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Best Alternatives to Kindle App: Not Satisfied with Amazon Kindle App

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Do I need to purchase a kindle for reading kindle books? Absolutely no. Since Amazon makes Kindle app available for practically every platform out there, you can access your kindle books with kindle app for pc/mac/android/ios/cloud. They are all excellent free applications for reading kindle books, but only kindle books. If you are the one who has no desire to enter into the Amazon ecosystem, there are also some best alternatives to kindle app out there. I will share some best kindle app alternatives so that you can find the one suits you the best.

kindle app

Know at a glance-- features of Kindle app for pc/mac/android/ios/cloud

The kindle app for pc/mac/android/ios offer almost the same features.
1. Download and read ebooks purchased from Amazon kindle store.
2. Sync your kindle books across apps and remember where you left off on other devices.
3. Take notes, highlights, bookmark.
4. Default dictionary helps you look up words.
5. And more.

Important Notice: All kindle ebooks are protected by Kindle DRM, if you want to read kindle books on applications besides kindle, please remove Kindle DRM at first.

Part 1. Best Alternative to Kindle for PC/Mac

1 Calibre(Alternative to kindle for PC/Mac)

Calibre is always the first choice for many avid ebook readers who have thousands of ebooks as it is the best free ebook manager currently. Besides the ebook reader, it performs more as the book format converter and ebook managing system. Anyway, its built-in ebook viewer function makes this app is the strong competitor to kindle desktop application. Also, it is listed as the most popular kindle app alternative.

Pros:

1. It supports various ebook formats: mobi, azw3, epub, pdf, txt, cbr, cbz etc.
2. It supports ebook conversion, dictionary look up, bookmark, table of content.
3. Customize the font size, layout and styles.

Cons:

1. The interface is somewhat out of date and not the most attractive.
2. It doesn’t support highlights and annotations. This is the key point that I don’t like it. Can you image that you will not making any note when reading a book? It is a disaster for me.

calibre viewer

2 Adobe Digital Editions(Alternative to kindle for pc/Mac/Android/iOS)

Adobe Digital Editions ebook reading app which can read both DRM-protected (adobe adept drm) and DRM-free epub and pdf format ebooks. It is also a completely free kindle app alternative.

Pros:

1. It supports ebooks purchased from Google play, kobo, nook and library books with adobe adept drm protection.
2. It also supports DRM free epub(including epub 3.0) and PDF format.
3. It is compatible with screen reader such as JAWS, Window-eyes, NVDA and Voiceover.
4. It can organize your books by categories.
5. It supports bookmarks, highlights and note-taking.

Cons:

1. This app is too clumsy and often not responding. What’s more, it crashes sometime.
2. It is a little bit slow and can takes seconds to scroll through a picture.
3. You need to authorize it to handle the adobe drm protected books.

Although Adobe digital editions is buggy sometime, but it is still the perfect choice for reading epub and pdf books. Can I read kindle books with Adobe digital editions? Sure, you can. The easiest way is kindle books to epub or pdf format.

adobe digital editions

3 Epubor Reader (Alternative to kindle for pc/Mac)

Besides the above-mentioned well known desktop reading applications, here I want to share another professional ebook reading app-- Epubor Reader which can not only read kindle format ebooks but also can read epub format ebooks.

Pros:

1. It supports multiple ebook formats, including azw3, azw, mobi and epub format.
2. Note-taking, highlights, bookmarks are all available.
3. It enables you to customize your reading experience with the different reading modes, layouts, fonts and font size.
4. You can also filter your ebooks by authors, languages, ISBN and publishers.
5. Its interface is intuitive.

Cons:

1. No dictionary for you to look up words.
2. It only reads drm-free ebooks.
3. It can not read pdf files.

Compared with other reading app, it can read almost all mainstream ebooks without drm-protections. Since it focuses more on ebook reading function, it can give you much better reading experience. If you have ebooks purchased from multiple ebook stores but want to organize and read them with one app, you should never miss Epubor Reader for Windows/Mac.

epubor reader for windows and mac

I know there are some kindle app similar apps, like kobo app or nook app. As these reading apps only read ebooks purchased from their own stores which limits our reading resource, I don’t recommend them as the best alternative to kindle app.

Part 2. Best Alternative to Kindle for Android/iOS

4 FBReader (Alternative to Kindle app for Android)

As the free ebook reader, FBReader is famous for the fast speed and highly customizable nature. It not only supports epub formats, but also some kindle formats.

Pros:

1. Its supported ebook formats include epub, azw3, mobi, rtf, fb2, doc, html and txt.
2. It enables you to sync your library, books marks and reading positions to the cloud service.
3.The built-in browser enables you to access the sources to get the free ebooks.
4. As for customizable nature, you can change the text fonts, size, hyphenation, text colors and backgrounds, margins, page animations and more.

Cons:

1. You need to pay for the plugin to read pdf format.
2. The menu navigation is complicated, and it is different for each plugin.
3. It only reads drm-free ebooks.

FBreader

5 iBooks (Alternative to Kindle app for iOS/Mac)

When talking about reading ebooks on Apple related devices, iBooks always the first one rush into my mind. iBooks is the super advanced ebook reader and ebook manager. Like amazon, iBooks also has its own ebook store.

Pros:

1. Support multiple filetypes, including epub and pdf.
2. There’s an ebook store built into the iBooks.
3. Manage and sort your ebooks easily.
4. It enables you to bookmark, highlight, take notes, read in landscape mode, adjust the brightness and text size.
5. The interface is polished and elegant.

Cons:

1. It only works on iOS system.
2. It crashes sometime.

iBooks

6 KyBook 3 eBook Reader(Alternative to Kindle app for iOS)

KyBook 3 is a versatile app and ebook manager for iOS devices. It supports almost all the major ebook formats which makes this ebook reader is highly recommended.

Pros:

1. It not only supports ebooks formats, but also the comic formats and audio formats, including ePub, pdf, mobi, azw, DjVu, fb2, cbr, cbz, cbt, mp3, m4a, m4b and txt.
2. It enables you to customize your layout, font, and font size smoothly.
3. It works with cloud services like iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Yandex Disk.
4. The OPDS makes it easy to connect to the public domain content online for free.

Cons:

1. It only support DRM free ebooks.
2. If you want to sync your ebooks across different devices, you need to pay for the subscription fee.

kybook reader

Best Alternative to Kindle Cloud Reader

Kindle cloud reader, the web-based app, is designed for reading kindle books online. Have you ever noticed that it only reads ebooks purchased from kindle store? For the documents you emailed to your kindle devices, you'll never find them in kindle cloud reader library. A good online reading app can help you read documents and ebooks besides kindle store. First of all, please ensure all your documents and ebooks are DRM-free.

7 MagicScroll Web Reader (Alternative to Kindle Cloud Reader)

Just like Kindle cloud reader, MagicScroll Web Reader is also a browser extension. Currently, it is only available on Google Chrome. Besides reading the uploaded ebooks, it also can turn your webpage into a book and change the way you browse the webpage. Just loading your ebooks to magicscroll homepage at first for later reading.

Pros:

1. It transforms each page into a book-like interface, making it much easier to read long articles without distraction.
2. It supports table of content and changing font and font size.
3. It makes the book sharing is much simpler. When your ebooks have been uploaded, you will given a URL and you can share it with your friends.
4. It is free chrome extension.

Cons:

1. It takes a little bit longer to load your ebooks or turn on pages.
2. You are not able to take notes, bookmarks or highlights the text.
3. It only reads epub and html5 files.
4. It doesn’t work with drm-protected ebooks.

magic scroll ebook reader

8 BookFusion(Alternative to Kindle Cloud Reader)

BookFusion is a multiple platform ebook reading app. It is available on web, ios and Android devices. It allows you to manage, upload, read and sync all your ebooks.

Pros:

1.It will sync all your ebook reading progress, highlights, and notes across different devices and platforms.
2. It provides "sent to kindle" service for your uploaded ebooks.
3. You can manage your ebooks and even edit metadata on the cloud library.
4. It supports nearly all ebook formats, such as pdf, epub and mobi.
5. It lets you read offline without internet connection.
6. It allows you to categories your books to organize your library.

Cons:

1. The free version allows you to upload only 50 books in total with the max file size 15MB.
2. It is only compatible with drm-free ebooks.

bookfusion reader

Actually, I think kindle cloud reader is good for reading kindle books, but for other ebook formats, it is useless. Compared with kindle cloud reader, these two cloud reader apps have their advanced features. You just need to figure out what's the most important feature for you and make the final decision.

In summary, the listed 8 kindle alternative apps are all featured and easy to use. They are all the best replacement for Amazon Kindle app. So which platform are you on? Just pick up the best one to try out now.

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author

has been a passionate member of Epubor since 2017. Her mission is to enhance your ebook reading experience by sharing insightful tips and tricks. Join her on a journey towards reading excellence today!

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