Analects Reader vs Readune
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Analects Reader
Explore Confucius's Analects with interactive features. Read in original Chinese and English, with tappable characters for detailed meanings, readings, and usage. Offers multiple reading modes and integrated podcast commentary.
- Original Chinese and English text
- Tappable characters with detailed meanings
- Multiple reading modes (Study, Translation, Chinese, Classical)
- Integrated podcast commentary with episode guides
- Notes saved as Markdown in iCloud Drive
- Offline access to Chinese text
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The complete Analects of Confucius: all twenty books and 512 passages, in the original Chinese and in English, built for actually reading it. Every character is tappable. The card that opens shows what the character means here, in this passage — not a dictionary's one-size answer — along with its reading, the terms it belongs to, and how it is used across the whole book. Pinyin sits over the characters when you want it and disappears when you don't. READ IT YOUR WAY • Study — the full apparatus: text, translation, pinyin, tappable words, per-passage tone coloring. • Translation — the English as a book. The original waits one tap away under each passage. • Chinese — the received text alone, unglossed, with the English one tap away. • Classical — the text as old editions set it, in columns right to left. Four pages to choose from: one typeset, and three photographed from real copies held in Tokyo, Taipei, and Kyoto — a Qing manuscript, a Ming block print, and a 1550 scholar's copy — with every character mapped, so the glosses work even on a photograph. Scroll the book as one column, or turn it one passage per page, like a printed book. THE COMMENTARY GROWS WITH THE PODCAST The app carries the episode guides from the Exploring the Analects podcast — passage by passage: the philosophical discussion, the historical context, the language notes, with the audio a tap away. New episodes arrive as they are published. YOURS, IN THE FULLEST SENSE Notes you take live in your own iCloud Drive as Markdown — readable anywhere, and they outlive the app. The Chinese text is built in and always works offline. There are no accounts, no ads, no analytics, and no tracking: nothing about your reading is collected. Everything is free — the text, both translations, the glosses, the classical pages, the commentary. A tip jar exists for those who want to keep the project going; nothing is unlocked, because nothing is locked.
Readune
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Find the line you remember. Keep reading where it leads. Readune is an EPUB and PDF reader for the books you bring. Import your files, search across their text, or listen with natural voices that run on your device. No Readune account is required. SEARCH ACROSS YOUR LIBRARY Remember a phrase but not the book? Search the indexed text of your library in one place. See matching passages grouped by book and jump into the text. Search and indexing happen on your device. Chinese text is searchable within sentences, too. BRING YOUR OWN BOOKS Read EPUB, PDF and comics in CBZ or CBR. Import TXT, HTML, Markdown, FB2 and unprotected MOBI or AZW3 files; supported conversions happen on your device. Add files from Files, the Share sheet, drag and drop, or Shortcuts. MAKE ROOM FOR READING Choose Light, Dark, Warm or an E-ink-inspired grayscale theme. Adjust text size, line spacing and margins for reflowable books. Use pages or continuous scrolling. The E-ink mode simulates a paperlike screen with reduced animation; it does not turn your display into E Ink hardware. LISTEN AT YOUR PACE Read Aloud follows sentences with natural voices that run entirely on your device, or with your system voices, and offers playback speed, a sleep timer, background audio and lock-screen controls. Natural voices for more than 30 languages, including English and Chinese, are a one-time download. Free readers get three unlimited days of natural voices from first use, then 10 minutes a day; system voices are always unlimited. Voice availability varies by device and language. KEEP YOUR PLACE Use chapter navigation, bookmarks, in-book search and reading progress. Read comics in either direction. OPTIONAL READUNE PLUS Core importing, reading, library search and Read Aloud with system voices work without Plus. Plus adds unlimited natural voices, optional book-file sync through your own iCloud Drive, a highlights notebook, smart shelves, reading statistics and individual book themes. Choose a monthly or yearly subscription, or a lifetime purchase. Where an introductory offer is available, the app shows its terms before you subscribe. Subscription payments are charged to your Apple Account; subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Manage or cancel in your account settings. YOUR FILES, YOUR CHOICE No ads or tracking. Natural voice packs download once from public model hosts or Readune’s download mirror; speech is then generated on your device, and the text being read is not sent anywhere. Reading positions, bookmarks and preferences can sync through Apple’s iCloud key-value storage. Book files sync only when you enable Plus library sync. Readune does not operate a server that receives your books or searches. Bring your own DRM-free files, or start with the included public-domain sample book. Books shown in screenshots are original illustrations of an imported library and are not included. Image-only books and scanned PDFs without a text layer are not full-text searchable; no OCR is included. Layout and Read Aloud support depend on the file. Privacy: https://readune.thinksview.com/privacy Terms: https://readune.thinksview.com/terms Open-source licenses are available in Settings.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is iOS requirement: Analects Reader at 15.1 against Readune's 17.0. 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. Analects Reader sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and Readune sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Analects Reader ships an update every 2 weeks, Readune every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on November 10, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Analects Reader | Readune |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better | — |
| Number of ratings | 1 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 2 weeks | Every 8 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 276 MB | 50 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Elliott Bernstein | 毓鑫 戴 |
In-app purchases
Analects Reader
- Through the Gate$3.00
- Up to the Hall$10.00
- Into the Chamber$30.00
Readune
- Readune Plus — Monthly$1.991 Month
- Readune Plus — Yearly3 Days trial$12.991 Year
- Readune Plus — Lifetime$19.99









