Why people keep looking for something after Tachiyomi shut down
Tachiyomi died in March 2024. The developer posted a one-line statement and pulled the repo. People who had months of library data, extensions, and reading history suddenly had nothing. Not because the app was flawed, but because it was a volunteer project built entirely by one person who decided they were done. The manga reader ecosystem on Android didn't collapse though. It just fractured into three or four competing forks, and some of them are genuinely better than what we had before. Here's the actual list, ranked by how much I've used each one over the past year and what they're worth for different types of readers. This is the fork that survived longest and has the most active development. It's built off the original Tachiyomi J2K codebase and maintains extension support for most of the major sources. The UI feels familiar if you used the old Tachiyomi. Library management works the same way. Extensions are installed from within the app via the extension store, and the available sources cover a wide range of languages and scanlation groups.
The real advantage here is extension compatibility. Most Tachiyomi extensions work without modification. That means your existing libraries can often be migrated by simply pointing the app at your old backup file. The developer updates the fork regularly, which matters because source websites change their HTML structure constantly and broken extensions are the number one reason people abandon these apps. Pitfall: the app is ad-supported in the free version unless you build it yourself from the GitHub source. If you don't want ads, you'll need to compile it, which requires Android Studio and maybe an afternoon of debugging build errors. I spent about two hours the first time because of a Gradle version mismatch that wasn't documented anywhere. Download: github.com/neovax-mi/hinata
2. Yuki — cleanest interface, slowest updates
Yuki strips away everything that wasn't essential. No cluttered settings pages. No unnecessary menus. The reading interface is minimal and works well on smaller screens. If you just want to open the app and read without configuring thirty options, this is the one. Where Yuki falls short is update frequency. The development pace is deliberately slow. Features that the MiHoYo fork got six months ago are still queued for Yuki. Source tracking isn't as aggressive either. You'll see more broken links in Yuki than in any other option on this list. Not because Yuki is poorly coded, but because the developer prioritizes stability over catching every source that changes its layout. One thing beginners miss: Yuki doesn't support all the same extensions as the J2K forks. Some niche source extensions simply won't load. If you read from sites that rely on less common extensions, test before you commit your entire library to Yuki. I learned this the hard way when my Bleach extension stopped working and the developer had no plans to update it.
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Download: github.com/fox2496/Yuki
3. TachiyomiSY — best for power users
This fork targets people who want more control over how their manga is organized and displayed. It adds custom categories that auto-populate based on rules you define. You can set up filters that move series into different tabs based on genre, status, or read percentage. The extended tracking integration with MyAnimeList and AniList works more reliably than the base app because SY includes patched tracker clients that handle rate-limiting better. The learning curve is steep. I'd estimate it takes about three to four hours of experimentation before you actually find the app useful rather than frustrating. The settings menu is large and poorly organized. Important options are buried under multiple submenus. But once it's configured, the auto-categorization alone saves me probably ten minutes every time I open the app. Downside: fewer people contribute extensions to SY because the user base is smaller. If a source stops working, you're waiting on a smaller pool of people to fix it. That's just how community-supported software works. Don't expect enterprise-level response times from volunteers.
Download: github.com/salvage666/TachiyomiSY
4. Azuri — best alternative interface
Azuri rethinks the reading experience rather than copying the old Tachiyomi layout. The default view is different. Series are organized horizontally instead of in a traditional grid. The reader supports gesture controls that feel more natural on tablets and larger phones. If you read mostly on a tablet, Azuri might actually be the most comfortable option here. The tradeoff is library size. Azuri has fewer available extensions compared to the J2K forks. That doesn't mean the extensions that exist are bad, just that the ecosystem is smaller. You'll find the major sources covered, but niche or regional sources might not be available. For someone who mainly reads mainstream shonen and seinen, this probably won't matter. I ran into a specific issue with Azuri where downloaded chapters wouldn't sync properly between devices even though the cloud backup was enabled. The problem was that the extension I was using stored metadata in a format Azuri didn't recognize. I worked around it by exporting my library, switching to a different extension for the same source, and reimporting. Took about twenty minutes. Not ideal but manageable.
Download: github.com/jpul15/Azuri
5. KuroReader — lightweight option that actually works
KuroReader is smaller than the others in almost every way. Fewer features. Smaller codebase. It runs faster on older devices, which is the main reason it exists. If you have a phone from 2019 or earlier, the heavier forks will feel sluggish. KuroReader won't. The extension store is limited. Maybe a dozen or so active sources compared to fifty or sixty in MiHoYo. You'll also notice slower search results and less frequent automatic updates on chapter tracking. These aren't bugs, they're just consequences of the smaller team behind it. What KuroReader does well is something nobody else emphasizes: it handles corrupted manga files gracefully. I've seen other forks crash or freeze when encountering a malformed image within a chapter. KuroReader skips the bad file and continues reading. For a library that's been downloaded over years from various sources with inconsistent compression, this actually matters more than any fancy feature list.
Download: github.com/natario1/KuroReader
What nobody tells you about switching
Your old Tachiyomi backups are likely still usable. The database format hasn't changed across these forks. You can restore a .sbk backup file directly in any of these apps and your library, reading progress, and categories will carry over. The one thing that won't migrate is which source extension was attached to each series. If a source URL changed or the extension was removed, you'll need to manually reassign it. Another thing: these apps don't host content. They're readers. They pull manga from external sources on the internet. That means if a source goes down, the app can't fix it. The only solution is finding a working extension for that source or switching sources entirely. I've lost count of how many times I've had to hunt for an alternative extension because a popular scanlation site changed its domain or blocked scraping. Most importantly, be careful about which APK you install. There are fake builds on third-party download sites that bundle malware. Always use the official GitHub links. If you don't trust compiling from source, check the commit history and issue tracker before downloading. The repos listed above are all public and the code is auditable. That's about as close to safe as you can get with software this type.
