Ghostreader AI vs Issa Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Ghostreader AI
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Ghostreader is the e-reader that reads with you. Bring books, papers, and articles into one private reading workspace, then ask questions, follow ideas, and return every answer to its source. READ WITH GHOST • Ask questions grounded in the text in front of you • Highlight a passage to explain it, define it, or ask a follow-up • Chat with one book, a selected set, or your whole library • Check cited source passages instead of taking an answer on faith • Listen with natural read-aloud while the page stays visible KEEP A PRIVATE READING MEMORY • Turn saved highlights, notes, and page-linked questions into inspectable ideas • See meaningful connections across books without turning reading progress into a public profile • Search what you kept and review a human-readable activity history BUILD IN BOOK STUDIO • Create cited comparisons, evidence tables, literature reviews, outlines, maps, briefs, and reading plans • Let Ghostreader find relevant passages automatically, or pin the exact passages you want • Revise artifacts without losing their source snapshot or version history READ WITH FRIENDS • Share one sourced page, note, or question with people you choose • Catch up through a finite Today table instead of an endless ranked feed • Read together in invite-only rooms with quiet, qualitative signals • Reply by branching from a passage in your own copy Friends is optional. Your library, private highlights, reading position, Reading Memory, and Studio work are not shared by default. You confirm the audience for every shared page. BRING YOUR OWN READING Import EPUB books, PDFs, Markdown files, research papers, and web articles. Switch supported originals between paged and continuous reading, and keep downloaded EPUB or PDF originals available for offline reading and search. AI explanations, sync, and newly generated work require a connection. Ghostreader includes a free Normie Reader plan with up to three new reading materials per month. Avid Reader is $6.99 per month and removes the monthly import limit. AI reading features are included on both plans. An account is required. Your library is private and is not used to train public AI models. Privacy Policy: https://ghostreader.ai/privacy Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/
Issa Reader
This app syncs your ebooks with audiobooks from a self-hosted server, allowing seamless transitions between reading and listening. It offers a native reading experience with customizable text and themes, and advanced audiobook playback features.
- Seamless read-to-listen transition
- Native typesetting engine
- Customizable reading fonts and themes
- Variable speed audiobook playback
- CarPlay integration
- Offline library access
- Home Screen widget
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Read a book and hear it at the same time. Each sentence lights up as the narrator reaches it, the page turns itself to follow, and you can stop reading, keep listening, and pick up on the same sentence. Issa Reader is a native app for Storyteller, the self-hosted server that aligns an ebook with its audiobook. Bring your own server and your own books. There is no shop, no catalogue and no account with us. WHAT YOU NEED Your library and read-along come from a Storyteller server you run yourself. Without one, you can still read DRM-free EPUBs from Files or iCloud Drive, kept on this device alone. READ ALONG This is what Storyteller is for. Where a book has narration aligned to its text, each sentence lights up as it is spoken, the page turns itself to follow, and double-tapping a line starts the narrator there. Your place is shared between reading and listening, so the two stay in step. READ A real typesetting engine, not a web view. Pages are laid out natively, so turning one is instant and the type is properly set. Six bundled reading faces, including Literata, Source Serif 4 and OpenDyslexic, or add a font of your own. Four page themes for daylight, lamplight and the middle of the night. Size, line spacing and justification are yours to set, per book or for everything. LISTEN Variable speed with pitch correction, chapter and sentence navigation, skip controls, a sleep timer, and full Now Playing support on the Lock Screen and in Control Centre. ASK ABOUT THE BOOK Lost track of who someone is? Ask. On devices with Apple Intelligence, the answer is worked out on your device from the part you have already read, never from further on. MADE FOR IPHONE DUO Open and held wide, a book reads as two pages either side of the fold, and your shelf sits beside the book you chose. Prop it open like a laptop and a narrated book shows the sentence on the upper half and the player on the lower. Closed, the reader's tools stand in a rail down the side. IN THE CAR CarPlay gives you your shelves and chapters as proper lists, with Now Playing and a resume that lands on the sentence you left, not somewhere near it. Steering-wheel buttons, headphone controls and on-screen controls can each be remapped independently. YOUR WHOLE LIBRARY, ON DEVICE The catalogue is fetched once and kept locally, so searching by title, author, narrator, series or tag is instant and works with no signal at all. Download books to read and listen offline. ON EVERY SCREEN A Home Screen widget shows your current book, chapter and progress. Native apps for Apple TV and the Mac are included, and Handoff carries your place between them. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION No account with us, no analytics, no advertising, no tracking. The developer receives no data of any kind. Issa Reader is open source under the MIT licence, written in Swift, and respects Dynamic Type, VoiceOver and reduced motion throughout. Issa Reader is an independent client and is not affiliated with the Storyteller project.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Issa Reader at none against Ghostreader AI's 1. Issa Reader also leads on device support (4 vs 2). Ghostreader AI's advantage is iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence and ads 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. Ghostreader AI sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $6.99 per month. Issa Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
Ghostreader AI ships an update every 10 days, Issa Reader weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 5, 2026 and November 11, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Ghostreader AI | Issa Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | — | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | — | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | — | 3 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 10 days | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | — | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 — better | 26.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 9 MB | 23 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | lauren brendle | Benjamin Issa |
In-app purchases
Ghostreader AI
- Avid Reader$6.991 Month
Issa Reader
No in-app purchases









