21 Best Free Audiobook Sites Where You Can Download & Listen to 1000s of Titles for Free (Legally)

They have completely changed the way information is consumed.

If you are like some people, you may be reading a few books at a time. With traditional books, that would mean you have to carry a bag full of books with you when you travel.

But with audiobooks, you can have 100’s of them with you at any moment, all on your phone.

Audiobooks are also a little cheaper than books.

You can listen to your books on the go while driving, when working out, running, waiting at the dentist’s office, or whenever you have some free time.

That means you can “read” many more books.

There are even a few major audiobook streaming and subscription-based services out there that aim to make it more affordable to consume audiobooks, mainly services like Audible.com (an Amazon company) and AudioBooks.com.

But even audiobook subscription services aren’t cheap.

For example, AudioBooks.com charges $14.95 which enables you to stream or download just one book per month.

So what does a budget-savvy bookworm do to satisfy his or her need for books while at the same time staying within the budget?

Where to Find Free Audiobooks Online?

Thankfully, there are a few dozens great sites that offer 100% free audiobooks.

You can download or stream hundreds of thousands of books for free using these sites.

But weeding through that many sites to find the ones that carry the best and most titles can be time-consuming.

But you don’t have to do that!

We have done the work and find you the top free audiobook sites for downloading and streaming all kinds of books.

1. Open Culture

As the name probably suggests, the content here is more about cultural and educational stuff.

They have done a great job in finding many of the major classics and making them available for free to people.

There are multiple formats for you to download, which is completely obligation free, and you can choose to listen to them at a time and place of your liking.

The website has a functional search bar that makes your navigation easy. You can search by author’s name or the book’s genre.

2. Gutenberg Audio

Project Gutenberg is recognized not just for its huge array of e-books, but also a fantastic collection of audiobooks as well.

They don’t work in isolation. Alongside forward-thinking companies like LibriVox and AudioBooksFor Free, they have built up a massive virtual library.

While I am certainly impressed with the catalog listed, I am intrigued by the fact that I can find books that are purely 100% computer-generated.

3. Internet Archive Audio

This is another project that first made its name on free electronic books.

The Internet Archive Audio has subsequently made its foray into the audio space and now boasts of more than 6000 audiobooks.

They also have a nice collection of poems for download.

4. Podiobooks

As in the case of the paper based physical books, there are also the serialized stories.

Here, they distribute them through RSS feeds.

To get to a certain episode, simply click on the corresponding link and you choose to play the clip instantly, or have it downloaded into your smart devices.

5. LibriVox

I like LibriVox for its unorthodox way of preparing their audiobooks.

They regularly invite users to send in the recording clips on chapters or sections of books. The resultant audiobooks bring about two very contrasting experience.

You may be the type who gets excited hearing a bunch of noises narrating a story, or you can be simply put off by the idea.

While I applaud LibriVox’s willingness to experiment and take in any user’s speech to incorporate into the final audiobooks, I find the process is still yet to reach the maturity stage. They have to draw up a comprehensive program to make sure that the listening exercise to become more seamless.

Regardless, you can always fall back to the more traditional way of storytelling by checking out books listed as “solo”.

The audiobooks here are multilingual and made up of a wide variety of genres.

6. Lit2Go

The content here is prepared in MP3 format. It consists mostly of poems and stories, and they are all available free of charge.

A useful search function is incorporated into the site so as to facilitate your navigation.

For kids reading stuff, they benchmark Flesch-Kincaid grade levels against their collection for kids, so parents could find the appropriate audiobooks.

7. Librophile

Librophile has tons of free audiobooks on their site.

You can search by keywords, languages, authors or genres.

A nice feature of Librophile is that it allows you to listen to a short clip before deciding to download the content into your smartphone or notebook.

8. LearnOutLoud

If you like more serious stuff like politics, science, philosophy and religion, for example, LearnOutLoud Free Audio will appeal to you.

They have really good quality materials around here.

9. Loyal Books (Previously Books Should Be Free)

This is the same website that used to be called Books Should Be Free.

The entire collection here is family friendly, and they made up of class literature mostly.

In addition to the conventional novels and stories, often multiple languages in MP3 and MP4 formats, the website also features podcast and RSS feed you can subscribe.

The search function is powered by Google search engine, so it is a breeze to find the content you look for.

To make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for, each individual audiobook is also tagged with a rating system, so you get some sense of the book before you choose to download.

10. Audiobooks.net

This place has a nice collection. The website also features a popularity chart to let you know what audiobooks are in demand according to genres.

11. KiddieRecords

This is an awesome site that contains all the classic books kids must read (or listen to, in this case!).

They have almost all the popular classic kids books you can think of, titles such as “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” and “The Ugly Duckling.”

12. FreeClassicAudioBooks.com

Here, it is not just about a decent collection of classics, but really excellent classics featuring great names of the past.

13. FreeAudioBooks.co.uk

This UK-based website allows a no hassle listening from its website directly.

Only the very established writers are featured here.

14. Storynory

This site is dedicated to kid story books as well as fairy tales, with a splinter of educational stuff.

Children will find work from Hans Christian Anderson and Grimm Brothers particularly interesting.

15. Thought Audio

Thought Audio tends to cater for those not so mainstream titles.

If you have real problem looking for your favorite titles, you may just get lucky at this website.

16. FreeAudioBooks.ws

This is another site with impressive range of audiobooks.

Users are also encouraged to download their free CD covers.

17. Audio Literature Odyssey

If you like Nikolle Doolin, you will enjoy this website as the content here is primarily voiced over by him.

Nikolle Doolin is also an established writer, in addition to being a voice actor.

18. Miette’s Bedtime Story Podcast

If you like stories to be told in the natural setting, you are going to like it here.

The website owner does the recording herself at home, so you likely to hear background noises like a dog barking. Nevertheless, the stories do make for good bedtime “read”.

19. BookBox

This website targets young teenagers and kids.

There are beautiful pictures accompany each audio book, which certainly add appeals to children.

20. Kids Audio Books

This is another website with kids being the primary audience. The collection boasts of more than 300 titles. You can find some of the kids books for free.

21. OverDrive

I have written about OverDrive before. I think OverDrive is one of the most underrated and unknown sources for not only free audiobooks but reading material in general.

You can access thousands of free audiobooks, ebooks, videos and more. All you need is your library card.

Don’t have a library card?

Stop by your local library and get one for free in a few minutes.
OverDrive pairs with local libraries across the country to give you access to over two million books and videos.

And no, these are not old public domain stuff. While you can certainly listen to classic, you’ll also find the newest audiobook releases through OverDrive.

And of course, they are all free to listen to.

Completely Free Audiobooks: Final Thoughts

There you have it, 20 sites where you can download and stream 100% free audiobooks from every genre imaginable.

Now you an get your education on for free.

If you have a favorite site where you download and stream audiobooks for free, I’d love to hear about it. Please share your sources in the comment section below.