Open Library
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 7 of 13 ebook libraries by recommenders
Free online library catalog with strong English coverage, and borrowing from its digital collection. Caveat: scans are often poor and non-English coverage has gaps.
Free online library catalog with strong English coverage, and borrowing from its digital collection. Caveat: scans are often poor and non-English coverage has gaps.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Poor scans and missing pages
“The quality of the scans are usually poor and occasionally pages are missing and many have been removed. It's been great for us.”
Comment from 12 Jun 2026 in “U.S. kids no longer reading for pleasure” Gaps outside English coverage
“Open Library has great English coverage but gaps elsewhere.”
Comment from 9 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Zenòdot – Find if a book has been translated into your language”
Other ebook libraries people recommend
The four most recommended other ebook libraries, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anna's Archive | 134 | 57 | 70% | 12 | — | Approved |
| Project Gutenberg | 76 | 8 | 90% | 11 | — | Approved |
| Standard Ebooks | 34 | 8 | 81% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Library Genesis | 15 | 2 | 88% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Open LibraryThis page | 10 | 2 | 83% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
11 of the 13 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Sending money is awesome and they're also always looking for volunteers!”
“OpenLibrary has bad covers”
“someone like open library tries to actually do digital preservation”
“You might also be able to check it out from https://openlibrary.org/”
“The quality of the scans are usually poor and occasionally pages are missing and many have been removed. It's been great for us.”
“we have been able to incorporate new books into the story time rotation”
“Open Library has great English coverage but gaps elsewhere.”
“OpenLibrary is such an unfortunate case of semi-failure.”
“StoryGraph and OpenLibrary are also doing interesting things in this space”
“looks like a great option”
“Both of which have good coverage on WikiData which also aggregates identifiers”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.