Tachiyomi for iPhone? What works instead
Tachiyomi was the Android manga reader everyone recommended. It never had an iPhone version, and its development stopped in January 2024 after legal pressure from a publisher. If you are on iPhone and want the same thing — every site in one app, a library that remembers where you are — these are the options.
Short answer: Source-based apps (Tachimanga, Aidoku, Paperback) copy Tachiyomi’s model. Browser-based apps like Mieru read the sites directly, so they break far less when sites change — and Mieru also translates raws inside the bubbles, for free.
| Tachiyomi-style apps on iOS | Mieru | |
|---|---|---|
| How chapters are fetched | Extensions (“sources”) that scrape each site | The site itself, opened in a browser |
| When a site changes | That source breaks until it is updated — about 1 in 5 posts on r/Tachimanga are about broken sources | The page still opens; support for tricky sites updates without an app update |
| Cloudflare checks | A common failure point (dozens of Tachimanga reviews and posts) | Solved in the browser, the way Safari does |
| Translate raw chapters | Not built in (Mihon closed the request as not planned) | Yes, inside the bubbles, on the device |
| Ads | Tachimanga: ads + premium; Aidoku and Paperback: none | None, and ads on sites are blocked |
| Price | Tachimanga: free with ads, Premium $1.99/month; Aidoku, Paperback: free | Free, no in-app purchases |
Checked September 2026 against App Store listings, public reviews and project pages.
Why Tachiyomi-style apps break
A source is a small program that knows how one website lays out its pages. When the site changes its layout, its domain or its protection, the source stops working until someone updates it. On iOS, where apps can’t load code freely, those updates depend on each app’s own extension system.
In a sample of 701 posts on r/Tachimanga from 2026, 158 were about a broken source or site, and another 45 about Cloudflare or captchas. That is the cost of the model, not a bug of one app.
How a comic browser does it
Mieru is a web browser. You open the site you read, the same way you would in Safari, and when you are on a chapter, Mieru offers Read Mode: the chapter’s images move into a native reader with vertical scroll, right-to-left pages, zoom and preloading. Because it is the real page, logins and Cloudflare checks behave like they do in Safari, and downloads use the same session.
Every series you open goes into one library, with your progress, bookmarks and history. When a site moves, the library keeps your place.
The part Tachiyomi never had: translation
Raws often run far ahead of translations. Mieru detects the speech bubbles on each page, reads Korean, Japanese (including vertical text) or Chinese, and writes the translation back inside the bubble, using Apple’s translation on the device — no coins and no quota. How translation works.
Questions
Is there an official Tachiyomi app for iPhone?
No. Tachiyomi was an Android app, and its development ended in January 2024. Its community continues as Mihon, which is also Android-only.
Does Mieru use extensions or sources?
No. Mieru opens the websites themselves in a browser and turns chapter pages into a reader, so there is nothing to install per site.
Try Mieru: a free comic browser for iPhone with translation inside the bubbles.
Coming soon to the App StoreTachiyomi, Mihon, Tachimanga, Aidoku, Paperback, AniList and MyAnimeList are the names of their respective owners and projects. Mieru is not affiliated with them. Comparisons are based on public App Store listings, reviews and project pages at the date shown; tell us at [email protected] if something has changed.