Buddhist Canon & Sutta Libraries

The serious Buddhist student's reference shelf is now mostly free, online, and searchable. SuttaCentral for cross-canon parallels, 84000 for the Tibetan canon translated into English, Access to Insight for the classic Theravada selection — all donation-funded, all FOSS-spirited. Apps are a thin layer over the texts; the texts are what matter.

Sister sections: Buddhist Traditions & Apps, Online Courses & Dharma Talks, Sangha & Community, Meditation Apps, Notes & Wiki (for sutta study notes).

The cross-canon library

• ★ ★ SuttaCentral — completely free; non-profit; Pali Tipitaka + Chinese Agamas + Tibetan + Sanskrit + parallels mapped between them; modern translations (Bhikkhu Sujato, Bhikkhu Bodhi); the gold standard for comparative early-Buddhist study.
  • https://suttacentral.net/
  • Source / data on GitHub; tipitaka data is openly licensed.
• ★ ★ 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha — completely free; non-profit; the Tibetan canon (Kangyur + Tengyur) translated into English; scholarly apparatus, glossaries, multiple translations per sutra. The most ambitious translation project in modern Buddhism.
  • https://84000.co/

Theravada / Pali canon

• ★ Access to Insight — completely free web; classic Theravada selection in English (Thanissaro Bhikkhu and others); maintained, stable URLs; the "first stop" for Theravada study since 1993.
  • https://www.accesstoinsight.org/
• ★ Buddho.org — free; Theravada chants, sutta audio, meditation instructions; Forest Tradition leaning.
• Pali Text Society — paid print + some free digital; the academic Pali source; expensive.
• Tipitaka.org (VRI) — free; the Vipassana Research Institute Pali canon (the Goenka tradition's preferred edition).
• DigitalPaliReader — free browser tool; word-by-word Pali parsing.

Mahayana / Chinese canon

• CBETA (Chinese Buddhist Electronic Text Association) — free; the Chinese Tripitaka digitized; Taiwan-based; 数位 reader apps available.
  • https://www.cbeta.org/
• BDK America — free PDFs of selected Mahayana sutras in English (Lotus Sutra, Vimalakirti, etc.).

Tibetan canon

• ★ 84000 (above) — primary destination.
• Lotsawa House — free; Tibetan-tradition translations (Patrul Rinpoche, etc.); often parallel Tibetan + English.
  • https://www.lotsawahouse.org/
• BDRC (Buddhist Digital Resource Center) — free; scanned Tibetan texts; archive-shape.

Apps over the canon

• SuttaCentral mobile (community apps) — wraps SuttaCentral; bookmarking; offline Pali.
• Digital Pali Dictionary — free; on iOS / Android.
• DPR (Digital Pali Reader) — free Firefox/web; word-by-word parsing.
• Pali Lookup — free Anki-friendly dictionary tools.

Reading practice

• Suttas in chunks: SN / MN are short and often self-contained; one a day with notes.
• Bhikkhu Bodhi's anthologies (paid books) — In the Buddha's Words is the gentle entry; The Connected Discourses / The Middle Length Discourses are the deep dives.
• Translation comparison: SuttaCentral lets you switch translators on the same sutta — invaluable for serious study.
• Annotation: pair with Hypothesis or Readwise for marginalia; or a personal Trilium / Obsidian sutta notebook.

Cost / license honesty

• SuttaCentral / 84000 / Access to Insight / Lotsawa House / CBETA — all free, donation-supported, often openly licensed.
• Bhikkhu Bodhi's print anthologies — paid (Wisdom Publications); the print is worth owning if you study seriously.
• App wrappers — mostly free; quality varies.

Honest limits

• Sutta-as-app is no substitute for community study. The historical model is sangha + teacher + sutta; the app gives you only the third.
• Translations carry interpretive weight. Bhikkhu Sujato vs. Bhikkhu Bodhi vs. Thanissaro disagree in places — read more than one.
• The canon is huge. Don't try to read it linearly. Anthologies and curricular reading lists exist for a reason.

Pick this if…

• Comparative early-Buddhist study: SuttaCentral.
• Tibetan canon in English: 84000.
• Theravada classics, web-stable: Access to Insight.
• Tibetan-tradition liturgy / practice texts: Lotsawa House.
• Chinese Mahayana: CBETA.
• Daily reading, no commitment: SuttaCentral's "sutta of the day."