ReadCloud vs Books Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
ReadCloud
This e-reading platform provides Australian schools with digital access to educational content, eNovels, and teacher-curated resources. It facilitates collaboration, annotation, and seamless integration with learning management systems, supporting a digital-first strategy for students and educators.
- Digital access to educational content and eNovels
- Teacher content curation and upload
- Virtual class clouds for collaboration
- Highlighting and annotation tools
- LMS and publisher platform integration
- Reading analytics for teachers and parents
- Single Sign-On (SSO)
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ReadCloud is the leading eReading software provider to Australian schools. Locally developed and fully supported the software is valuable for any school that has embarked or is considering embarking on their digital transformation journey. ReadCloud offers schools (teachers and students): Access to their in-classroom resources digitally – educational content from the world’s leading educational publishers, together with non-traditional educational resources, as well as eNovels. Connect seamlessly via a single login to selected publishers’ digital interactive resources with Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) integration or simply link and login to publisher platforms whilst still inside the application. The ability to highlight, annotate, collaborate and communicate with class members. These “ring-fenced” class conversations are made possible through ReadCloud’s virtual class clouds which mimic the actual classroom by grouping the members of each physical class. ReadCloud’s innovative Content Manager affords teachers the ability to curate their own content and upload their own resources into ReadCloud’s virtual class clouds to further contexualise the learning experience. Teacher curated content sits alongside the commercial curriculum and can be in the form of a PDF, website, video, audio or image. LMS connectivity - ReadCloud provides deep integration into many LMS’s allowing users to quickly and securely access ReadCloud’s Bookshelf. Stream PDF’s and access publisher interactive content. Alternatively embed the App into your chosen LMS to assist with session plans. Single Sign-On (SSO) capability. Easily accessible reading analytics at a class cloud level assisting teachers and parents. A comprehensive on-boarding, in-servicing and a tailored professional development programme which takes place at school and runs for the course of the school year, enabling sharing of best practice teaching methods in order to maximize student learning outcomes. ReadCloud also supports blended classrooms Today over 500 education institutions and in excess of 115,000 students regularly go to ReadCloud to achieve a “digital first” strategy for simplified consumption of in-classroom resources.
Books Reader
This app provides a seamless e-reading experience, managing your ebook collection and offering customizable reading settings. It supports various formats and includes features like bookmarking, note-taking, and a read/unread tracker.
- Supports multiple ebook formats (epub, fb2, mobi, PDF)
- Manages and organizes ebook collections
- Customizable text size, color, theme, and brightness
- Progress tracking and bookmarking
- Note-taking and excerpt selection
- Read/unread book tracker
- Filtering and search functionality
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Books Reader - its a perfect e-reading experience. Overdrive your reading skills everyday. For everyone reader we gift free books and e-reading collections. Books Reader is a laconic pocket library and intuitive tool for a perfect reading experience. Without extra fluff or complexity, it takes care of all the basic needs: managing your ebook collections, getting the text on the screen and letting you interact with it as you go at your prime reading. For a start, the app builds a library for you by rounding up all the book files stored on the device. Books Reader works with most popular ebooks formats (epub, fb2, mobi etc.), including zip archives. If necessary, you can tweak the list manually, by adding or removing specific titles for ibooks. However big your collection gets, browsing will remain easy thanks to a provided set of filters. Besides, the system is keeping track of your history to display the books in order of relevance. Viewing the book, you can adjust the settings for the best effect: change size and color of the text, pick the right theme and brightness level, use various controls options for turning pages. The combination of a progress bar, bookmarking and a search tool help to navigate the text effortlessly. Make sure to select the excerpts that stayed with you and import them to Notes with just a couple of taps. Books Reader offers: - A variety of ebook formats (epub, fb2,PDF, mobi and others); - Auto unpacking of zip archives; - A smart manager of the books stored on your device; - Read/unread books tracker; - Filtering system (by author, by date added or read, etc.); - Adjustable page/text settings (brightness, size, color, theme and more); - Several controls methods (scrolling, tapping or using buttons); - Marking pages and taking notes. Privacy Policy: https://villow.studio/privacy Term Of Use: https://villow.studio/terms
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Books Reader at 4.7 against ReadCloud's 1.0. Books Reader also leads on review sentiment (38% vs 20%) and ratings volume (22 vs 2). ReadCloud's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 9) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.6). On price, update cadence, 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
Both are free to download. Books Reader sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. ReadCloud asks for nothing beyond the download.
Books Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 1.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Books Reader has 22 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 20% of ReadCloud's written reviews are positive against 38% of Books Reader's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 3 months. The most recent releases landed on September 18, 2026 and September 23, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | ReadCloud | Books Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 1.0 (2 ratings) | 4.7 (22 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 20.0% of reviews | 37.5% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 2 | 22 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 months | Every 3 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 15.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 59 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | ReadCloud | Villow |
Customer experience
ReadCloud
Books Reader
In-app purchases
ReadCloud
No in-app purchases
Books Reader
- Regular donation$1.991 Month
- Regular donation$3.991 Month
- Regular donation$5.991 Month
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- Regular donation$9.991 Month
- Donation$1.99
- Donation$3.99
- Donation$5.99
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- Donation$9.99
- Custom Fonts & Themes$9.99
Questions
Is ReadCloud free?
Is Books Reader free?
Which has better reviews, ReadCloud or Books Reader?
Do ReadCloud or Books Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, ReadCloud or Books Reader?
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