Alternatives
Products that do what Guten – Android ereader for Project Gutenberg's 70k+ free books does
Hi, HN. I read about 60-100 books a year and wanted a frictionless ereader for Project Gutenberg books, so I built Guten. Users can search the PG catalog within the app or Share a book's page from their browser to Guten for import. The app includes the usual ereader features like search, highlight, bookmarks, and notes. I like my apps privacy-focused: Guten doesn't require an account, and there are no ads or tracking. The reading experience is totally free, but there's also a one-time premium upgrade available for extra features like TTS read-aloud and note/highlight exports. Play…
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Hey HN, cofounder of Readwise here. We've been working on this cross-platform reader app for about 2 years, excited to finally share it in public beta. Probably the most notable thing that makes Reader unique is that it supports almost any content type you could want to save/read/highlight: * web pages * emails/newsletters * PDFs * ePubs * twitter threads * youtube videos (with transcripts) * RSS feeds With all of your knowledge content in one place, we built powerful reading and highlighting, as well as a bunch of novel triage/organization features, so you can actually…
2022 · readwise.io
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Hello HN, this has been my personal project for quite some time now. It has been a slowly evolving project over the years and its core function is for users to expose themselves to progressively more difficult lessons of music notes. NOTE: It is free and there are no ads. There is an in app purchase but most of the app doesn't require it.
2025 · apps.apple.com
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Hey HN. I’m Ivan, hacker from Ukraine. For about a year, I was working on Listenly — an app to listen to text content with OpenAI's natural-sounding text-to-speech model. At some moment, I realized that it would be cool to take all the public domain e-books and create audio versions for them. So I did it... kind-of. It would cost an immense amount of money to generate all the audio right away (OpenAI TTS costs approximately $0.84/hour of audio; 11labs, for comparison, is 10 times more expensive). So, I took a more gradual approach. I took all the metadata from the Project Gutenberg…
2024 · listenly.io
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2021 · gutensearch.com
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Thank you for your comments, just some context: - The app is available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac, Apple Vision Pro, and the Web. - The Web version is implemented as a Progressive Web Application that is very responsive, local first, offline first, can be installed, and is entirely free to use. - Native (hybrid) versions do not require subscription fees and have small one-time payment. - You can store your notes in Git using any Git provider such as GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket. However, it has the best built-in integration with GitHub. Self-hosted scenarios like Gitea are also…
2024 · about.noteshub.app
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- 13SBShelvy Books▲52
Hey HN! I built a little side project I wanted to share. Shelvy is a free, visual bookshelf app where you can organize books you're reading, want to read, or have finished. Sign in to save your own collection. Not monetized, no ads, no tracking beyond basic auth. Just a fun weekend project that grew a bit. Live: https://shelvybooks.com Would love any feedback on the UX or feature ideas!
Jan 2026 · shelvybooks.com
- 14IB
Bookmarks which you wanted to read, but simply forgot... It happened to me all the time. I bookmarked the articles to read later and simply forgot about them. Forever. I built Mailist to help with that. Already 2350 users enjoy their "weekly digests" composed from their bookmarks. It makes me super happy! So now, https://mailist.app Pro account allows you to send an email newsletter every day, built from your bookmarks. Does it sound interesting? The free version (weekly email) is available for everyone! Let me know what you think. PS. Unlike other tools, we care about your privacy…
2020
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Hey HN! I’m Miran Antamian, founder and CEO of BookWatch, and I’m thrilled to introduce BookWatch.com. The first AI-powered Visual Library for learners who hate reading but love growing. After 1.5 years of building, 65,000+ mobile app users, and countless animated summaries, we’re launching our New Web App to make learning even more effortless. The Problem: Visual Learners Can’t Learn from Books in Text or Audio Formats Did you know that 65% of people identify as visual learners? Yet most book knowledge remains trapped in text format. Many of us want the wisdom of great books but struggle…
2025 · bookwatch.com
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🚀 Open-Source Release: "Run & Read" for Android | iOS 🎧📚
Jan 2026
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We just launched our startup tonight! It's called Fetchnotes, and it's a note-taking application for short notes like books to read, shopping lists and ideas. Check out our website at www.fetchnotes.com. We're on the web, Android, iPhone, Mac, Windows and Ubuntu — and you can even text or email in your notes. We were just covered in TechCrunch (http://tcrn.ch/IBfr9C), and we'd love for you to check it out and give us your feedback. You can send it to me (Alex Schiff) and my co-founder (Chase Lee) at [email protected], or use our UserVoice forum at fetchnotes.uservoice.com. Also, we're…
2012
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So, I built this little thing over the past month or so now, I got tired of places for tickets, notes, and such being shoved front and center in apps. Thus I created Mininote to get away from the noise I wanted something simple to move out of the way completely when I don't need it but be there when I do need it It contains a slew of features built right in, but the coolest is the sites own API is also the sites own public API no split seam
23d ago · mininote.ink
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Hey, HN. I am excited to present to you what my pet project has turned into after three years of development. One day, I decided to create the most convenient application for reading all my favorite articles, as well as RSS feeds from Hacker News and other sources. The usual reading approach was not enough for me, so I loaded this application with five different reading techniques that help to achieve maximum productivity and reading speed. 1. Text-to-speech is the most popular reading method among Quickify users. I'm using it when I'm busy or my eyes need a rest. This method is available in…
2023 · quickify.app
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Readest is a modern, feature-rich ebook reader designed for avid readers offering seamless cross-platform access, powerful tools, and an intuitive interface to elevate your reading experience.
2024 · github.com
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I had a bunch of ebooks with no audiobook version available. So I built an iOS app that converts EPUB files into audiobooks using text-to-speech. Two voice options: - Free on-device voices (processed locally, no server needed) - Natural cloud voices (one-time purchase per book, no subscription) Cloud conversion runs chunk by chunk. You can start listening other chapters generate in the background. Once done, the audiobook lives on your device. No account required. No subscription. You import your own EPUBs and either use device TTS for free or pay per book for the cloud voices. Nothing…
Feb 2026 · apps.apple.com
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Over the holidays I went looking for a reading app for my 4-year-old daughter. The top app in this space charges $500/month. Since that's a bit much to pay for an app, I figured I could vibe code something better in a few days, so I tried. The app uses DISTAR phonics, which is a method from the 60s by Siegfried Engelmann. The core idea is simple: teach sounds before letter names, then blend sounds into words, then words into sentences. There's a specific sequence that builds on itself. On top of that I added spaced repetition, same algorithm as Anki. Cards come back at increasing…
Apr 2026 · github.com
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