Open vs Cengage Read
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Open
Access your educational courses and content directly from your mobile device. Download materials for offline use, update your profile, and receive important notifications. Students can track grades and badges, while teachers can grade assignments on the go.
- Access courses on mobile
- Download content for offline use
- Update profile information
- Receive course notifications
- View grades and badges (student)
- Grade assignments (teacher)
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Welcome to the Open LMS Mobile App! With the Open LMS Mobile App, you can: • Access your courses directly from your mobile device • Download content for offline access • Update your profile information • Receive course notifications and messages • As a student: view your course grades and awarded badges on your profile • As a teacher: grade assignments both online and offline • ...and much more! We love feedback! If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave us a note and a rating on the Store.
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 Open's 2.6. Cengage Read also leads on ratings volume (4K vs 84). Open's advantage is iOS requirement (15.0 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 2.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cengage Read has 4K ratings behind it against 84, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 19% and 20% positive.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 2 months. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Open | Cengage Read |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.6 (84 ratings) | 4.2 (4K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 18.8% of reviews | 19.7% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 84 | 4K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 2 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 18 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 70 MB | 46 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | PeopleFluent, Inc. | Cengage Learning |
Customer experience
Open
Cengage Read
Bugs and requests
Open
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
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
Open
No in-app purchases
Cengage Read
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is Open free?
Is Cengage Read free?
Which has better reviews, Open or Cengage Read?
Do Open or Cengage Read have ads?
Which is updated more often, Open or Cengage Read?
Other comparisons
