20 Best Audiobook Apps for Android + Sites to Download Free AudioBooks

Grab an audiobook app to play Audio Books on your smartphone or tablet

best audiobook app - free audiobooks

There are too many good books out there, aren’t there? Each of them is as delightful as useful they can be. Our time is short; we never have enough time to do all those reading no matter how much we want to. Hence the 21st century itself came up with this wonderful solution – audio books app. Yes, audiobooks can give you nearly the same output as if you read it all by yourself on an eBook reader app.

What are the best audiobook apps for android?

Level up your everyday reading experience. The advantage is, in audio book apps, you can customize the narrating to keep you from getting distracted, and that saves time. So grab the best audiobook apps below and start listening to your favorite books.

Audible

Price: Free / Single books or $9.99 per month

Audible: audiobooks, podcasts & audio stories has a massive library of more than 180k. Although the app is free to download, you’ll begin with a 30-day free trial, and then you can purchase a subscription or buy individual titles. It offers contemporary best-selling books, with both fiction and non-fiction, and award-winning celebrity narrators to read to you. Playback features are good, with multitasking support, variable speed, chapter navigation, and more.

This app features syncing across devices, offline downloads, the ability to send any of your books to someone you know (they receive the first item free), and integration with Amazon Prime membership for access to exclusive content

Amazon Kindle

Price: Free / Single books or $9.99 per month
Amazon Kindle audiobook

Amazon Kindle is undoubtedly the most popular ebook reader app that also has native support for Audiobooks. Interestingly, Amazon owns the Audible, so you get everything from there along with the readable book format. There are millions of audiobooks and millions of regular books as well. It works pretty much the same way, and audiobook fans can have unlimited access to both platforms from one app for a monthly subscription fee of $9.99.

LibriVox

Price: Free
LibriVox AudioBooks Free

LibriVox makes listening to spoken books a pleasure to choose over 24,000 free audiobooks and unlimited access. As well as bestsellers and classics, this app also offers some books out of print for those who have been seeking something out. The books can be Internet-streamed or downloaded for offline use later, and users can search by title, keyword, or genre. If you like listening to one particular narrator, you can even narrow the choice down further.

Further features include unlimited bookmarks, a sleep timer, and support for Android Auto, Google Cast, and Bluetooth controls. In-app-purchases apply to some new releases, bestsellers, and professional works, and a premium version is also available. Overall, LibriVox Audio Books is a decent option for beginners.

Smart AudioBook Player

Price: Free / $0.99 – $4.99
Smart AudioBook Player

This reader app is designed primarily for playing audiobooks that you already downloaded or imported to your phone. It includes bookmarking, control widgets (for the home page and notification tray), variable playback speed, automatic pause, Chromecast support, and progress saving. A nice feature is organizing your books by adding cover art and other info, which makes the library look pretty. The basic version is free to use but you can try the premium features for 30 days before making a decision if the upgrade worth it.

Audiobooks.com

Price: Free with ads/ Offers IAP
Audio Books by Audiobooks

Audiobooks.com has a native app to listen to new audiobooks & podcasts with unlimited access to more than 6000 titles completely free. However, you’ll need to pay extra to access a premium catalog with a choice of over 1000,000 to choose from. Surprisingly it is also an excellent podcast app with over 700,000 podcast episodes, so you get the best of both worlds. Audiobooks can be streamed over mobile data or Wi-Fi or downloaded to your mobile device. Users can create custom bookmarks, including comments and notes, rate and review the titles, and sync listening across devices.

Voice Audiobook Player

Price: Free
Material Audiobook Player

This is a basic but completely open-source free audiobook app for Android. It has no ads and a clean and streamlined look based on Material Design. You add a folder containing files, and away you go! It can remember your last position and adjust playback speed and includes a sleep timer and bookmarks, among other features.

Sanity Audio Apps

Price: Free with ads/ Offers IAP
Free Books and Audiobooks

The audiobook app from Sanity Audio Apps offers more than 12,000 free audiobooks to listen to via streaming over the Internet. You can listen and read books at the same time. The app offers only titles in the public domain, so this is a great choice if you like classic works of literature such as Pride and Prejudice, Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare works, and more, rather than today’s bestsellers. This is another free audiobook app you should check out.

Listen Audiobook Player

Price: $1.99
Audiobook Player for tablet

Listen Audiobook Player is a paid app; however, it comes with a ton of pro features. Users can manually specify a root folder, or the app can automatically scan for books. As for features, you can tweak all kinds of settings for the player, including variable playback speed (0.5 to 4x), trim silence, pitch control, and volume boost, equalizer, and balance, lock screen book cover art, and much more.

The app supports many formats and works with android auto plus some gesture control like shake to reset sleep timer, search and view bookmark, create an audio clip of a particular part of the book, and share with friends. Users are also able to download audiobooks from Librivox directly.

OverDrive

Price: Free
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2dLIlmKmr0

Overdrive, an audiobook app, has a rather different idea as users can sign up with or without a library card from a participating library, institution, or school. That means that instead of visiting the library, it comes to you! The benefit of using a library card is that over 30,000 libraries worldwide have collaborated with OverDrive to offer audiobooks and eBooks. Because of this, you can avoid late fees as the titles are returned on time from your smartphone or tablet.

Downpour

Price: Free
Downpour audiobook app

Downpour is one of the newer audiobooks apps that has select audiobooks on offer that can be rented for either 30 or 60 days or a library of audiobooks for sale. Users can access their entire library with offline playback available via Wi-Fi or cellular networks for when you’re out and about. It will also playback while supporting background downloading, and further features include track advance, automatic place saving, and easy syncing.

10 websites to download free audioBooks

Project Gutenberg (Free)

This long-established website is a partner of both LibriVox and AudioBooks. Thousands of free audio books in the public domain are available, and you can browse listings arranged by title, author, and language. Users can choose to listen to either read by computer-generated voices or with human narration. Of course, the latter is a far superior option, so you might want to bear this in mind before you make your selection.

Digital Book (Free)

Digital Audio Book & Book has a clean design. It offers convenient navigation through the many titles available by top rating, trending, or latest release date, as well as providing a search bar. There are more than 100,000 audiobooks and eBooks available. It’s a good option for those who like the classics, and novels can be downloaded to your personal bookshelf for offline listening on a mobile device or desktop or played directly in the browser.

Mind Webs (Free)

It’s always good to mix things up a bit, and this site is perfect for those who want radio dramatizations, particularly those looking for classic science fiction. It covers content from 169 half-hour radio shows from the 1970s to the 1990s, and although some of the recordings are low-quality because of their age, the site really benefits from the nostalgia and niche factor of these hidden gems.

Open Culture (Free)

Open Culture offers educational and cultural media, and there are 900 free titles to listen to in a variety of formats. The majority of these are classics, and you can download them to your computer or your MP3 player. Find fiction, non-fiction, and poetry, and cover a whole host of genres and authors such as Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, Virginia Woolf, George Orwell, William Shakespeare, and H. G. Wells.

Learn Out Loud (Free)

This site features a huge section of audiobook downloads, with more than 10,000 educational and inspirational works to choose from. They can be played on Android devices, iPhones, iPods, or MP3 downloads to a portable audio player. We should point out that while many of the audiobooks are free, there are charges for some of the others. It features a Download Library and dedicated sections for new and notable audiobooks, as well as the top 10 bestsellers. You can browse easily through the many categories, and just a few of these are arts and entertainment, literature, social sciences, politics, self-development, and philosophy.

Sync (Free)

This is a rather niche suggestion for teenagers. The free summer project is aimed at those aged over 13, and this year’s program opens on April 27. Powered by OverDrive and sponsored by AudioFile Magazine, the program is partnered with many others, including Brilliance Audio, Dreamscape, HarperAudio, and Listening Library, to name just a few.

Storynory (Free)

Storynory is another great choice for kids and younger members in the family. It’s a great resource for bedtime stories, particularly if you don’t have a chance to read a story to the children yourself. It provides free audiobooks covering original stories, classics and fairytales, and even poems and music. There are hundreds of choices available, and further stories being added each week. Probably the highlight of Storynory is the energetic narration that should certainly keep kids interested.

Thought Audio (Free)

Unlike others, sites Thought Audio only provides free streaming online. However, if you do want to download and listen offline, you can opt for a $10 yearly “Zip Pass.” If you don’t want a complete book as a single audio file, this site could be a good option as it breaks down into smaller segments. The site is powered by WordPress and Portfolio and contains an impressive selection of titles in the realms of literature and philosophy.

Scribl (Free)

Scribl has free audiobooks and Ebooks and podcasts and prides itself on that much of its content is unique. It includes recent works and rare documents offered on other sites; some exciting works are available. Books are available in an episodic format, and an unusual aspect of Scribe is that users can make a financial donation to any of the authors on the site if they wish.

Lit2go (Free)

Lit2go is an educational site that has some of the audiobooks come with an accompanying PDF. That’s a good idea as it enables users to read the text simultaneously as listening, useful for those learning English or who don’t use it as their first language. Content includes short stories, plays, and poems, and they can be downloaded to your computer, CD, or MP3 player. An interesting point with this site is that you can browse by reading level and the usual author, title, and genre.

Each of these best audiobook apps and websites has unique features. We all enjoy the free things (free sites above), but do note that the audiobooks prices asked in some apps are really very cheap compared to their rarity and quality. While the world is running towards freeing knowledge, audiobook apps have set out to help humanity gain twice as much knowledge within the same period. Make the best use of it, read more than ever, dance like nobody is watching and live like it’s heaven on Earth!

Khaled Shariar
Khaled Shariar
Khaled is using Android OS since the very first Google Phone. He started getandroidstuff.com to help other Android/ iOS users to find the right Applications/ Games and solving issues with their phone. Khaled also works in Creative Media Design.

3 COMMENTS

  1. I like PROJECT GUTENBERG very much, and it has become a very simple thing to download the audio book. Of course, I think some audio downloaders are also useful, such as the free hd video converter factory.

  2. Ayisha, thanks for listing Scribl. To let your readers know, we don’t actually accept donations though. Instead we encourage people who enjoy our large selection of free audiobooks to support authors by buying some of the CrowdPriced titles on our site. Prices are set by the download and purchase choices of fans of similar titles, so they are always fair. The lion’s share of every purchase price goes immediately straight to the author’s account so fans know the right party is getting their money.

    Not only that, every paid audiobook includes the ebook edition at no additional charge. And yes, there’s a plenty of free content too (both ebooks and audiobooks). 🙂

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