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Éist reads your books offline in one voice. Lyraboo turns them into full-cast audiobooks — narrator, heroes and villains, each in their own AI voice.
Written by the Lyraboo team. Facts about Éist come from its own website, checked in October 2026.
Éist runs on Android and iPhone and keeps things simple and private. It imports EPUB and PDF files with selectable text, readable web links, and fanfiction from AO3, Royal Road and FicHub, and has over 70,000 Project Gutenberg books built in. Its voices run on the device, so it works offline with no account. The free plan includes unlimited listening for three books, three voices and 30 minutes of read-along a day; Premium is $4.99 a month for unlimited books and 60+ voices.
| Lyraboo | Éist | |
|---|---|---|
| Character voices | Yes — automatic, every book | No — one voice |
| Voices | Cloud AI voices | On-device AI voices |
| Offline | No | Yes |
| Phones | Android | Android, iPhone |
| Sources | EPUB, PDF, TXT files | EPUB, PDF, web links, AO3, Royal Road, FicHub |
| Free plan | 1 hour a month | Unlimited listening, 3 books, 3 voices |
| Paid | Monthly $9.99 (US) | Premium $4.99 a month |
Choose Éist for free offline listening, an iPhone app, or importing web links. Choose Lyraboo when you want a story to sound like a full-cast audiobook. Reading fanfiction? See fanfiction audiobooks and AO3 to audiobook. Everything side by side: the best EPUB to audiobook apps for Android.
Éist is a trademark of its owner. Lyraboo is an independent app and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Éist. This comparison reflects publicly available product information.
The things people notice in the first chapter — and the reasons they stay.
Lyraboo’s AI finds every character in the book and casts a distinct voice for each — automatically, for every book. You always know who is speaking, and dialogue sounds like a real conversation instead of one narrator doing all the parts. Most reading and text-to-speech apps use one voice for everything.
Under the player, the book scrolls with the voice the way song lyrics do in Spotify: words light up as they are spoken, each line shows who says it, and tapping any word jumps there.
Chapters, speed from 0.25× to 3×, background playback with lock-screen controls, and it picks up exactly where you stopped.
Pick an EPUB, PDF or TXT and there is nothing to set up: the first chapter is ready in about one to two minutes, and the rest generate while you listen.
Novels, fanfiction and web-serial exports, indie ebooks, study PDFs — plus over 1,000 English classics already in the app.
One free hour of listening every month, no card needed. Hours are spent once per chapter — replaying is always free.
For hearing a novel or fanfic as a full-cast audiobook — every character in their own voice — Lyraboo is built for that. Éist is the better choice if you want free offline listening with on-device voices, an iPhone app, or to import web links and AO3 works directly.
We found no character voices on Éist’s website: you pick a voice and it reads the book. Lyraboo detects the characters and gives each one a distinct voice automatically.
Éist is free for unlimited listening with three books, three voices and 30 minutes of read-along a day; Premium is $4.99 a month. Lyraboo is free for one hour of listening a month; in the US the Monthly plan is $9.99.
Yes. Éist imports AO3, Royal Road and FicHub links directly. In Lyraboo, download the work from AO3 as an EPUB and upload it — the AO3 guide on this site shows the steps.
Upload a book you own and let the app turn it into a multi-voice audiobook automatically.