7 Best Manga and Webtoon Reader Apps for Android in 2026

Almost every list of Android manga readers puts Tachiyomi first. Tachiyomi's developers announced the end of the project in January 2024. It has shipped no fixes since.

That is the single most useful fact in this category and it is missing from nearly every article about it. The code was open source, so the work continued in forks — the direct successor was renamed Mihon, while TachiyomiSY and TachiyomiJ2K carried on as independent projects — but the app carrying the original name is a snapshot of early 2024, and recommending it in 2026 is recommending an abandoned build.

There is a second thing these lists leave out, and it changes what you are actually choosing between.

The Tachiyomi-family readers arrive empty. They contain no manga. They are viewers, and before anything appears you add "extension repositories" — third-party catalogues that fetch pages from external sites. Almost all of those sites are aggregators hosting fan-translated scanlations that were published without the rights holder's permission. The reader itself is entirely legitimate open-source software; what most people point it at is not licensed, and it is worth knowing which of those two things you are installing.

WEBTOON and Tapas are the other model. The app and the comics come together, the titles are licensed, and the creators are paid. Smaller selection, no configuration, nothing to break.

Both models are on this list. The four maintained readers come first, the discontinued original is included for the record because you will be pointed at it, and the two licensed platforms close it out.

The maintained readers

1. Kotatsu — the one that works out of the box

Kotatsu is the recommendation for most people, and the reason is the step it removes.

• Version: v6.8.5 · Size: 13.4 MB · Android: 5.0+ · Licence: open source
• Sources: built into the app

Every Tachiyomi fork below installs as an empty shell and leaves you to find a repository URL, paste it in, install extensions and only then search for anything. That is the point at which most new users give up. Kotatsu ships its catalogue inside the app, so you install it, search a title, and read.

It is also the smallest of the maintained readers at 13.4 MB, and the most actively developed. It has the features that matter: offline chapter downloads, a paged and a continuous-scroll reader, MyAnimeList and Shikimori tracking, local CBZ support, per-title reader settings and an integrated suggestions system.

The cost of built-in sources is control. You get the catalogue Kotatsu curates rather than any repository you fancy, which means fewer obscure titles than a fully loaded TachiyomiSY. For most reading, that is a trade in your favour.

Install this one if: you want to be reading in two minutes rather than configuring for twenty.

2. TachiyomiSY — for a library that has outgrown the others

TachiyomiSY is the fork built for people tracking hundreds of titles, and it contains the single most useful feature in the category.

• Version: v1.13.2 · Size: 32.4 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: open source
• Sources: you add them

Sources break constantly. An aggregator goes offline, changes its markup or starts blocking scrapers, and every title you were reading from it stops loading. On a large library that happens somewhere in your list most weeks.

TachiyomiSY's automated source migration is the answer: it searches your other installed sources for the titles that broke, matches them, and transfers your reading progress across. Doing that by hand for eighty titles is an evening's work. Doing it here is a few taps.

It adds rule-based dynamic categories on top — a library that sorts itself by status, source or tag rather than by folders you maintain — plus batch operations and a merged-source view that stitches one title together from several catalogues.

At 32.4 MB it is the second-largest reader here, and it is the most complicated. It assumes you already know what an extension repository is.

Install this one if: you follow more than about fifty titles and are tired of repairing your library by hand.

3. TachiyomiJ2K — the nicest one to read in

TachiyomiJ2K is the fork that concentrated on the reading experience itself.

• Version: v1.7.4 · Size: 22.8 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: open source
• Sources: you add them

Edge-to-edge cover artwork instead of a grid of thumbnails, a genuinely well-judged Material interface, and — the part that matters once you are actually reading — fully configurable tap zones, so you can set which region of the screen advances, goes back and does nothing. On a large phone, held one-handed, that is the difference between comfortable and irritating.

Webtoon-style continuous vertical scrolling is smooth here, which is not true of every reader, and MyAnimeList and AniList sync are built in.

It is a fork of a project that stopped, maintained independently, and development is quieter than Kotatsu's. Check when it last shipped before committing your library to it.

Install this one if: you read for long stretches and the interface is the thing you notice.

4. Neko — one source, done properly

Neko rejects the multi-source model entirely.

• Version: v3.6.1 · Size: 38.6 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: open source
• Sources: MangaDex only

Instead of extensions, Neko is a dedicated client for MangaDex, built against its published API. That buys you things a generic scraper cannot offer: you log in with your MangaDex account so your follows and reading progress sync server-side, you can filter by scanlation group so you always get the translation you prefer, you can filter by language properly, and images come over MangaDex's own distribution network rather than being scraped from a page.

MangaDex is worth describing accurately, since it is the reason to install this. It is a community scanlation platform, not a licensed publisher — the translations are fan-made — but it operates non-commercially and removes titles when rights holders ask. That makes it the least objectionable of the aggregators without making it a licensed source.

At 38.6 MB it is the largest reader here, and if MangaDex does not carry what you read, the app is useless to you.

Install this one if: MangaDex is already where you read, and you want the client that treats it as a first-class service.

The original, for the record

5. Tachiyomi — discontinued, and still recommended everywhere

Tachiyomi is here because you will be told to install it, not because you should.

• Version: v0.15.3 · Size: 21.9 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: open source
• Status: development ended January 2024

It was the app that defined the category, and everything above is descended from it. It still runs, it still opens CBZ and CBR archives, and it still syncs to MyAnimeList and AniList.

What it does not get is fixes. Sources break and stay broken. Android changes and nothing adapts. Every fork above exists precisely because this one stopped, and the maintained successor to the original line is now published under the name Mihon rather than this one.

Install it if you have a specific reason — an old configuration you want to read, a device that will not run the newer builds. Otherwise start at Kotatsu.

Install this one if: you have a concrete reason to want the original build. Otherwise, do not.

The licensed platforms

Different proposition: less choice, nothing to configure, creators paid.

6. WEBTOON — the official vertical-scroll platform

WEBTOON is the largest legitimate home of vertical-scroll comics.

• Version: v3.4.8 · Size: 62.9 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: freeware
• Sources: its own licensed catalogue

Thousands of official series updating on fixed weekly schedules, plus CANVAS, the self-publishing tier where a large share of the interesting work appears before it gets picked up. Most series release episodes free after a delay and charge to read ahead. Chapters download for offline reading.

Because the platform controls both the comics and the app, the formatting is correct every time — no stitched-together long strips, no misordered pages, no source that breaks. Nothing to maintain at all.

At 62.9 MB it is a large app, and the catalogue is only what WEBTOON has licensed. Japanese manga is largely not here; Korean webtoons and manhwa are its centre of gravity.

Install this one if: you read vertical-scroll series and would rather pay the creator than configure a reader.

7. Tapas — comics and prose in one place

Tapas is the same model with a wider definition of reading.

• Version: v8.2.1 · Size: 74.7 MB · Android: 6.0+ · Licence: freeware
• Sources: its own licensed catalogue

Webcomics alongside serialised prose novels, which no other app on this page attempts. The novel reader has proper typography controls — typeface, size, spacing, background — so it is a real reader rather than a comic app displaying text. The "wait until free" model unlocks episodes over time without payment, and daily passes accelerate it.

It is the largest download here at 74.7 MB, and the catalogue leans strongly to romance and fantasy. If that is not what you read, it will feel narrow.

Install this one if: you read serialised fiction as well as comics.

The seven, side by side

What none of this fixes

The reader is the small decision. Which of the four open-source apps you choose changes the interface. What you can actually read is decided entirely by the sources you add, and those are the same sources regardless of the reader. Time spent comparing readers is mostly wasted; time spent understanding sources is not.

Sources break, permanently and forever. This is not a defect to be fixed in a future release. Aggregators disappear, get blocked or restructure, and every break needs a volunteer to notice and repair it. Anything you care about should be downloaded, because a downloaded chapter survives its source vanishing.

Fan translations are not licensed. The apps are legitimate; the great majority of what the extensions fetch is published without permission. That is the actual choice on this page, and the two official platforms exist as the alternative rather than as filler.

A discontinued app does not announce itself. Tachiyomi opens and works, right up until a source breaks and never gets fixed. Before you commit a library to any fork here, check when it last shipped a release — the same caution applies to the quieter forks, not just the dead original.

Sideloaded packages do not update themselves. These apps are distributed as APKs, and an APK stays at the version you installed. If a new build refuses to install over an old one, that is almost always a signing-key conflict — our guide to the "App not installed" error covers the fix.

The five-minute version

Install Kotatsu. Search for a title you already read. If it appears, you are done, and you have skipped the configuration step that stops most people.

If your library is large enough that broken sources are a weekly annoyance, move to TachiyomiSY for the migration tool alone.

And install WEBTOON alongside whichever you pick. It costs nothing, it never breaks, and it is the only entry on this page where reading something means the person who drew it gets paid.

Every app named here resolves to a page in the FileCobra catalogue — the build fails if one does not. Versions, package sizes and system requirements are read from that catalogue rather than written by hand. Where our ingestion worker has fetched a release itself, it records a SHA-256 of the exact file we serve and publishes it on the app’s page. We do not run an antivirus lab: where a VirusTotal report exists we link it, and where none exists we say so rather than imply one.