If you are an avid reader, it can be hard to keep track of which books you have read, as well as what you thought of each book. I know I have personally picked up a book at the library only to realize I had read that same book many years ago, though in a different cover. As well as that, having a search engine to find new books, or being able to look up reviews of a book you are curious about, is incredibly convenient. So, many people (myself included) turn to online platforms.
Goodreads is, without a doubt, the most popular online platform for readers. It has book clubs, the ability to search for a book using your phones camera, the ability to sample content, giveaways, and even events you can go to. Due to that, it is no wonder that they have several million users.
However, many people are choosing to leave the platform. Some people do not like that it is owned by Amazon, but others simply do not like the interface or how it is run. So (after exporting your data from Goodreads), here are some alternatives you might want to try out.
StoryGraph
StoryGraph is what I currently use, and really love it. As the name suggests, it does indeed have graphs, and they break down what you have read (length, pace, genre, pages, and more) into graphs, which really helped me understand what exactly I look for as a reader. I also really like that it has a very in-depth reading survey, so that you don’t get recommended books with content that you don’t like or that may be a trigger for you, and instead get recommendations based on what you do like.
Pros:
- Reading Challenge/Reading Goal
- The ability to import from Goodreads
- Reading statistics.
- Book giveaways.
- App and Website.
- Search by barcode
- Book recommendations based off of a survey(which includes tropes you do or don’t like) as well as what you have read in the past
- You can mark which books you own a copy of (this is particularly useful for library users who don’t always buy the books they read)
- You can mark specific tropes, mood, and pace, in reviews, and it will be shown under the book for other potential readers to see.
- A very good free plan (including everything above) with the option of a paid plan with more extra features to help fund the website.
Cons:
- No communities / book clubs
- The privacy policy is not as — well — private with your data as it could be
- No ability to search for tropes or other filters in the search bar.
BookWyrm
Unlike the others on this list, Bookwyrm is part of the Fediverse, which is a group of connected platforms with an emphasis on being community owned and with strong privacy policies.
Picture using whatever email provider you have, and sending an email to someone with a different email provider. They are both ran by different providers, yet they have the ability to connect. The Fediverse works like that, where you can be on one website, and yet connect to someone on a different one. For an example, the biggest network of these is likely Mastodon, which is a X (Twitter) alternative.
Each network has it’s own instances (sort of like how you can join different servers on Discord). The “main” one is Bookworm.Social, but what this means is that you could join an instance in your own language, for your area, or even just for your favorite genre or setting. You could even create/host your own, if you wanted to.
I have personally tried Bookwyrm and thought it was fine, but does lack many of the features found on other platforms. However, many of the features (such as reading statistics) can involve data collection, so the basic features of Bookwyrm may not be a bad thing for everyone.
Pros:
- Part of the Fediverse
- Reading goals/challenges.
- Strong privacy policy
- The ability to import from Goodreads
- The ability to add missing books
- Wikipedia-style collaborative editing (the community can fix book info errors)
- Book lists you can create and share with the community
Cons:
- People still find the concept of the Fediverse confusing, which may make using Bookwyrm intimidating .
- Small user base.
- There are many duplicate books
- The search can bring up the various box-sets available to buy, instead of just the individual books
- Some complaints that their database does not yet have enough books.
- No personalized book recommendations
- No book clubs
- No reading statistics
- Standard review format (no lists of tropes, triggers, and so on)
BookJournal
BookJournal has “journals” you can share. For example, you could create a “My Top 10 Books” reading journal, and share it with friends.
Please note that I have not personally tried this one, so I will base my pro’s and con’s list based off of what I have heard from actual users.
Pros:
- The ability to import your data from Goodreads
- App and Website.
- You can mark specific tropes, mood, and pace, in reviews, and it will be shown under the book for other potential readers to see.
- You can mark which books you own a copy of (this is particularly useful for library users who don’t always buy the books they read)
- A trope-bases search bar option
- Collects data, but they are clear in their privacy policy that they will not sell or trade it with outside parties.
Cons:
- Some users have reported that the “read” dates on books imported from Goodreads are set to the day the data is imported, instead of the read date.
- You can only have three “journals” until you hit a paywall.
- It has a heavy focus on pushing the app(the first thing you see on their site is a full-screen advertisement of their app), so the website might not be as well made
Hardcover
Hardcover was only created in 2021, so is not widely known yet. It has a heavy emphasis on being a social network for readers, and offers a variety of ways to browse for books (such as browsing by genre, mood, or what is trending).
It also has some of the same graphs as Storygraph does, but done in bar-graphs instead of pie-graphs.
I do think the recommendation algorithm needs work. Many of my recommendations were genres I personally never read. For example, my very first recommendation was a cozy romance with family drama. While there is nothing wrong with liking that sort of thing, considering I mostly read action/adventure and I have little patience for romance plots, it really does not seem like a fit for me.
Pros:
- Clearly states in their privacy policy that they will not sell your data.
- The ability to import your data from Goodreads.
- App and Website.
- They connect with their community to learn what changes are a priority.
- Goals to become open-souce (having your code available to see to the public can often ensure a more trustworthy site) .
- Reading goals/challenges.
- Reading statistics.
- The ability to add missing books through ISBN.
Cons:
- There are some complaints about the app interface still needing updates. However, the team seems quick to fix problems.
- Due to the heavy focus on it being a social network, the homepage is rather bland if you haven’t added any friends (it just has a list of suggested people to follow).
- Some part of the site (such as the “All Activities” tab) can be a bit slow to load.
- The import function can stall (happened for me) but you can fix it by hitting “retry import.”
- No book clubs (from what I can see).
- The book recommendations algorithm needs work.
Library Thing
I edited this one in after it was suggest both here in the comments section, as well as by someone on Mastodon. LibraryThing has been around since 2005, and is popular with both readers and librarians.
I am sorry I missed such an amazing one!
Pros:
- Website and phone app
- Social networking capabilities, including book groups
- Ability to export your library into Excel
- Serves as a tool for librarians, including by working together with Tinycat
- Import books from Amazon lists, libraries, as well as files and Goodreads.
- Clearly states in their privacy policy that they do not sell user data
- Book giveaways
- Events
- “On This Day” so you can see authors who either were born or died on the current date
- You can re-order the columns on the homepage so it is setup as you like it
- Author pages
- Recommended books
- You can add tags to books
Cons:
- 40% of the company shares is owned by Abebooks, which is a subsidiary of Amazon.
- The ios app only has a three star rating, with many reviewers complaining about the barcode scanner not working as it should to add books.
- Visuals of the website look old-fashioned, with some users saying they want a more user-friendly design
- Very basic search engine, with (seemingly) no way to filter by genre or tropes.
- When I imported my books by file, it added all the books in my “want to read” pile with all the other books
And there you have it! There are plenty more options than I listed, but I tried to pick the ones that seem to be the most popular at the moment.
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