Five Star Study App vs Cengage Read
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Five Star Study App
Organize your notes and schedules to enhance your study sessions. This tool allows you to manage your academic life efficiently, enabling you to study effectively from any location.
- Note organization
- Schedule management
- Study anywhere
- Study anytime
- School year tool
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Organize your notes and schedules with the Five Star® Study App and study anywhere, anytime.
Cengage Read
Access and study your digital textbooks from anywhere. This app allows students to read, take notes, highlight, bookmark, and use text-to-speech for a flexible learning experience on the go.
- Read eTextbooks on the go
- Take notes and highlight
- Bookmark important sections
- Text-to-speech functionality
- Search keywords
- Navigate via table of contents
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Read your eTextbook and study on the go with the Cengage Read app. Cengage Read lets students study whenever – and wherever – they want. Take notes, highlight and bookmark info, have the text read out loud with text-to-speech and easily search keywords and jump to pages with the table of contents. Just log in with your Cengage username and password to get started.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Cengage Read at 4.2 against Five Star Study App's 3.0. Cengage Read also leads on ratings volume (4.1K vs 416). Five Star Study App's advantage is iOS requirement (16.6 vs 18). On price, review sentiment, update cadence 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.
Cengage Read holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cengage Read has 4.1K ratings behind it against 416, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 24% of Five Star Study App's written reviews are positive against 20% of Cengage Read's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Five Star Study App ships an update every 6 weeks, Cengage Read every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on October 14, 2026 and October 13, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Five Star Study App | Cengage Read |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.0 (416 ratings) | 4.2 (4.1K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 23.9% of reviews — better | 19.6% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 416 | 4.1K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 6 weeks — better | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone | iPhone, iPad — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.6 — better | 18 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 204 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ACCO Brands USA LLC | Cengage Learning |
Customer experience
Five Star Study App
Cengage Read
User reviews
Five Star Study App
From 416 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Quick scanning
- 📁 Organized note-taking
- 🔋 Helpful for studying
- 💡 Integrates with Google Drive
Room to improve
- 🐛 Scanning issues
- 🔍 Poor image quality
- 🤯 Buggy and crashes often
- 🤔 Confusing flashcard feature
Cengage Read
From 4.1K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Easy to read textbooks
- 🚀 Convenient for on-the-go learning
- 👍 Useful for listening to audio while commuting
- 👍 Allows highlighting and note-taking
Room to improve
- 🐛 Buggy and glitchy
- 🔥 Poor text formatting and layout
- 👎 Difficult to navigate and use
- 🔒 Login and account issues
- 🔍 Missing key features like split-screen and assignment tracking
Bugs and requests
Five Star Study App
Reported bugs
4 issues- App gets stuck on loading screen
- Scans not saving properly
- Camera not working
- Flashcards not functioning as expected
Requested features
4 requests- Handwriting to text conversion
- Ability to edit scanned notes
- Better iPad support
- More customization options
Cengage Read
Reported bugs
4 issues- Frequent crashes and sign-outs
- Inconsistent highlighting and note-taking functionality
- Inability to view full pages and content
- Text-to-speech feature not working properly
Requested features
4 requests- Improve text formatting and layout
- Add split-screen support for note-taking
- Enhance accessibility features like text-to-speech
- Integrate assignment and due date tracking
In-app purchases
Five Star Study App
No in-app purchases
Cengage Read
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Five Star Study App free?
Is Cengage Read free?
Which has better reviews, Five Star Study App or Cengage Read?
Do Five Star Study App or Cengage Read have ads?
Which is updated more often, Five Star Study App or Cengage Read?
Other comparisons
