Fablum
Best EPUB reader apps for iPhone
Fablum is one of the apps on this list, and we make it. Each entry says what the app does, where it is ahead of Fablum, and which page the fact came from.
The reader an iPhone ships with is Apple Books, which sells books and audiobooks inside the app. If your books come from somewhere else, or you want something else around them, the question is which reader to use, and the answer depends on where your books come from.
Four readers and ours are below. We make Fablum, which is why it is on the list and why each entry also says where the other app is ahead. Nothing here is ranked: the order is the order we wrote them in. Every line about another app was read on that app’s own page on the date beside it.
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Apple Books
Apple's own reader and bookshop, already installed.
- Sells books and audiobooks inside the app, and any book can be sampled before you buy it. App Store listing
- Family Sharing passes your books and audiobooks to up to five family members. App Store listing
- What the store offers depends on where you are: the listing says content varies by country or region and may not be available on all devices. App Store listing
Side by side: Fablum and Apple Books.
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Amazon Kindle
The reading app for books bought from Amazon.
- Keeps your place, bookmarks, highlights and notes in step across devices, so you can stop on one and carry on with another. App Store listing
- Switches from reading a book to listening to its Audible narration inside the same app. App Store listing
- The library is the Amazon account: the listing describes books bought on Amazon turning up in the app. App Store listing
Side by side: Fablum and Kindle.
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KyBook 3
A reader and cataloguer for people who keep their own files.
- Opens EPUB, PDF, MOBI, AZW3, DjVu, FB2, comics, plain text and audio files, and reads OPDS catalogs, including ones you add yourself. App Store listing
- Reaches files on iCloud Drive, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, Yandex Disk, a WebDAV server or a shared folder on your network. App Store listing
- Keeping books and metadata in step between devices is a subscription that renews until you stop it. App Store listing
Side by side: Fablum as a KyBook alternative.
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Neat Reader
One EPUB reader across phones, desktops and the browser.
- Runs on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, Windows, Kindle Fire and the web, and keeps the same reading position on all of them. Neat Reader's own site
- Stores book files, notes and reading progress in its cloud, and exports the notes. Neat Reader's own site
- Reading starts with a sign-up: the first two buttons on its home page are Create free account and Sign in. Neat Reader's own site
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Fablum
Our reader. It opens EPUB and PDF files and packaged audiobooks, and reads EPUB aloud with the voices on the device.
- No account, and an imported book opens with the network off.
- Books arrive from the Files app, from a direct link, from the share sheet or from the built-in public catalog.
- No shop: the built-in public catalog holds books whose copyright has run out in the USA, and you cannot point the app at a catalog of your own.
- Nothing syncs. Each device keeps its own library, so a book you add on an iPad does not appear on your iPhone.
Which one to install
If your books come from a shop, use that shop’s app and stop reading here: Apple Books is already on the phone and Kindle is a free download. If your books are files you already have, the question is what else you need. KyBook catalogues a large collection and reaches network storage. Neat Reader keeps one library in step everywhere. Fablum imports the file and keeps it on the phone, and it also plays audiobooks and reads EPUB aloud.
A book bought from a shop usually arrives in that shop’s own protected format, which Fablum cannot open. That is worth knowing before you move a library across.
How these entries were checked
Each line above was read on the page it links to, on the date printed beside it. If any of those dates falls more than 180 days behind, our own test suite fails and the page has to be read again. We move a date only after re-reading the page it points at.
If you are new to all of this, the walkthrough for getting an EPUB onto an iPhone is a short one, and what OPDS is explains the catalog part.