The Palace Project vs Antilibrary
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
The Palace Project
Access and enjoy e-books and audiobooks from your local library for free. Discover new titles, borrow them instantly with your library card, and read or listen anywhere. Even without a participating library, enjoy a collection of free books.
- Borrow e-books and audiobooks
- Access local library collections
- Read or listen to books
- Free Palace Bookshelf collection
- Requires library card for full access
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Palace is a free, easy-to-use e-reader app that lets you find, check out, and read or listen to books from your local library. It’s been said that libraries are “palaces for the people” and the Palace app gives you instant access to your local “palace” any time, right from the palm of your hand. All you need to sign up is your library card! And even if your library isn’t using Palace yet, you can still read more than 10,000 books--from children’s books to classics to foreign language books--for free from our Palace Bookshelf. The Palace app is built and maintained by Lyrasis, a not-for-profit organization working in partnership with Digital Public Library of America with funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For more, visit https://thepalaceproject.org.
Antilibrary
Discover new ideas and perspectives from a vast curated library of books. Connect your Kindle to revisit your own highlighted passages and explore diverse voices and subjects. Find unexpected connections and deepen your understanding through thoughtful questions and curated content.
- Curated world library
- Import Kindle highlights
- Discover new ideas
- Explore diverse perspectives
- Search books and highlights
- Share discoveries
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Explore a world of books beyond your own shelves. 7,000+ books. 30,000+ ideas. 1,000 questions. And growing every day. Your next idea might come from a book you've never opened—or a passage you highlighted years ago. Antilibrary brings a thoughtfully curated world library together with highlights from your own reading. Our collection reaches across cultures, subjects, and traditions, seeking out voices that familiar accounts—and AI's default answers—can overlook. Explore the library on its own, or connect your Kindle to rediscover your highlights. Follow an interest, consider another perspective, or stumble upon something you didn't know to look for. Discover an idea Swipe and shuffle through ideas from across the collection. Find unexpected connections between books and subjects. Explore a question Consider different authors' perspectives, with answers grounded in the library and source books shown. Rediscover your reading Import your Kindle highlights and return to passages that once caught your attention. Follow your curiosity Search books, ideas, questions, and your highlights in one place. Like ideas, dismiss others, and share discoveries. Inspired by Nassim Nicholas Taleb's account of Umberto Eco's library, Antilibrary celebrates the possibilities in books we have yet to read. We encourage you to buy, own, and read books. There is no substitute for spending time with a whole book. We hope something you discover here makes you want to open one.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Antilibrary at 100% against The Palace Project's 27%. Antilibrary also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.6) and update cadence (every 5 days vs fortnightly). The Palace Project's advantage is ratings volume (5.5K vs 5) and chart position (#94 vs unranked). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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.
Antilibrary holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: The Palace Project has 5.5K ratings behind it against 5, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 27% of The Palace Project's written reviews are positive against 100% of Antilibrary's.
The Palace Project ships an update fortnightly, Antilibrary every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | The Palace Project | Antilibrary |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (5.5K ratings) | 5.0 (5 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 27.1% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 5.5K — better | 5 |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly | Every 5 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #94 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 50 MB | 47 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | The Palace Project | Bharat Khandelwal |
Customer experience
The Palace Project
Antilibrary
Bugs and requests
The Palace Project
Reported bugs
4 issues- Books not downloading properly
- Losing place in audiobooks
- Crashing and freezing issues
- Incompatibility with certain devices
Requested features
4 requests- Ability to track read/listened books
- Improved audiobook playback controls
- Dark mode option
- Integration with Kindle
Antilibrary
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
The Palace Project
No in-app purchases
Antilibrary
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is The Palace Project free?
Is Antilibrary free?
Which has better reviews, The Palace Project or Antilibrary?
Do The Palace Project or Antilibrary have ads?
Which is updated more often, The Palace Project or Antilibrary?
Other comparisons
