work, author, and category search
- Page count indicator
- Ad-free premium option
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'Yom! Aozora Bunko' is an app that lets you easily read literary classics anytime, anywhere. You can read works from Aozora Bunko for free and enjoy more than 17,000 works by over 900 authors, including Soseki Natsume, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, and Osamu Dazai. This app includes a variety of features designed to make reading more comfortable. - Customize the display to your liking with vertical or horizontal text, adjustable font size, line spacing, and margins - Use bookmarks and favorites to quickly reopen works you are reading or works you love - Find what you want quickly through work search, author search, and category browsing - See page counts so you can tell at a glance how far you have read Users also highly appreciate how easy the app is to use. "Probably the most user-friendly Aozora Bunko viewer I have ever used." "Being able to switch to horizontal reading is really convenient!" "Thank you for providing such a wonderful app." With the Premium plan, you can enjoy reading without ads. ■ Premium Plan (1 month) - No ads - Access to premium features for 1 month ■ About auto-renewable subscriptions Your subscription will renew automatically unless auto-renewal is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. ■ How to cancel Open Settings > iTunes Store & App Store > Apple ID > View Apple ID > Subscriptions > Yom! Aozora Bunko, then cancel the subscription. ■ Restore purchases If you already have an active subscription, you can restore it from "Restore Purchases." ■ About cancellations Subscriptions cannot be canceled by any method other than the one above. We also cannot accept cancellations for the current month. ■ Terms of Use and Privacy Policy https://blog.seiichirou.jp/apps/aozora/privacypolicy/ ■ EULA https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Latest app news is available from the official accounts below. - Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/yomaozora - Official Blog: https://blog.seiichirou.jp/apps/aozora/ Download 'Yom! Aozora Bunko' and bring literary classics closer to your everyday life.
Hoshi Reader
This app is a lightweight Japanese EPUB reader designed for immersion learning. It features a pop-up dictionary with deinflection and supports Anki integration for vocabulary mining. Organize your library with bookshelves and track your reading progress.
- Vertical and horizontal reading modes
- Yomitan-like pop-up dictionary
- Anki mining support
- Customizable Anki card format
- Reading statistics
- Bookshelves for library organization
- Customizable themes and fonts
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Hoshi Reader is a lightweight Japanese EPUB reader with a built-in pop-up dictionary and Anki mining support, made for immersion learning. Main Features: - Vertical (縦書き) and horizontal (横書き) reading modes - Yomitan-like pop-up dictionary with proper deinflection support - Support for all Yomitan term, frequency and pitch dictionaries - Dictionary audio support - AnkiMobile mining support - Fully configurable Anki card format, with most handlebars targeting Lapis implemented - Sasayaki (Audiobooks): Sync audiobooks to book text to read along - Reading statistics - ッツ Reader sync - Bookshelves to organize your library - Customizable theme, font and layout
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Hoshi Reader at none against Yom! Aozora Bunko's 1. Hoshi Reader also leads on ads (none vs shown) and review sentiment (100% vs 68%). Yom! Aozora Bunko's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.0). On price, rating, update cadence 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
Both are free to download. Yom! Aozora Bunko sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $0.99 per month. Hoshi Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Yom! Aozora Bunko against 5.0 for Hoshi Reader. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hoshi Reader has 23 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 68% of Yom! Aozora Bunko's written reviews are positive against 100% of Hoshi Reader's.
Yom! Aozora Bunko ships an update every 9 days, Hoshi Reader weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Yom! Aozora Bunko | Hoshi Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) | 5.0 (23 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 68.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 1 | 23 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days | Weekly — better |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 94 MB | 9 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Seiichirou Tanaka | Manh-Hao Steffen Pham |
Customer experience
Yom! Aozora Bunko
Hoshi Reader
In-app purchases
Yom! Aozora Bunko
- Premium Plan14 Days trial$0.991 Month
Hoshi Reader
No in-app purchases








