AudiobooksNow vs LibriVox

AudiobooksNow lets customers buy audiobooks individually or join an optional Club Pricing Plan for discounts. Purchased titles remain in a customer’s library without an active plan. The service lists a catalog of over 480,000 audiobooks and supports listening on the web, Android, and iOS. Customers can stream on the website or download purchases; the help center says over 95% of titles are DRM-free and available as MP3 files, while some titles require DRM and are limited to app or website streaming. Bookmarks sync across listening locations, and fully downloaded audiobooks can be played offline after signing into the app. Free Android and iOS apps are listed, with Android Auto and CarPlay support respectively. Monthly Club Pricing costs $4.99 a month after a 30-day free trial and discounts the first audiobook each month by 50%, with 35–40% off other eligible titles. Annual Club Pricing costs $35.99 a year and discounts any 12 audiobooks by 50%, with 35–40% off other titles. Club enrollment and Club Price purchases are unavailable in the Apple iOS app but can be completed on the website. AudiobooksNow says it is available worldwide, though title availability can vary by country.

LibriVox is a free audiobook library built from volunteer recordings of public-domain books. Listeners can browse by author, title, genre or subject, and language, then play or download individual audio files, download a book ZIP, subscribe to RSS or use BitTorrent. Catalog pages provide 64 kbps and 128 kbps MP3 files, and most books also have an M4B option. Its podcast presents one book at a time in three audio installments per week. Recordings are accepted in all languages; volunteers need no prior experience or audition, just a voice, a computer and free recording software. The catalog API offers audiobook, track and author endpoints for apps that refresh catalog data. It returns 50 records by default, up to 500 per request, with offset batches for larger pulls. Recordings are donated to the public domain, though status can vary by country. LibriVox began in 2005 and is available on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS, web and Windows. The catalog can include older works with language or ideas some readers find offensive or antiquated.