Goodreads vs. The StoryGraph: Which Reading Tracker Is Best?

For many years, Goodreads has been the go-to book tracking platform among reading tracker websites and apps. The site has a huge database of books and readers, along with thousands of reviews and ratings on books, endless lists, personalized recommendations, and more. But a challenger to Goodreads’ reign. The StoryGraph, which launched a beta version in 2019, exploded in popularity during January 2021 (before it was even officially launched). As avid readers and lovers of a good book tracking app, we’ve compared the features of Goodreads vs. The StoryGraph to determine which reading tracker is best.

Goodreads vs. The StoryGraph

Goodreads: The popular favorite

The benefits of using Goodreads are plentiful and solid — which is what you’d expect from a website/app that dominates its arena.

Goodreads allows users to create a profile, track the books they’ve read and are reading, write reviews, and find new books to read. There’s plenty of data on the site about thousands of books, making it easy to learn what a book is about and decide whether or not you want to read it. There’s also a recommendation box on the homepage that will get more and more suited to your tastes the more you log your reading habits.

Another fun feature: Goodreads lets you set an annual reading challenge for yourself each year and will keep you updated on how far behind or ahead of your goal you are at any time. There’s also a “Year in Books” summary at the end of each year that offers an overview of what you’ve read during that year.

Overall, the biggest appeal of Goodreads is probably its steady popularity: The site has been the staple book tracker for years and has over 90 million registered users. Since the Goodreads reading community provides an abundance of reviews and ratings, you can get insights into almost any book published. Many popular authors have their own Goodreads profiles: Roxane Gay is well-known for her voracious reading, which she logs on her account, along with frequent reviews.

It’s worth noting that Goodreads belongs to Amazon, so readers who use Kindles or the Kindle app are able to sync their reading with Goodreads to be tracked automatically. This is handy…