PlainZen vs Audiobooks
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
PlainZen
This tutorial explains Zen in simple terms, focusing on its practical application in daily life. It demystifies Zen by avoiding jargon and historical details, emphasizing how it works and improves well-being for anyone, regardless of background. The app includes features to bookmark your progress and navigate through various topics.
- Plain language Zen explanation
- Focus on practical application
- Avoids jargon and rituals
- Bookmark functionality
- Table of contents navigation
- Covers core Zen concepts
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A simple, easy to understand, tutorial of Zen and how to use it in your life. Written in plain language, this hopefully dispels the reputation of Zen as being 'mysterious', 'mystical', 'deep', 'hard to get' because of the difficulty in explaining its practice. Zen is actually very practical and simple if what is explained is what it's for and how to practice it. Other teaching books tend to get bogged down in Zen history, Zen terms and rituals. This tutorial tries to put those things aside first and concentrate on the essence of Zen: how it works, why it works, and how it makes our life better. Not a religion nor a cult nor a philosophy, Zen is a healthy mental attitude that can help anyone of any religious background or philosophy. Remembers your place in the book. Tap on 'Bookmarks' icon to jump to your personal bookmarks. Tap on 'Contents' icon to jump to the different topics: CONTENTS Learning Zen is no big deal How our mind works Realization#1: Thoughts and the thinker are no big deal Meditation/Practice#1:Do an activity... Realization#2: You and perfection The Self Reality: only one self The outside world: The world is out there Reality: no separation Freedom from fear: Two kinds: regular and premium Source of fear What's there to lose? Meaning: Life is a river Outside looking in Getting back in the flow Zen practice: Meditation: calm you down Koans: shake you up Enlightenment vs guilt: aha! Conclusion: Zen is yoga for the mind Meditation/Practice #2: Severing duality Meditation/Practice#3: When waking or before sleeping Q&A Is thinking or thought bad? So how is Zen different from thinking? How do I get that 'insight' or 'enlightenment' and how do I retain it? How are people related, connected? Is it okay to follow a person, a movement, a philosophy, a religion without doubt, without question? How does Zen view money, jobs, unemployment, wars, sex, hate, love?
Audiobooks
Access a vast library of over 150,000 classic audiobooks and podcasts. Listen anywhere, download for offline playback, and engage with a community through comments and votes. Turn downtime into listening time with this extensive collection.
- 150,000+ classic audiobooks
- Podcast listening
- Offline downloads
- Search and category browsing
- Community comments and votes
- High-quality audio
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***** “Best audio book player I found love it” ***** “I love this app, it is great to have so many classic literatures in audio versions...” ***** “I listen to audiobooks while I'm at work, it makes the time go by a lot of faster. All the readers bring something different to the book story” Not enough time for reading all classic books you like? With our Audio Books app, it is not your problem anymore. Whether you are stuck in traffic, waiting for someone, or just relaxing on your sofa, you are able to listen to beloved audio books at the touch of your finger. FEATURES: • Enjoying High-quality Audio Books Over 150.000 classic audio books and even more. We are also offering the superior categories methods and search functions to find your books as quick as possible. • Listening to audio books anywhere Just select a book, put in your earbuds, and you will instantly brighten your busy day. You'll look forward to that commute, workout, or even doing the dishes, knowing a good story awaits you. • Free downloading your favorite books for offline listening Absolutely NO fee to own the audio books and even NO network consuming to enjoy a book, cool? • Sharing your feelings with comments and votes Are you interested in one book? Or how do you feel about one characteristic? Feel free to show your thinking with another. Your feedback feeds our motivation, so feel free to raise your voice by sending email at support@quang-le.com. We'll get back to you shortly.
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Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Audiobooks at 77% against PlainZen's 0%. Audiobooks also leads on price (Free vs $1.99) and update cadence (every 3 weeks vs every 13 months). PlainZen's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.3) and in-app purchases (none vs 1). On 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
Audiobooks is free to download; PlainZen costs $1.99 up front. Audiobooks sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. PlainZen asks for nothing beyond the download.
PlainZen holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Audiobooks has 2.2K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 0% of PlainZen's written reviews are positive against 77% of Audiobooks's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
PlainZen ships an update every 13 months, Audiobooks every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 10, 2026 and September 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | PlainZen | Audiobooks |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $1.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | 4.3 (2.2K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 0.0% of reviews | 77.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 2.2K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 13 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 19 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Vicente Malixi | Le Thanh Quang |
Customer experience
PlainZen
Audiobooks
Bugs and requests
PlainZen
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
Audiobooks
Reported bugs
2 issues- Cannot open or play any books
- Keeps forcing user to write a review before allowing further use
Requested features
6 requests- Add stop button and bookmark button
- Add ability to speed up narration
- Add more modern and popular book titles
- Add more children's books suitable for 9-year-olds
- Add sleep timer
Show 1 moreShow fewer
- Add ability to save progress and resume from where you left off
In-app purchases
PlainZen
No in-app purchases
Audiobooks
- Remove Ads$1.99









