Gutenberg Project vs Project Gutenberg eBook Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Gutenberg Project
Access over 60,000 classic books and 7,000 human-read audiobooks from Project Gutenberg. Enjoy a beautiful reading experience with synchronized audio and text, intelligent table of contents, and personalized recommendations based on user data. Export books with notes and bookmarks.
- Access 60,000+ classic books
- 7,000+ human-read audiobooks
- Synchronized read-along audio/text
- Intelligent Table of Contents
- Big data-driven recommendations
- Export books with notes/bookmarks
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【Premier Reader】: This app costs $6, and our users are paying for it each and every day. Why? It is the best Gutenberg Reader: beautiful images, elegant formatting, and graceful page turning. Contents live from Project Gutenberg with last-minute update, more than 60,000 most important books ever published in history. Plus more than 7,000 human-read audio books. 【Audio books】: There are more than 7,000 human-read audio books, all for the price of a cup of coffee. Alternatively you could pay $3-5 for a single audiobook as some of the "Audio app" would ask you to pay. 【Book recommendation】: Every app gives you a list of book recommendation, but where did they find the list? dreamed up in 'lala' land? We base our recommendation solidly on big data, tens of millions of pages actually read by our users. Downloading or page flipping has no effect on the ranking of our recommendation list. 【Number of Books】: No other apps have more Gutenberg books, and many competitors are missing some classic Gutenberg books, and many competitors use outdated data from Gutenberg. 【Reading】: Texts and images are presented by a sophisticated book reader: beautiful presentation, graceful page turning, and the most intelligent Table of Contents (better than any other book reader for the same book). 【Read-along】: Audio and Text are synchronized when possible. You can read, listen, or read-Along, and switch between them at will. 【Export】: Export a book together with bookmarks and the notes you inserted into the book to anyone and any device, or save it i the cloud (google drive, one drive, or iCloud). * The PAID version "Gutenberg Books" allows unlimited reading and listening.
Project Gutenberg eBook Reader
Access a vast library of over 75,000 public domain classic books. Read them offline, search by title or author, and enjoy features like adjustable text, themes, and bookmarks. Listen to audiobooks with synchronized text highlighting.
- 75,000+ classic books
- Offline reading
- Read-along audiobooks
- Customizable reader themes
- Search and browse library
- Bookmarks and highlights
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Gutenberg puts one of the largest libraries ever assembled in your pocket. Over 75,000 public-domain classics — every novel, essay, play and poem that time has released — ready to read, to search, and to carry with you offline. And the ones you love most, you can hear read aloud, with the words lighting up on the page as the narrator speaks. No account. No clutter. Just the whole library, beautifully made. READ EVERYTHING • 75,000+ complete books from Project Gutenberg — fiction, history, philosophy, poetry, drama and more. • A clean, typeset reader that feels like paper, with a real page-curl turn or smooth vertical scrolling — your choice. • Light, sepia and dark themes; adjustable typeface, text size and margins. • Highlight passages, keep bookmarks, and jump anywhere with a full table of contents. • Every book downloads for offline reading — on a plane, on the subway, anywhere. LISTEN, IN SYNC • A growing collection of read-along audiobooks: classics narrated aloud, aligned to the page. • Words highlight as they're read, so you can read and listen at the same time — or just close your eyes and listen. • Background playback, lock-screen controls, adjustable speed, and skip-forward / skip-back. • Pick up exactly where you left off, whether you were reading or listening. FIND ANYTHING • Search 75,000+ titles by book or by author in an instant. • Browse by subject — Literature, History, Science, Poetry and dozens more — each thousands of books deep. • Sort by most downloaded, recently added, title, or reading ease. • Explore curated shelves, popular authors, and picks based on what you're reading. BUILT FOR READERS • Warm, considered design that gets out of the way of the words. • Set the app to Light, Dark, or follow your system. • Fast, offline-first, and respectful of your attention. GUTENBERG PREMIUM Gutenberg Premium removes ads and lifts all limits so you can open every book and every audiobook without interruption. • Premium is offered as a Weekly or Yearly auto-renewable subscription, or a one-time Lifetime unlock. • Prices are shown in the app and may vary by region. • Payment is charged to your Apple ID at confirmation of purchase. • A subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends. • You can manage or cancel your subscription anytime in your App Store account settings. • Any unused portion of a trial period, where offered, is forfeited when you purchase a subscription. All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg and are in the public domain. Gutenberg is an independent reader and is not affiliated with the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Privacy Policy: https://burakkose.me/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Project Gutenberg eBook Reader at 5.0 against Gutenberg Project's 3.3. Project Gutenberg eBook Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 months) and monetization model (free with in-app purchases vs paid). Gutenberg Project's advantage is review sentiment (41% vs 0%) and ads (none vs shown). On price, in-app purchases, device support and iOS requirement 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. Gutenberg Project sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Project Gutenberg eBook Reader sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per 7 days. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Project Gutenberg eBook Reader holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.3. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Gutenberg Project has 43 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 41% of Gutenberg Project's written reviews are positive against 0% of Project Gutenberg eBook Reader's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Gutenberg Project ships an update every 2 months, Project Gutenberg eBook Reader every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on October 11, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Gutenberg Project | Project Gutenberg eBook Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.3 (43 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 40.7% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 43 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 months | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No — better | Yes |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 26 MB | 24 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | himalaya-soft | Burak Kose |
Customer experience
Gutenberg Project
Project Gutenberg eBook Reader
Bugs and requests
Gutenberg Project
Reported bugs
16 issues- 504 bad gateway errors
- App not working at all
- App not showing any pages
- Search doesn't find anything but error 404
- Stopped working, will not load catalog
Show 11 moreShow fewer
- Close when attempt to open current book
- Could not download more than four pages
- Downloaded books became confused
- Every time you touch the screen wrong it flips the page
- Sets you back to page one
- Deleted all offline books and audiobook
- Missing offline books
- Cannot read the description of the book
- Books open at the end
- Too many redirects
- Most buttons go to an 'email a friend' page or 'Access forbidden'
Requested features
10 requests- Ability to choose favorite colors for reading
- Paid premium version with custom color combinations
- Sourcing more Gutenberg sites
- Option to make text black on white
- Continuous ad at bottom or top instead of full page
Show 5 moreShow fewer
- Less stylized page turn option (swipe or continuous scroll)
- One app for finding, downloading, and reading
- Ability to search Audiobooks by Genre
- Ability to favorite and build a library
- Night reading mode facility
Project Gutenberg eBook Reader
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Gutenberg Project
- Unlimited Reading$2.99
- Unlimited Listening$2.99
Project Gutenberg eBook Reader
- Weekly Subscription$4.997 Days
- Yearly Subscription$24.991 Year
- Lifetime Access$29.99
Questions
Is Gutenberg Project free?
Is Project Gutenberg eBook Reader free?
Which has better reviews, Gutenberg Project or Project Gutenberg eBook Reader?
Do Gutenberg Project or Project Gutenberg eBook Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, Gutenberg Project or Project Gutenberg eBook Reader?
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