We independently research, test, review, and recommend the best products. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

12 Apps Like Blinkist (Similar and Best Alternative, Free)

Do you want to learn more in less time? This article will tell you about such an app and its perfect alternative for curious people who love to learn. People who are too busy to read and those who do not enjoy reading do not have time to read. You can get Knowledge in less time with free book summaries in text, audio, video, and animations. This app’s name is Blinkist, and This program provides the biggest point from a massive library of over 4,000 bestselling notification books. The micro-books are accessible in both text and audio versions and can be read in less than 15 minutes. 

What is Blinkist? 

Blinkist is a problem-solving program that simplifies dense nonfiction books into easily consumable summaries that take 15 minutes to read, depending on the day or week. In addition, a vast number of self-improvement books will assist you in developing a new perspective on the world.

You can use the audio option if you wish to listen to notable thinkers in your chosen field while reading these books on the fly. The major advantage of the Blinkist is that you can be read with you at all times.

You can browse through various categories, and the books in each category are updated weekly. It is extremely user-friendly and accessible via a range of devices. Offline access to the content is also possible in audio or text format.

Blinkist is Available for both iPhone and Android

Both the iPhone and Android versions of the Blinkist app are available. You can use your email address or your Facebook account to register. When you launch the program, you’ll be given a brief lesson on how to use it.

The app only has three tabs to pick from, which is one of the first things you’ll notice.

  1. Discover: You may browse their library and discover new tilts here.
  2. Library:  You will have access to your library here.
  3. You: This is where you’ll find your saved highlights and settings.

And it is brilliant because it makes navigating the app and choosing what to do easy. 

The Main Feature of the Blinkist app

There are only two use cases for the Blinkist app: Reading Summaries and Listing to them. But how do you look, feel, and like?

1- Reading book summaries

When you tap on a book in your library, you’ll get a quick summary and the ability to read or listen to it. If you click “Read,” you’ll be taken to the first “blink,” as Blinkist refers to their summary pages.

Swipe from one major highlight to the next after that. You’ll see a progress meter at the bottom of the page, and you can highlight any part of the text that speaks to you. There’s also a table of contents, a toggle to modify the text size or convert to white-on-black type (rather than the normal black-on-white style), and a button to quickly switch to audio mode.

You’ll occasionally glimpse pearls of Knowledge from the book in between blinks, which is a wonderful bonus. The last blink always includes a summary of the previous blinks and some useful advice. After that, you can mark the title as complete and return it to your library. It’s that simple!

2-Listing to audiobook Summaries

You’ll be taken to the audio player when you click “Listen” in the book overview. The book’s blinks will now play one after another until you’ve finished reading the summary in its entirety. 

You can also enable automatic updates at the bottom of the screen, which will play all of the books in your library in order. Swiping left can also change the order of books in your queue. When “Offline mode” is enabled, the program will only play music files that you’ve previously downloaded.

The audio player is really simple to use. The main point of each blink is displayed in the center, and the controls allow you to go 15 seconds forward or backward and increase or decrease the speed. The minimum speed is half that of the maximum speed. That’s all there is to it; just like with Spotify or your phone’s default music player, that’s all there is to it! 

The Benefits and Drawbacks of the Blinkist App

You don’t just absorb a few key ideas or concepts from a book; you get them all. Consuming content and learning is a breeze. The program is easy to use and navigate, and a child may learn how to utilize the primary features, such as reading and listening, in minutes.

Remembering facts from summaries is much easier with the use of highlighters. This is an underappreciated feature that can significantly impact how much information you remember, but you must use it to reap the rewards.

Blinkist provides a smooth audio experience. You press a button, the music starts playing, and you listen. It’s ideal for studying during long workouts, work commutes, or cooking or cleaning.

The disadvantages of using the Blinkist app 

The novel is almost entirely lacking in both comedy and emotion. Some authors try to capture some of the book’s particular essence. Blinkist doesn’t; it’s more focused on facts.

Reading a lot of summaries in succession can become tedious. That’s primarily due to the absence of plot, so I only advocate reading 1-2 summaries daily.

Some summaries are far too brief concerning the novels they represent. I’ve seen summaries with only three or four blinks, but the book itself was quite substantial. We are sure they’ll leave out a lot of vital information. Individual books are not subjected to inspection. None of the books are reviewed, critiqued, ranked, or fact-checked by the Blinkist staff. 

List of the Best Alternative App Like of Blinkist

  1. QuickRead: Best Free Alternative to Blinkist
  2. Best Book Bits: Free Video, Audio, and Text Summaries of books 
  3. Overdue: Classic and popular book summaries, Including fiction
  4. Book Video Club: Short Book Summarise Animated Videos
  5. Book Cheat: Classic book summarise with a Humorous Twist
  6. Joosr
  7. 12min
  8. Bookbhook
  9. Spreaders
  10. Four Minute Books
  11. getAbstract
  12. Movers

Not everyone wants to make reading a regular habit. That is not to say you can not enjoy the amazing substance found in books. These Apps, Like Blinkist, provide free book summaries in text, audio, video, and animations on topics ranging from entrepreneurship and marketing to classic novels and fiction.

In addition, some Blinkist subjects, such as history and psychology, have a finite number of abstractions. For your convenience, we’ve created a list of the best Blinkist alternatives. These solutions take the same strategy as Blinkist, focusing on specific areas and including multimedia, increased accessibility, and other features. Continue reading to learn about the greatest Blinkist alternatives.

Quick Read

Quick Read is the best free alternative to Blinkist, one of the Must-have apps for book lovers. It’s a treasure trove of book summaries that may be read as text or listened to on an app or online.

The books at Quick Reads, as you might imagine, do not include topics like commerce, history, economics, marketing, spirituality, philosophy, etc. However, considering that it’s completely free, it has a surprising number of popular books in these genres from well-known authors. One person summarizes each book while another narrates it. 

If you subscribe to a premium account, you can download books for offline listing through mobile apps. However, each book is available for free MA3 download on the website ( as well as the text in PDF files). Therefore, playing for the premium plan is only worthwhile if you wish to help the developers and content staff.

Best Book Bits

While all summaries are fantastic, nothing beats a real person reading a book and telling you everything you need to know. Meet Micheal Geoge Knight, the brain behind best book bites, who voraciously read books to post for summaries per week. 

Unlike many other book summaries, The Best Book Excerpts While summaries are great, nothing surpasses hearing someone read a book and tell you everything you need to know. The website has a full-text description, a podcast with an audiobook-style synopsis, and a YouTube video with images and Knight speaking. Knight can extract the most relevant details from any literature and contextualize them using his own words. It’s a fantastic insight.

The summaries normally take around 20 minutes to listen to or watch and about the same amount of time to read at a normal pace. You can search Best Book Bits’ large collection alphabetically or by category. Knight has also added a useful Top 20 section and made his book available for free.

Overdue

Overdue is a podcast about books you’ve wanted to read but haven’t because someone else has told you everything you need to know about them. They are also unafraid to do fiction book summaries, unlike most others.

Andrew and Craig’s lively conversation is both enjoyable and informative, and it’s aimed at people who have previously read the book or don’t mind spoilers. It’s more of a method to avoid reading the book by knowing enough about it in the discussion. You’ll figure out what the book is attempting to say along the way. 

Begin by visiting the website’s New Listener? Section, which includes some of their most popular episodes. Chose a book you have not read yet, listen to the episode, and then go to the book’s Wikipedia page. You’ll be surprised to learn how much of the story you already know.

Book Video Club 

Is it possible to transform a whole book into a short animated video? Book video club and 1% better both do an excellent job converting books into animation. Both avoid fiction, and books on self-improvement marketing, history, and sales, among other topics, are common. 

The videos in Book Video Club are short, averaging three minutes. It’s not a cartoon, mind you, but rather a series of drawn images that gradually come to life while a speaker talks about the book’s ideas. You’ll comprehend the main principles in most situations, but you’ll need to read the book to learn the intricacies.

Several animated videos, such as essays and personal tales, can be found on the main One Percent Better channel. Also, check out the Animated Book Summaries section for videos that range from three to fifteen minutes long. It’s a similar form of animation as Text Video Club, except it goes much deeper into the book.

These two channels aren’t the only ones with animation book summaries, but they have large archives of completed movies. You can find more such channels and one-off videos by searching for book summaries on YouTube.

Book Cheat

Book Cheat is a hysterical comedy. Yes, it’s a book summary podcast that gives you the impression that you’ve read the book even if you haven’t, but it’s also amusing. Dave Warneke, the host, delivers a book report every two months to two guests who haven’t read the book he’s discussing.

The podcast focuses on Warneke, who appears to plan his summary to generate reactions from his listeners. And those reactions are fantastic because they reflect what you’re thinking. So it gives the podcast a more involved sense while also allowing you time to comprehend what you’ve heard thus far.

The books on sale range from A Streetcar Named Desire to Lord of the Flies; they’re all classics you’ve never read. In addition, some books have multiple episodes. Therefore it’s no longer a summary. But then, if you like the podcast but find the book difficult to read, this is the next best thing.

Joosr

You might find 15-minute reads too compressed for you how Joosr came up with the notion of extending the Blinkist formula (literally) by 25%. All of Joosr’s book summaries are 20-minute readings. However, that extra five minutes can make all the difference when it comes to more difficult titles like Ha-Joon Chang’s Economics. 

With little over 250 titles, Joosr has a far smaller book selection than Blinkist. However, they are often students who find it easier, in our opinion, and the extra time and material allow you to comprehend a book rather than just making a casual reference to it.

Joosr, on the other hand, isn’t without drawbacks. The app’s text-to-speech features are lacking, even though the summaries are more extensive. In addition, the robotic accent and tone of the virtual narrator in Joosr audiobooks make them unlistenable. At $5.99 a month, the Premium subscription gives you unrestricted access to Joosr’s ebooks. Unlimited audiobooks are also included in the $6.99 Prime plan. A free trial period is provided and easily installed on Android and IOS. 

12min

In an attempt to be a more feasible Blinklist alternative, 12min did the exact opposite. They condensed novels into 12-minute summaries. The creators of 12min say that using 12min is equal to reading/listening to three novels daily because their book summaries are so expertly synthesized. So far, the book selection on 12min is at 900.

It is rapidly expanding, and the software is quite well-designed. It adds to the enjoyment of reading. Compared to Joosr, the 12min collection contains more general-interest titles, such as Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens. The price is very low, with a single annual subscription costing $70, or slightly less than $6 per month. There is a 3-day trial available.

Bookbhook

In Hindi, Bookbhook means “Bookhungry.” The book summary app from India combines the Blinkist technique to create a more interesting experience. Bookbhook uses a chat structure to give 3000-word book summaries. The user interface is similar to that of popular instant message programs like Whatsapp.

Bookbhook attempts to reproduce the sensation of receiving brief book notes from a buddy. Bookbhook’s user interface is appealing to us. They have over 300 titles to choose from, covering many topics like current events and environmental issues. Bookbhook is different from other Blinklist competitors in that it is completely free.

Spreaders

The name of this app makes it sound like Snapchat for books, which it is in some ways. A reduced version of nonfiction bestsellers is available on-demand, so you don’t have to read the complete book; these novels can also be listened to.

Sanapreaders offers a library of over 600 books, all of which are condensed into 15-minute readers. While it covers a variety of genres, their memoir and bios section is particularly intriguing, highlighting the significant life events of inspirational people. Spreaders offer a 14.99 monthly subscription with the first month free, a little on the pricey side, And that is just easily installed on IOS.

Four Minute Books

Four Minute Books is a website, not an app, that is free and without ads. It features many titles to pick from, with over 500 titles and three new titles released every week. The summaries in Four Minute Books are, as the name implies, brief. Nonetheless, we received the feeling from reading some of their summaries that their content crew has a strong grasp of the underlying material. Not quite a Blinklist alternative, as they appear to have some affiliation with Blinkist, along with a unique Blinkist discount offer.

GetAbstract

getAbstract is specifically devoted to business books. As a result, you won’t find a vast choice of things to read here, unlike the other Blinklist options on this list. getAbstract, on the other hand, is a business-focused platform with over 20,000+ offers in over 350 categories ranging from leadership to corporate culture. In addition, the summaries on getAbstract are only 10 minutes long. 

While this is adequate for basic self-help books, we can’t help but question how useful get could be. When dealing with complex issues like artificial intelligence, the abstract is the way to go. A Starter package costs $90 and gives you access to a lesser library of 5000 titles. A year’s worth of full access will set you back $250.

Some of the amazing features are the option to adjust the font size, dark mode, and pace with changing the reading and listening experience. Another advantage is the option to build your channels or follow popular authors for the most up-to-date information.

Movellas

Movellas is a great replacement for Blinkist. Movellas is a fantastic platform for those who enjoy writing and sharing imaginative stories with the rest of the world. Thousands of fantastic stories have been told there.

Movellas allows you to be a part of a vast social network where you may meet new people and share tales. On this app, you may follow your best friends, participate in exciting competitions, discuss your feelings with other users, and get plenty of writing guidance from the world’s best writers. 

It features articles in various areas, including Love, Fashion, and Lifestyle, to mention a few. The best thing about Movellas is that you can use it whenever you want and from anywhere; offline reading is available for all of the stories.

Furthermore, you can use the chat and comment options to contact the writer or publisher directly with any ideas or suggestions. The application is simple to install, but you must register once you have done so. You can do this with your certified email or Facebook accounts.

Conclusion

Blinkist has wonderful features you enjoy, and I’m sure you’re looking for additional reading and writing apps like it. As a result, we attempted to compile a list of the most popular Blinkist competitors in one convenient location. These were our top picks for Blinkist alternatives. I hope you enjoyed it and found our suggestions useful!

Frequently Asked Questions:

What About Blinkist and other Book Summary Apps?

Blinkist has developed lots of new turns. Some utilize AI systems to summarize books, while others rely on real people. Of course, the ultimate product is the same: a short text and audio rendition of a popular book. But, like Blinkist, all of these applications, such as 12min, BookShort, Bookey, and others, are paid subscription services, so you have to be sure you’ll use them regularly.

Which app is better: Audible or Blinkist?

While audiobook applications like Audible allow writers and publishers to sell audiobook versions of their books, Blinkist focuses solely on providing summaries of popular nonfiction books. It is simply a matter of personal choice as to which is superior.

How can you get a free Blinkist Premium account?

You may receive Blinkist Premium for free for 6 months using the auto-generated voucher code.

Leave a Comment