Comparison

Starfall ABCs vs Endless Reader

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Starfall ABCs

This app offers a free introduction to foundational reading skills, featuring interactive activities that engage children through sight, sound, and play. It's designed to help young learners recognize letters and develop essential reading abilities, with special considerations for English language learners and children with disabilities.

Highlights
  • Interactive letter and sound activities
  • Positive reinforcement and play-based learning
  • Develops letter recognition
  • Builds foundational reading skills
  • Accessible for children with impairments
Features
Read full description

Starfall® ABCs is the first step of Starfall’s Learn to Read phonics sequence, which teaches the foundational skills for learning to read. Step 1: ABCs Step 2: Learn to Read Step 3: It’s Fun to Read Step 4: I’m Reading! Starfall ABCs helps children master letter recognition in a stress-free environment through exploration, positive reinforcement, and play. Children delight as they see, hear, and interact with colorful imagery carefully matched to letters and sounds. By mastering these letter-sound relationships, they develop the skills they need to become confident, independent readers. Travel-ready. No internet connection required. Find Starfall ABCs, along with 700+ additional activities and counting across reading, math, music, and more in the Starfall app. The Starfall website and applications are program services of Starfall Education Foundation, a 501(c)(3) publicly supported nonprofit organization. Starfall® and Starfall.com® are registered trademarks in the US, the European Union, and various other countries. Copyright © 2002–2026 by Starfall Education. All rights reserved. Starfall apps are inclusively designed to support all children, including English Language Learners (ELLs). Starfall also provides an Enhanced Accessible Index for children with visual, hearing, or mobility impairments. For more information, please contact Customer Service at (+1) 303-417-6414.

About

Endless Reader

This app helps young children learn essential sight words through interactive puzzles and animations. Adorable monsters guide kids through word and sentence puzzles, reinforcing spelling, meaning, and usage in a fun, stress-free environment.

Highlights
  • Interactive word puzzles
  • Animated sight word reinforcement
  • Sentence puzzles for context and usage
  • Stress-free learning environment
  • 3D Touch integration for enhanced interaction
Features
Read full description

** App Store's Editor's Choice ** *From the team at ORIGINATOR - the creators of the beloved Endless Alphabet and Sesame Street's Monster at the End of This Book and Another Monster.... Originator is a team of passionate artists and engineers dedicated to the best education+entertainment apps for kids.* As a follow-up to Endless Alphabet, set the stage for early reading success with Endless Reader! This app introduces "sight words", the most commonly used words in school, library, and children's books. Kids need to recognize these words by sight in order to achieve reading fluency. Recognizing sight words is advantageous for beginning readers because many of these words have unusual spelling, cannot be sounded out using phonics knowledge, and often cannot be represented using pictures. Kids will have a blast learning sight words and their context and usage with the adorable Endless monsters. Each word features an interactive word puzzle with letters that come alive, and then a sentence puzzle with words that become what they describe. See the word "dog" as a barking dog, and the word "up" reach for the sky! ** NOTE: You must be online and have sufficient disk space while running the app to get all words in the app. ** Features: - 6 words free to try with additional word packs available for purchase. - Delightful animations reinforce sight recognition of words in a fun and interactive way. - Word puzzles reinforce spelling using lower-case letters and the sentence puzzles teach definition and usage (in addition to sight recognition). - 3D Touch on iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus makes letters and words react in an extra special way! - Endless Reader was designed with your children in mind. There are no high scores, failures, limits or stress. Your children can interact with the app at their own pace.

Screenshots

Starfall ABCs4 screens
Endless Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Starfall ABCs at none against Endless Reader's 10. Endless Reader's advantage is rating (4.5 vs 4.2) and review sentiment (81% vs 60%). On price, ads 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Endless Reader sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. Starfall ABCs asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Endless Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Endless Reader has 2.8K ratings behind it against 472, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 60% of Starfall ABCs's written reviews are positive against 81% of Endless Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Starfall ABCs ships an update every 7 months, Endless Reader every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Starfall ABCs versus Endless Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterStarfall ABCsEndless Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.2 (472 ratings)4.5 (2.8K ratings) — better
Positive reviews60.4% of reviews81.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings4722.8K — better
Update frequencyEvery 7 monthsEvery 3 months — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.012.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size62 MB55 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperStarfall Education FoundationOriginator Inc.

Customer experience

Starfall ABCs

All ratings472 ratings
Positive76.9%
Neutral7.8%
Negative15.3%
Written reviews182 reviews
Positive60.4%
Neutral6.0%
Negative33.5%

Endless Reader

All ratings2,806 ratings
Positive85.8%
Neutral4.4%
Negative9.8%
Written reviews486 reviews
Positive81.5%
Neutral4.9%
Negative13.6%

Bugs and requests

Starfall ABCs

Reported bugs

4 issues
  • Black screen issues
  • Repeated crashes and freezing
  • Incompatibility with latest iOS updates
  • Inability to exit app on certain devices

Requested features

5 requests
  • Expand app to include more Starfall website features
  • Add more advanced learning content beyond just ABCs
  • Improve compatibility and stability across devices
  • Integrate voice assistant and accessibility features
  • Address gender representation issues in content

Endless Reader

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Starfall ABCs

No in-app purchases

10 purchases

Endless Reader

One-time10
  • Word Pack 1$5.99
  • Word Pack 2$5.99
  • Word Pack 3$5.99
Show 7 more
  • Word Pack 4$5.99
  • Word Pack 5$5.99
  • Reader Pack 1$5.99
  • Bundle of Word Packs 1-4$11.99
  • Bundle of Word Packs 5-8$11.99
  • Bundle of Word Packs 9-12$11.99
  • Bundle of ALL Word Packs 1-12$29.99

Questions

Is Starfall ABCs free?
Starfall ABCs is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Endless Reader free?
Endless Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Starfall ABCs or Endless Reader?
Endless Reader is rated higher. Starfall ABCs averages 4.2 out of 5 from 472 ratings, while Endless Reader averages 4.5 from 2.8K ratings.
Do Starfall ABCs or Endless Reader have ads?
Neither Starfall ABCs nor Endless Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Starfall ABCs or Endless Reader?
Starfall ABCs ships an update every 7 months, and Endless Reader every 3 months. Most recently, Starfall ABCs was updated on September 23, 2026 and Endless Reader on September 24, 2026.

Other comparisons