Goodreads has over 150 million members who use the platform to track their reading habits, discover new books, and find like-minded communities.
But if Goodreads doesn’t scratch your literary itch, or you’re looking to move away from the Amazon ecosystem, there are plenty of Goodreads alternatives out there.
storygraph
CEO Nadia Odunayo launched StoryGraph just a few years ago. Since then, it’s gained popularity for its visual style, utilizing pie, line, and bar charts to represent your reading habits.
StoryGraph also uses moods to categorize your reading experiences. You can label books as adventurous, challenging, dark, emotional, funny, hopeful, informative, inspiring, lighthearted, mysterious, reflective, relaxing, sad, and tense.
I recently wrote a comparison of StoryGraph vs. Goodreads and noticed a stark difference between the intended audiences. Whereas Goodreads is massively focused on community, StoryGraph brings your personal reading experience to the forefront.
Pros:
- Alternative ranking system: StoryGraph encourages you to categorize books by moods, which feels much more personal than a star rating.
- Independently owned: This Goodreads alternative is entirely independent, a massive plus for readers wanting to leave the Amazon ecosystem.
- Visual data: It’s no secret that most people are visual learners, which StoryGraph capitalizes on to deliver an engaging experience.
Cons:
- Small (but growing) community: StoryGraph’s community isn’t as big as Goodreads, but more and more people are converting to StoryGraph every day.
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booksloth
Frustrated with the existing book platforms, Xiomara Figueroa and Lincy Ayala founded BookSloth in 2018. They set out to create an app with a strong community focus and a Community Hub tailored to Young Adult fiction.
BookSloth soon caught the eye of bibliophiles from across the globe. The unique rating system allows you to assign reading elements (e.g., awesome characters or amazing worldbuilding) to your favorite books. You can also use a traditional five-star rating system and write reviews of up to 2,000 characters.
Pros:
- Hub focuses on Young Adult fiction: If you’re a fan of YA fiction, this is a brilliant alternative to Goodreads.
- Strong community focus: Community is key to BookSloth, connecting YA enthusiasts from all over the globe.
- Unique rating system: The unique rating system gives you a new, far more detailed way to categorize books.
Cons:
- Niche: If you want to explore a broad range of genres, BookSloth isn’t the reading tracker for you.
literal.club
This Goodreads alternative has an exclusive, intriguing air to it. It’s a social book platform that allows you to track your reading habits and review books in a creative, alternative way. When it first launched, it was invite-only. Now, anyone can join Literal.club.
Literal.club is highly streamlined, making navigation super easy. In the Home tab, you can add books to your current reading list and find new people to follow with a few simple clicks. The Explore tab invites you to discover new reads and like-minded people. There’s even a ‘playground’ feature that sends you to a random book.
Instead of a community tab, Literal.club has a Clubs tab, where you can find people who love manga, thrillers, and classics. Once you’ve finished a book, you can review it. The review process is straightforward: simply add a star rating, type your comments, and choose from a list of attributes to describe the book.
Pros:
- Import data from Goodreads: You can transfer your reading data from Goodreads to Literal.club with a few simple clicks.
- Mid-sized community: Despite being one of the newer players in the book-tracking space, Literal.club has amassed a solid number of users.
Cons:
- Emphasis on the social element: If you’re searching for a Goodreads alternative, you might not like the social element of Literal.club. All the social aspects are already available (and in most cases, more well-established) on Goodreads.
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bookwyrm
The Fediverse, a decentralized social network of independent servers, created BookWyrm as an alternative to Goodreads. BookWyrm is a self-proclaimed ad-free, anti-corporate, federated social reading and reviewing platform.
In terms of functionality, BookWyrm does all the things you would expect a reading tracker to do. You can track start and finish reading dates, classify books as want to read, reading, and read, and add reviews, comments, and quotes to your favorite books. You can even import your reading history from Goodreads and other similar platforms.
BookWyrm has a grassroots feel to it, which is ideal for people who want to step away from the more commercialized reading trackers out there. The trade-off is the visual appeal; BookWyrm has a simplistic though intuitive user interface. It feels a lot like early internet chat forums, giving the platform a nostalgic tinge.
The downside is that it has a relatively small community. For example, The Great Gatsby only has 52 reviews, whereas the same book has 110K reviews on Goodreads. Still, it all depends on your preferences. BookWyrm is so close-knit that it almost feels like a group chat with all your literary friends.
Pros:
- Decentralized: BookWyrm is entirely decentralized, meaning no annoying ads.
- Tight-knit community: It’s easy to develop close relationships and spearhead new literary communities on BookWyrm.
Cons:
- Smaller community: BookWyrm has one of the smallest communities of all the book trackers on our list, which is a pro for some and a con for others.
litsy
A group of bibliophiles founded Litsy in 2015, and it was acquired by LibraryThing shortly after in 2018. It’s described as “the platform where books make friends.”
Sure enough, this Goodreads alternative centers around socializing. The Home page acts as a feed for community updates, which look a lot like Instagram posts. It seems Litsy would benefit from a specific community tab. As of now, users have to scroll through the Home tab or search through hashtags to find like-minded readers.
On the Search tab, you can find books, people, and tags. Across the board, the search feature isn’t as intuitive as it could be, only recognizing The Great Gatsby on the last few letters. On top of that, the review options are slim. You can add a short review and rate the book using four options: Pick, So-So, Pan, or Bail.
Pros:
- Interact with other users: You can comment, like, and share posts, so it’s easy enough to build friendships and discuss books.
- Social media style reading app: Litsy feels just like Instagram, allowing users to intuitively use the app without a hitch.
Cons:
- Reviews are limited: The limited review options take the fun away from reading a new book.
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