McGraw Hill Express Library vs Cengage Read
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
McGraw Hill Express Library
Access and read McGraw Hill textbooks on your iOS device. Download books for offline access, search your library, and create notes and highlights to enhance your studies. Sync your progress across devices.
- Download books for offline reading
- Search entire library
- Create notes and highlights
- Sync across devices
- User-friendly navigation
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Use McGraw Hill Express Library to download and access McGraw Hill textbooks on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch. Read your books online or offline, search across your full library, and create notes and highlights to help you study. Features: • Download books to your iOS device for easy online or offline reading. • Simple, user-friendly navigation and a clean reading experience. • Search inside your current book or across your full library. • Select text to create notes or highlights from your mobile device. • Sync your bookmarks, last page read, and all your notes and highlights between your iOS device and our desktop or web-based McGraw Hill India Bookshelf apps. Requirements: • McGraw Hill India Bookshelf account • Access to one or more McGraw Hill textbooks • iOS 15+
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 McGraw Hill Express Library's 2.7. Cengage Read also leads on ratings volume (4.2K vs 153) and review sentiment (20% vs 3%). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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 2.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Cengage Read has 4.2K ratings behind it against 153, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 3% of McGraw Hill Express Library's written reviews are positive against 20% of Cengage Read's.
McGraw Hill Express Library ships an update every 4 months, Cengage Read every 2 months. Both last shipped on October 27, 2026.
| Parameter | McGraw Hill Express Library | Cengage Read |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.7 (153 ratings) | 4.2 (4.2K ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 3.0% of reviews | 19.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 153 | 4.2K — better |
| Update frequency | Every 4 months | Every 2 months — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.6 — better | 18 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 183 MB | 37 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | McGraw-Hill | Cengage Learning |
Customer experience
McGraw Hill Express Library
Cengage Read
User reviews
McGraw Hill Express Library
From 153 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Makes studying easier
- 👍 Love the audio option
Room to improve
- 🐛 App does not work
- 🐛 Won't let me login
- 🐛 Cannot access ebooks
- 🐛 Account doesn't exist
- 🐛 Incorrect password/email
Cengage Read
From 4.2K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Easy to read textbooks
- 🚀 Convenient for on-the-go learning
- 👍 Useful for listening to audio while commuting
- 👍 Allows highlighting and note-taking
Room to improve
- 🐛 Buggy and glitchy
- 🔥 Poor text formatting and layout
- 👎 Difficult to navigate and use
- 🔒 Login and account issues
- 🔍 Missing key features like split-screen and assignment tracking
Bugs and requests
McGraw Hill Express Library
Reported bugs
16 issues- Cannot log in
- App does not recognize school account
- App does not recognize user account
- Cannot create a new account
- Cannot access ebooks
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Sign in button does not work
- QR code feature does not work
- No QR code on website
- App does not work on iPad
- Incorrect password or email error
- No books show up in app
- App no longer works
- Message to account not received
- Cannot create an account
- Account doesn't exist error
- Customer service hung up
Requested features
7 requests- Fix the app
- Make app work on iPad
- Allow access to ebooks
- Resolve login issues
- Provide FAQ for book access
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Ensure app has McGraw Hill logo
- Make QR code feature functional
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
McGraw Hill Express Library
No in-app purchases
Cengage Read
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is McGraw Hill Express Library free?
Is Cengage Read free?
Which has better reviews, McGraw Hill Express Library or Cengage Read?
Do McGraw Hill Express Library or Cengage Read have ads?
Which is updated more often, McGraw Hill Express Library or Cengage Read?
Other comparisons
