Z-Library is a digital library that allows you to download ebooks for free. With a wide variety of ebooks available on a wide range of subjects, Z-library is one of the most popular free online libraries.
Z-Library has millions of ebooks and dozens of millions of articles. Instead of buying ebooks from places like Amazon Kindle, you can get them for free on Z-Library.
That’s because Z-Library is a community-driven site. Users upload ebook files so others can enjoy them as well.
However, Z-Library has several major disadvantages.
The first is that it places a daily limit on the number of free ebooks you can download. If you aren’t signed in, you can only download five ebooks a day; even if you are signed in, you can only download 10 books a day unless you pay for the premium membership.
While Z-Library claims it is a nonprofit, it forces users to make a “donation” to increase the daily download limit for 31 days, after which they will have to make another donation.
Furthermore, not all books are available as PDF downloads, and the file converter feature to convert ePub files to PDF, TXT, and other file formats is reserved for premium members.
If you’re looking for free audiobooks, Z-Library also isn’t a good choice. While it has an amazing selection of ebooks and articles, it is lacking audiobooks.
You will also have to be okay with pirated content when using Z-Library, as a lot of the content on the site isn’t in the public domain, and Z-Library isn’t legally allowed to offer it to you. However, if you’re not okay with pirating, there are some other fully legal alternatives to Z-Library available as well.
Finally, while Z-Library’s selection is one of the largest on the web, there are some ebooks that it doesn’t have, so it’s worth knowing about Z-Library alternatives that may have specific books that Z-Library does not. That is especially true if you’re looking for academic textbooks and magazines.
Best Z-Library Alternatives
1. Library Genesis
Library Genesis, commonly called LibGen, is my #1 free alternative to Z-Library. It’s also among the most popular ebook-sharing sites.
Unlike Z-Library, it doesn’t impose any daily download limits, so you can download as many books as you want at once without paying anything.
You can expect to find nearly all of the ebooks and articles available on Z-Library on LibGen as well. That’s because Z-Library reportedly draws from the same sources as Library Genesis and is essentially just another front for the same books – except that it charges for additional daily downloads.
I will admit that Library Genesis doesn’t have the most user-friendly interface. The interface is a bit outdated and can take a few minutes to get used to, but I wouldn’t say it’s terribly complicated either.
On Library Genesis, you can find ebooks, scholarly articles, comics, magazines, and more. The files are all clean, and you can filter your search using the available filters.
If the main LibGen.is site doesn’t work, try mirror sites like LibGen.rs, LibGen.st, and LibGen.li.
When searching on LibGen.li specifically, I recommend toggling on the “Show Covers” option, as it will make it easier to differentiate between ebooks and articles.
LibGen will typically give you links to a few mirror download sites for each ebook or article.
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2. PDF Drive
PDFDrive is another excellent Z-Library alternative that has no download limits, unlike Z-Library. According to PDF Drive, it has over 78 million ebooks currently on the site, which is a lot bigger than Z-Library’s database, which has under 10 million ebooks according to Wikipedia.
PDF Drive does have a premium membership, but it isn’t so that you can remove download limits, because there are none. Instead, the premium membership gives you access to perks like quicker downloads and unlimited cloud storage to store your ebooks so you can read them online on your other devices.
Unlike Z-Library, PDF Drive also has an Android app. However, it is not available from the Google Play Store but rather as a downloadable APK file from the PDF Drive website.
Also, as the name suggests, PDF Drive offers PDF versions of its ebooks by default, so you won’t have to worry about needing a third-party reader app for an ePub file like you might on Z-Library.
You may also be able to convert the PDF file to an ePub or MOBE file, but you won’t have to pay extra for that.
3. Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a free library of over 60,000 ebooks. While that’s nowhere near as many as the millions of ebooks on Z-Library, Project Gutenberg is very different from Z-Library in the way it works.
Z-Library allows users to upload any ebook. It doesn’t care about copyright restrictions – indeed, you can find many pirated ebooks on Z-Library.
Project Gutenberg, on the other hand, does care about copyrights. It screens each submission to make sure that the book is in the public domain or otherwise copyright-free before including it on its site.
That is why there is a much smaller selection of books available. However, if you’re worried about using pirate sites and infringing on copyrights, Project Gutenberg is a better choice.
Usually, each book will have a plain text version available, and there may also be other versions, like ePub, PDF, and Kindle file formats available.
Project Gutenberg allows you to upload files directly to DropBox, Google Drive, and Microsoft Drive.
In case you were wondering, Project Gutenberg has been around since 1971, long before Z-Library, which was founded in 2009 according to the Z-Library website footer.
In fact, Gutenberg is the oldest digital library in the world! Its goal, from the get-go, has been to transcribe physical books into a digital format and make them available to anyone who has a computer (and now phone).
There are no limits, and you are free to use it for as long as you want without any registration required.
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4. Standard Ebooks
Another awesome alternative to Z-Library is Standard Ebooks. Unlike Z-Library, it is not only entirely free but also open source.
You’ll be able to see each and every change made to ebooks and submit your own edits. Also, on GitHub, you can see the source code for the project’s website and toolset.
Unlike Z-Library, you won’t have to worry about copyright infringement when using Standard Ebooks. That’s because it makes sure to include only books that are in the public domain or copyright-free.
It also releases the digital versions it creates into the public domain, so you can feel free to share them with friends.
You’ll never have to pay to use Standard Ebooks. You can download or read as many ebooks as you want, without creating an account or being forced to make donations to remove daily limits.
It has its own eReader, which allows you to read ebooks online without downloading files, unlike Z-Library.
The eReader uses beautiful typography that is easy on the eyes. Furthermore, you can typically download an ePub version and/or a Kindle version.
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5. EPDF
EPDF is an excellent alternative to Z-Library that is entirely free, with no download limits. It focuses exclusively on PDF files, unlike Z-Library, so you won’t need to worry about getting an eReader for ePub files.
Anyone can upload ebooks to EPDF, although that doesn’t mean they have the right to. However, authors are allowed to issue copyright notices and request that EPDF take down files if they were shared without permission.
EPDF also integrates with Zavo, an online tool that allows you to compress PDF files before downloading them to reduce their size.
6. The Imperial Library of Trantor
An interesting alternative to Z-Library is The Imperial Library of Trantor, or the Galactic Library, found at Trantor.is.
According to the website, it doesn’t believe in copyright laws, which is why it has made it its mission to provide ePub versions of ebooks for free – and it promises not to comply with any copyright or takedown requests from corporations.
It has over 1.4 million ebooks in the library, and unlike Z-Library, it is open source, with the source code available on GitLab.
7. Sci-Hub
Another famous shadow library is Sci-Hub, founded in Kazakhstan and used all around the world. It has several mirror sites, but the main one is Sci-Hub.se.
While Z-Library focuses on both ebooks and articles, Sci-Hub is the better choice for those conducting scholarly and scientific research, as it focuses mostly on scholarly articles.
It has almost 90 million research documents, including journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, and more. According to Sci-Hub, its database covers over 95% of the major scientific publishers and contains 100TB of files altogether, so you can find pretty much any major journal on it.
You’ll be able to find research articles starting from 1980.
Sci-Hub was created to help scholarly researchers. If you’re a scholarly researcher using the internet for research frequently, you’ll know that many articles are hidden behind paywalls and premium membership subscriptions.
If you’re a fan of transparency, you’ll also like Sci-Hub better than Z-Library. Z-Library is a good site, but it’s a bit shrouded in mystery.
The founder of Sci-Hub, on the other hand, has an entire page dedicated to her story, complete with her motivation for the project and personal photos.
Sci-Hub is available in both English and Russian, and it relies entirely on donations for site maintenance and legal battle costs. You can make donations with crypto, and at one point, Sci-Hub even maintained a public list of all donations it received.
8. Hoopla Digital
Hoopla is an excellent site if you have a library membership with a participating public library in the United States or Canada.
Getting a membership at your public library is free, and you may even be able to do it online, depending on your library. Otherwise, you might be able to pick up a library card or have one sent to you after completing a short registration process at your local public library.
Hoopla works a bit differently from Z-Library. Like a library membership, it allows you to borrow books for a set period before returning them, and you also have a monthly limit on how many books you can borrow.
The monthly limits are set not by Hoopla but by your local library, so I can’t give a one-size-fits-all rule here. However, I can say that most ebooks and audiobooks can be borrowed for three weeks (21 days), after which they will automatically return.
However, your library may give you an option to renew the borrowing term. If it doesn’t, you can just check out the book again, as many people can borrow the same book at once.
Hoopla, unlike Z-Library, doesn’t restrict you to ebooks. It’s also an excellent source of free audiobooks, something that Z-Library doesn’t offer!
Besides, you can check out movies, comics, music, and more.
Unlike Z-Library, Hoopla also has a mobile app that is pretty intuitive to use, allowing you to read ebooks and listen to audiobooks straight from your phone. Just log in with your library card and you’ll get instant access to hundreds of thousands of titles.
9. OverDrive/Libby
Another awesome alternative to Z-Library for audiobooks is OverDrive, which is also available through participating public libraries and schools. OverDrive is available in countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Singapore, Taiwan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and others.
Libby, by OverDrive, is a mobile app that is the perfect alternative to Z-Library for mobile users. It allows you to check out ebooks and audiobooks using your library card for free.
You’ll also be able to listen to audiobooks on your phone or in your car by connecting your phone to your car via Bluetooth, Android Auto, or Apple CarPlay.
When listening to audiobooks, you can speed up the playback speed up to 3x to finish the audiobook quicker or set a sleep timer if you like to listen to audiobooks in bed while falling asleep.
If you’re using Libby via a participating US library, you’ll be able to send ebooks to your Kindle device.
Otherwise, just read ebooks using Libby’s built-in eReader, which has a user-friendly interface and allows you to customize the reading experience by changing the font, book layout, and more.
Other than ebooks and audiobooks, you can also check out magazines and comics.
Libby syncs across all your devices, which means you can start reading on your phone and continue on your tablet – the app will save and sync your bookmarks, reading progress, notes, and more.
OverDrive and Libby are always free to use; you’ll just need a library card from your local public library.
10. LibriVox
What if you are looking for a Z-Library alternative for audiobooks but don’t have a library membership? In that case, check out LibriVox!
It is the best online library for public domain, copyright-free audiobooks.
Audiobooks on LibriVox are read by volunteers who read books out loud and upload the audio to the site. The books being read are in the public domain, and LibriVox releases all recordings uploaded to the site into the public domain as well.
Anyone can volunteer to narrate a book for LibriVox. That means that the voice recordings aren’t necessarily done by professional voice-over artists.
It also means that for some books, different chapters might be narrated by different voices.
However, LibriVox is entirely free, doesn’t display any ads, and will never charge you for listening to audiobooks.
11. Archive.org/Open Library
Archive.org is famous for Wayback Machine, which allows you to see archived websites and snapshots of websites from the past, even if those websites have since been taken down. However, Wayback Machine is only one of its projects.
Another of Archive.org’s projects is its massive library, which contains millions of digitized versions of books in addition to hundreds of billions of web pages, millions of hours of TV and video, and lots of audio as well.
If you are signed in, you can borrow books from Archive.org’s library, with books available to be borrowed for one hour or 14 days, depending on how many copies Archive.org has of the book. If the book is currently checked out by someone and not available for borrowing, you can join a waitlist.
I recommend using the more user-friendly Open Library instead, which is another of Archive.org’s projects, with the goal of creating a web page for every book that exists to build the largest book catalog ever. It has around 20 million books cataloged, and around two million books are available in full as digital versions.
You can read books from Open Library in your browser or download them to your device. Furthermore, books have audio versions as well, so Open Library is also an excellent alternative to Z-Library for audiobooks.
Archive.org is a nonprofit California State Library, which means you won’t have to worry about any copyright infringement or violating piracy laws when using it, unlike Z-Library. All books on Archive.org are copyrighted but you can legally borrow them.
As Vox explains, Archive.org actually owns physical versions of each book it digitizes, and it lends out the digital copies like any library would lend out physical copies, which is how it avoids copyright infringement. For that reason, it is only allowed to lend out one digital copy at a time, so two people can’t borrow the same ebook at once.
Some ebooks may also be uploaded by the original authors.
12. Open Textbook Library
I mentioned that finding textbooks on Z-Library can sometimes be hard, but Open Textbook Library is a great alternative that you may find useful. It focuses exclusively on textbooks, and it is run by the University of Minnesota.
All textbooks on Open Textbook Library are in the public domain, so you won’t have to worry about violating any copyright laws. You can search for textbooks by subject, such as business, law, math, etc.
Open Textbooks is part of the Open Education Network by the University of Minnesota. Not only are all textbooks free, but you can usually edit them as per the Creative Commons license.
Furthermore, most textbooks are peer-reviewed.
As of now, there are over 1,000 textbooks available on Open Textbook Library, with new ones added all the time.
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13. FreeBookSpot
FreeBookSpot is an interesting alternative to Z-Library because it doesn’t upload any books itself. Instead, it provides a search engine to help you find links to ebooks hosted on third-party hosting sites, uploaded by users.
Unlike Z-Library, FreeBookSpot doesn’t charge any fees. However, the third-party file-hosting sites may put some restrictions on the number of downloads you can make.
Other file-hosting sites may give you the option of a free download and then charge more for a faster download. You can choose the free download to avoid paying anything.
Each file hosting site is different, and some books may have files on more than one hosting site.
While FreeBookSpot doesn’t take any responsibility for the files hosted on third-party sharing sites it links to, it does allow you to report bad links – files that were taken down.
Anyone can upload an ebook to a file-sharing site and share the link on FreeBookSpot. Uploaders can also share the password to access the file on the third-party file-sharing site if necessary.
14. PDF Magazine
PDF Magazine is a cool alternative to Z-Library because it focuses on magazines instead of ebooks. Finding the latest magazine releases on Z-Library might be tough, but PDF Magazine has recent releases from magazines like Country Life UK, Storica National Geographic, Elle Netherlands, and many others.
I noticed that a lot of the magazines were from Europe, though there are many English-language releases as well.
You can browse past releases, too! There are over 600,000 magazines currently in PDF format on PDF Magazine.
You can browse through magazines by category.
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Wrapping It Up: What Is The Best Alternative to Z-Library?
The best alternative to Z-Library is Library Genesis or LibGen.
It imposes no download limits, and it is one of the largest and most-used shadow libraries on the web.
Benjamin Levin is a digital marketing professional with 4+ years of experience with inbound and outbound marketing. He helps small businesses reach their content creation, social media marketing, email marketing, and paid advertising goals. His hobbies include reading and traveling.