My Shelf Player vs Byterati
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
My Shelf Player
This app connects to your self-hosted Audiobookshelf server to provide a clean, native audiobook listening experience. Enjoy features like playback speed adjustment, sleep timers, bookmarks, and offline listening, all without ads or tracking.
- Connect to Audiobookshelf server
- Browse library by various categories
- Stream and download audiobooks
- Resume playback progress
- Create and manage bookmarks
- Adjust playback speed and skip controls
- Set sleep timers
- Apple Watch control
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My Shelf Player is a native audiobook player for your self-hosted Audiobookshelf library. Connect to your own Audiobookshelf server, browse your books, and listen with a clean player built for long-form audio. Pick up where you left off, adjust playback speed, set a sleep timer, create bookmarks, and keep your library organized across books, series, authors, narrators, playlists, history, and downloads. Features: • Connect to your Audiobookshelf server • Browse books, series, authors, narrators, collections, playlists, history, and bookmarks • Stream audiobooks from your server • Download books for offline listening • Resume from saved playback progress • Create and manage bookmarks • Use configurable skip controls and playback speeds • Set sleep timers for bedtime listening • Control playback from Apple Watch • Keep listening without ads or third-party tracking My Shelf Player is designed for people who own and manage their own audiobook library. Your server, your books, your listening experience. Requires access to an Audiobookshelf server.
Byterati
Access a vast library of classic books with lifelike, on-device narration. Enjoy customizable reading themes, adjustable playback speed, and offline access. Your reading experience is private and ad-free.
- Lifelike on-device narration
- Offline reading and listening
- Customizable reading themes
- Adjustable playback speed
- Word and sentence highlighting
- Background playback
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FREE, NATURAL NARRATION Choose Apple's built-in voices, or download Byterati's neural voices once for lifelike narration that runs entirely on your device. No streaming and no per-book fees — the whole library reads aloud for free. READ OR LISTEN, YOUR WAY • Word- and sentence-level highlighting that follows along as it reads • Adjustable speed; tap any line to start reading from there • Light, Sepia, and Dark reading themes with adjustable font and size • Background playback with lock-screen and AirPods controls • Pick up exactly where you left off, every time YOUR LIBRARY, ORGANIZED • Recent, Library, and Downloads views • Tag books by topic and filter your shelves • Download books and audiobooks for fully offline reading and listening PRIVATE BY DESIGN No accounts. No ads. No tracking or analytics. Nothing you read leaves your device. Byterati is completely free, with no in-app purchases. Thousands of timeless books — Austen, Dickens, Doyle, Shelley, Verne, and far beyond — ready to read and to hear, wherever you are.
Screenshots
Verdict
My Shelf Player and Byterati are too close to call on the numbers: across 8 compared parameters — price, rating, ratings volume and ads among them — neither pulls far enough ahead to decide it. What separates them is feature set and interface, not measurable difference.
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.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for My Shelf Player against 5.0 for Byterati. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively.
| Parameter | My Shelf Player | Byterati |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 4 weeks | — |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 18.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 11 MB | 49 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Andrew Kozhokaru | Bruce Rannala |
Customer experience
My Shelf Player
Byterati
In-app purchases
My Shelf Player
No in-app purchases
Byterati
No in-app purchases









