The Best Kindle Alternatives For Those Looking To Ditch Amazon

Amazon is arguably king of the castle when it comes to ereaders. Its range of devices are beloved by millions, the Kindle Store is the most well-stocked ebook marketplace in the world, and subscription offerings like Kindle Unlimited keep the most hardcore bookworms busy all year. But it’s also never been easier to take your business elsewhere if you take issue with Amazon’s business practices, or just don’t want to be tied into the ecosystem of a giant corporation (both very reasonable concerns).

The fact that Amazon’s recently ended support for a number of its older models, effectively rendering them as e-waste, is a big reason, among many others, to consider alternative products. Some changes to Kindle Unlimited have also irked a lot of people, with the company now counting magazines towards your 20-title borrow limit and ending automatic delivery of new issues. The Kindle is arguably the best product Amazon makes, but it’s far from perfect. And you wouldn’t be alone in looking for alternatives.

You aren’t short of non-Kindle options to ditch Amazon for, but here are our top picks to help guide your decision.

Kobo is one of the biggest thorns in Amazon’s side here, and we like its Clara Colour ereader so much that it currently sits above every available Kindle in our best ereader guide — let alone the list of alternatives. Much like the Kindle Colorsoft, the obvious draw of the Clara Colour is its ability to render book covers and pages in full color. Color E Ink displays are considerably more muted than what you get with an LCD or OLED tablet, but if you want to read comics or graphic novels on a ereader, you’re going to have a much better time than if you used a monochrome device.

The Kobo Clara Colour features an adjustable warm light for comfortable late-night reading, a waterproof design and a snappy dual 2GHz processor. This makes it noticeably faster at page turns than its predecessor, the Kobo Clara 2E.

Kobo’s ebook store is not as comprehensive as the Amazon alternative, but it’s plenty stocked, and if you’re a library user you can take advantage of built-in support for library reading apps like Libby. (If you’re not a member of a public library in the US, you should consider signing up, as it’ll greatly enhance your digital reading experience!)

If the Kobo Clara Colour (above) seems like a direct competitor to the Kindle Colorsoft in terms of features and design, then the closer comparison when it comes to price would be the Libra Colour. It’s a step up from the Clara Colour in a number of ways, and is more versatile than Amazon’s Colorsoft.

The main difference is stylus support, which allows the Libra Colour to moonlight as a small note-taking device, as well as being the place where you read the latest Colson Whitehead novel. It also has an auto-rotating display and page-turning buttons, the latter being something Amazon stopped offering on its Kindle range after the now discontinued Oasis (incidentally still my ereader of choice).

If you’re used to turning the page with a touch screen, you probably won’t be that excited about buttons, but some people simply prefer reading with them, and the Libra Colour offers that.

The people at Boox would probably dispute the Palma 2 Pro’s status as a direct Kindle alternative, primarily because it doesn’t consider the device to be an ereader per se. The company prefers to label it as a mobile e-paper device, and its form factor admittedly makes it look more like a pared down smartphone than a digital paperback. But if you like the idea of carrying your entire book library in your pocket and don’t mind the smaller display, it’s a great option.

In our testing, we found the Palma 2 Pro’s Kaleido 3 E Ink display is great for reading, with the experience elevated further by the snappy touch interface and quick page turns. Because it runs on Android, you aren’t locked to one reading app, with the likes of Kindle, Kobo, Libby and Google Play Books all accessible. With the Google Play Store built in, you can also use the Palma 2 Pro as a makeshift smartphone stand-in if you like, albeit one with a limited display that might test your patience.

Not everyone needs a color ereader, and some would even argue that they make regular black text look worse. The easiest recommendation if you’re looking for a direct alternative to Amazon’s standard black-and-white Kindle is the Kobo Clara BW. It has a comparable 6-inch display and slender dimensions that make it easy to slip into a coat pocket. It’s also waterproof (a feature the basic Kindle doesn’t offer) and offers an eye-preserving Dark Mode for night-time reading. You don’t get page turn buttons, but at this point those are rare on entry-level ereaders.

As we’ve already established, Rakuten’s ebook store isn’t as exhaustive as Amazon’s equivalent, but it’s still very well stocked. And if you’re going to be sideloading EPUB files, Kobo’s native support makes it a better option than a Kindle. Like other Kobo ereaders, the Clara BW also has Libby built into the device, so you can borrow and read library books more easily on your ereader.

The Boox Go Color 7 is probably best framed as a Kindle Colorsoft alternative for those who wisely prefer not to be trapped within an ecosystem. Boox actually beat the likes of Amazon and Kobo to market with color ereaders, and it’s been refining them ever since, with the Go Color 7 (2025 refresh) being the one to buy. Like on the Palma 2 Pro, the Kaleido 3 display here is about as vibrant as color E Ink displays get right now. That is to say, they’re still muted compared to a tablet, but bring your covers and comics to life in a way that a monochrome screen just can’t.

Running on Android 12, the Go Color 7 can function as a tablet as well as an ereader, and the Gen II model added stylus support for note-taking. But you’re here for its reading credentials, and that’s where the Go Color 7 excels. On the hardware front, you get programmable buttons and an adjustable front light with temperature control. There are also speakers for audiobooks if you don’t have headphones handy.

The device’s true unique selling point is its software flexibility. The built-in NeoReader app is good for all your DRM-free EPUB files, but more often you’ll likely be reading on an app like Kobo Books or Libby, all of which can be downloaded from the Google Play Store. It’s definitely not as seamless as Kobo’s or Amazon’s preconfigured setups, but if you know your way around Android, you can easily read from a lot more places on a Boox device.

If the Amazon device you’re looking for an alternative for is the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, your best options are still from companies like Boox or Kobo. But should you be craving some other brand, you might consider the reMarkable Paper Pro. It’s best thought of as a writing tablet with support for a few colors, rather than an ereader first and foremost. Though it doesn’t have a vibrant a screen as the Kindle Scribe Colorsoft, the reMarkable Paper Pro is still a very capable E Ink writing tablet. It can be kitted with a keyboard accessory — something the Kindles of the world don’t offer — and enables much faster typing than writing alone. 

reMarkable also has superior software to Amazon when it comes to editing your handwritten and typed notes across your tablets and phones. But it’s worth noting that reMarkable charges about $3 a month for the privilege of using features like being able to search your handwritten notes for the text in them, as well as integrations with Slack and your Google or Outlook calendars, for example. You can still access some helpful tools at the free tier, like handwriting conversion and third-party cloud storage, of course. So if you were looking to get away from all subscription models altogether, it’s worth knowing if you can live without some of the listed features. 

Often, people find themselves in the ereader market because they want to get away from tablets and their many temptations. And that’s totally understandable. But if you don’t own either type of device and just want a do-it-all solution that also isn’t an Amazon product, Apple’s entry-level iPad is worth pondering. As a tablet, it’s one of the best you can buy, with a blazing fast A16 chip that will shrug off most everyday tasks with ease. It also boasts an unrivaled library of apps and solid display, albeit one that still isn’t laminated like those of more expensive iPads .

The iPad can also be your sole ereader if you want it to be. While it’s a bit large for comfortable one-handed use, it’s not unwieldy, and because it uses an LCD display, you can keep reading at night. An E Ink display far more effectively mimics paper and is definitely easier on your eyes, and that’s a big part of what makes those devices appealing. But the iPad still provides a good reading experience. And you can always minimize distractions by customizing software accordingly.

The likes of Amazon and Kobo have iPad apps, but you’ll definitely want to take advantage of Libby support too if you have a library card, as the app is excellent on Apple’s tablet and allows you to read millions of ebooks for free. (At least, that’s what I hear from my US colleagues. Here in the UK adoption of the app hasn’t been quite as smooth.)

For more on our favorite ereaders (including Kindle models), you’ll find a lot more information in our buyer’s guide.

If you read a lot of books, a subscription is worth looking into. Kindle Unlimited is essentially Amazon’s Netflix for books, and grants you access to millions of digital books, comics and magazines for $12 per month. Kobo has a direct competitor called Kobo Plus, which costs $8 per month for an ebook or audiobook-only membership, or $10 per month if you want both.

Kobo Plus has fewer available titles than Kindle Unlimited (around 1.5 million versus the latter’s over 4 million), and Amazon requires self-published authors on its platform to agree to an exclusivity clause, giving it an advantage. But there is no limit to how many books you can read at a time on Kobo Plus, unlike Kindle Unlimited, which as it turns out has a somewhat misleading name. Amazon caps you at 20.

If you’d rather not fork out money for media you don’t actually own, the best option is an app like Libby. If you have a valid library card, you can connect it to your Libby account and borrow e-books, audiobooks and magazines from your local library. Reading through Libby is possible on Kindle devices, but it’s more seamless on Kobo devices, since you can link your library card and download books to read straight from your ereader.