Kobo Books & Audiobooks vs Audible

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 60 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

1. [R6] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 3/5 · US Eh: I like the app but don’t like that when I want to get a book you can’t buy it in the app it takes you online and you have to sign in every single time
2. [R11] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 4/5 · US Great app but confusing payment system: The app is great! Runs nicely, dark mode, nice UI, and also has a dictionary option to look up unknown words! The only thing is the payment system. From what I can tell, a subscription only covers some books, and not all in its collection. Some ebooks and audiobooks you just have to purchase.
3. [R54] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 4/5 · US Good for reading, but: The reading experience with this app is good. You can sideload books as well as read books from Kobo. You can read with offline. The dictionary works well. I like that you can look up a word in the dictionary and also Wikipedia and Google if you are online. The Library management could use some work. You cannot sort you books by author, title or category. Kobo seems t
4. [R1] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 1/5 · US Hard to cancel: I’ve canceled this account back on April 16, 2026. I received confirmation that it will take 48 hours to cancel. It’s now July and they’re still charging me!
5. [R5] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 4/5 · US Good App!: Easy to use with good features. My one complaint is that you can't mark a book as finished without having to thumb through the entire book. I have two iPads and download and read books on each one. The books will show on both devices in my library but will not show as finished on the device that I didn't use to read.
6. [R15] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 3/5 · GB Helpful and speedy support but …: I had an initial problem with purchases showing up on my iPad but not on my iPhone. However, I got a response from Kobo support by return which fixed it. However, I find the inaccurate synching between tablet and phone infuriating.
7. [R39] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 1/5 · GB Absolutely horrendous customer service: I’ve been a kobo customer for YEARS. But the customer services has got worse and worse to the point it wastes time and cases distress.
8. [R4] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 2/5 · US Compares favorably with Kindle: This is another ereader, and I think it is great.
9. [R13] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 2/5 · US Buggy and unpleasant to use: I really want to like this app. I strongly support kobo’s storefront model as opposed to their… competitor. I have a Kobo Libra that I use about half the time. However, this app is a very notable step behind its main competitor from a reliability and stability standpoint. The main issues are: highlights flash on and off and disappear entirely; search works *maybe* half
10. [R25] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 2/5 · US Very buggy: If they want to compete with Kindle, they’ve got a long way to go. So many bugs…where to even start? Slow, stuttering render when opening a book. Sometimes randomly deciding to ask if I want to sync to the latest page every time I turn a page…even when I’m at the latest page. Trying to tap a link (like a footnote) near the edge or bottom of a page is an exercise in frustration, it
11. [R59] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 1/5 · GB Randomly resets your reading: I just got this app and purchased a few books as I’ve been trying to move away from Amazon and co. The app looks ok, but it’s absolutely useless as it just randomly resets itself to the start of the chapter when you’ve left the app in the background! When I’m reading a book with long chapters, and when I’m only reading a few pages at a time when I get a chance, it’s
12. [R55] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 1/5 · GB What am I paying for?: I’m confused as to why you have to pay a monthly fee and then pay full price on top of that for books? Why would I do that?! I’ll stick with Kindle and Audible!
13. [R2] Kobo Books & Audiobooks 5/5 · US So happy I made the switch: Switching from Kindle to Kobo has to be the best decision I’ve made for my reading life. Aside from being a better device, the app is so clearly considerate of the reader’s experience. Recently, Kobo and Storygraph partnered too for simplified tracking similar to the Amazon/Goodreads connection but not as invasive as it would feel on kindle.