Readers · a comparison · checked 2026-10-14

What readers value, side by side.

These are the things people said mattered when they chose a reader, in the order they said it. One symbol per cell, and a guide behind the readers we know best. Where we could not confirm something, it says so.

The table

What	Tomen	Moon+ Reader	ReadEra	KOReader	Librera	Readest	Play Books	Kobo
Reads the files you ownyour EPUBs and comics, not a store’s	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	partly	partly
Buy once, no subscriptionor free outright	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	unconfirmed	yes	yes
Highlights you can take with youan export you keep	yes	yes	unconfirmed	yes	unconfirmed	yes	partly	partly
Your place on every deviceposition, highlights and notes synced	yes	partly	partly	partly	partly	yes	yes	partly
Typography chosen once, set for youopen a book and read	yes	partly	partly	partly	partly	partly	partly	partly
Every control exposed, tuned by youmargins, fonts, hyphenation, effects	partly	yes	partly	yes	yes	partly	no	partly
Comics on the same shelfCBZ, CBR and a PDF read as one	yes	partly	partly	partly	yes	partly	no	partly
Reads offline, no account needed	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	yes	partly	partly
No adsin the free version too	yes	partly	yes	yes	unconfirmed	yes	yes	yes
Phone, tablet and PC from one purchase	yes	no	no	yes	no	yes	yes	yes
Runs in a browser, nothing to install	yes	no	no	no	no	yes	yes	no
Runs on a Kindle or a Kobothe e-reader itself	no	no	no	yes	no	no	no	yes
An iPhone app	no	no	no	no	no	yes	yes	yes

✓ yes · ◐ partly, or with conditions the guide explains · – no · ? we could not confirm it

How to read it

A ◐ is where the answer is a sentence. Moon+ Reader syncs through a cloud folder you provide, on Android only; ReadEra's Premium does the same through Google Drive. KOReader syncs your position through its own server, nothing else. Play Books and Kobo read the files you upload or sideload but lock the books you buy, and Kobo's annotation export covers the books you bought, not the ones you sideloaded. The two typography rows are two approaches to a page, and they pull against each other on purpose: Tomen sets the page once and gives you a few choices; KOReader, Moon+ Reader and Librera give you every control. Which you want is a matter of taste, and the Moon+ guide says who should stay with the knobs.

The last three rows are where Tomen loses outright. It does not run on a Kindle or a Kobo and never will; it has no iPhone app. If those are your devices, the KOReader guide and the Kobo guide say so first.

About this table

Last checked 2026-10-14, against each reader's own listing and documentation, and the site refuses to build once this table is six months old until it is checked again. The other readers' features and prices move, and a cell can go stale or be plain wrong; if you know one is, write to [email protected] and it will be fixed. Every name here is a trademark of its owner; this page compares, it does not speak for them.

Open the reader Everything else Tomen does

Free to read. Tomen Plus is $49, once, with a 30-day trial and no card.