Once upon a time, Goodreads was the holy grail for tracking books, in addition to being an all-around bookish website. Many readers, however, fell out of love, bemoaning the platform’s outdated design and a dearth of necessary features. And since it’s associated with Amazon, many have sworn to have nothing to do with it. This is compounded by the many issues that plagued Goodreads over the years, such as the rise of bot reviewers, review bombing, and harassment of authors among other vile things. Thus, readers abandoned Goodreads in droves in favor of newer bookish apps.
Over the years, many platforms have tried to compete with Goodreads, but none have been as successful. Book Riot has reviewed many of these apps, including The StoryGraph, Bookmory, Bookly, Bookworm Reads, Booksloth, and Fable. But while they have yet to match or even surpass Goodreads’ level of success as the leading bookish app, many new apps have already emerged to compete for a piece of the pie.
But why the need for newer apps when there are already existing ones out there?
Perhaps you’re a reader who uses two or three apps: Goodreads for socializing with your friends, and another one for the stats. Perhaps you like Bookmory’s visually appealing book calendar or some other app’s eye-popping design. Most book tracker apps I’ve tried don’t have all the features that readers need, with some of them even locked behind a subscription, so it’s becoming more and more common to use two or more apps for tracking.
In the list below, let’s break down these newcomers. We’ll learn what makes them good or bad, what distinguishes them from the competition, what specific features they offer that may not be found elsewhere, whether you should skip it, and whether it’s worth trying at all.
