Issa Reader vs Brevier
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
Brevier
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Brevier is a reader for the DRM-free EPUB, PDF, and plain-text books you already have. Highlight, take notes, and with Brevier Premium, ask about any passage and get answers that cite your book. Reading • Pages or continuous scrolling, with page curl on iPhone and iPad • Fonts, text size, spacing, margins, justified text, and themes, including dark • Search inside a book, follow its contents and links, and read footnotes without leaving the page • Bookmark a page and return to it • PDFs keep their own pages, with highlights, notes, search, and Explain • Opens where you left off on each of your devices, and Handoff continues the book you're reading Highlights and Notes • Highlight in five colors or underline, and attach a note • See every highlight and note in one searchable list • Export a book's notes as Markdown, or share a quote as an image Explain (Brevier Premium) • Select a passage and choose Explain for its meaning, context, and background • Explain a page, a chapter, or the whole book, and ask follow-up questions • Answers cite passages from your book, so you can check them • Avoid Spoilers leaves out later chapters until you choose otherwise • Catch Up recaps the story so far Explain asks before it sends anything and uses a third-party AI service in the cloud. Explanations may contain mistakes. Reading Goals • A daily goal, a streak, and the books you finish this year • An optional evening reminder on days you haven't met your goal Your books, notes, and reading positions stay on your device and sync through your own iCloud account. No account, no ads, no tracking. Brevier opens DRM-free EPUB, PDF, and plain-text files. Books protected by DRM, such as most ebook store purchases, and PDFs locked with a password can't be opened. Brevier Premium is an auto-renewable subscription, billed monthly or yearly. Payment is charged to your Apple Account, and the subscription renews unless canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the period. Manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://hksw.io/privacy/#brevier
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Issa Reader at none against Brevier's 2. Brevier's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs weekly). On price, ads, 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. Brevier sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month. Issa Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.
Issa Reader ships an update weekly, Brevier every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 6, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Issa Reader | Brevier |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 5.0 (3 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 3 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV — better | iPhone, iPad, Mac |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 — better | 27.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 8 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Benjamin Issa | HK Softworks AB |
In-app purchases
Issa Reader
No in-app purchases
Brevier
- Brevier Premium Monthly7 Days trial$4.991 Month
- Brevier Premium Annual7 Days trial$39.991 Year








