There are various apps and websites created for the sole purpose of effective and engaging reading sessions. One of the most popular ones is Goodreads, which supports various useful features like tracking reading progress, wish listing books, and connecting with other book lovers. However, due to its downfall and negative reviews in 2023, people began looking for alternatives to Goodreads.
If we look deeper, there are a number of platforms where you can track your reading progress, connect with fellow readers, and review books. In this article, we will explore the top 7 Goodreads alternatives that offer the same yet much more advanced features than the Goodreads website. Moreover, we’ll highlight the pros and cons of these platforms to determine which one is the best choice.
Part 1. Why Look for Goodreads Alternatives?
Goodreads has been an ideal place for book-readers as they build a community where you share their reviews, suggestions, and ideas. However, over the years, this website lost its functionality and became a deserted place with negative reviews. That is why people began to look for websites similar to Goodreads to reestablish that connection. The following are the other reasons why you should look for Goodreads alternatives:
- Outdated Website:The website has not been updated since December of 2023 and people cannot organize or Wishlist books anymore. Moreover, the iOS app suffers from various bugs and performance issues daily.
- Performance Issues: Multiple users have reported that Goodreads has become slow and buggy and does not function well. This means the overall performance of this website has been compromised and it does not provide you with functional features.
- Search Function: Many Goodreads users complain about the poor condition of the search function, which doesn’t find the book even when searching with the same name. Moreover, it shows unrelated results to the actual search and displays the actual finding on the last page.
- Unreliable Reviews: People have reported fake reviews on specific titles and negative reviews on books that are actually worth reading. This is another reason people don’t trust this website and are converting to sites like Goodreads.
- User Interface: Amazon has completely ignored the interface of Goodreads as it has become slow, outdated, and cluttered. Furthermore, navigating the website and managing bookshelves has become cumbersome and unintuitive.
Part 2. Is There a Better Option Than Goodreads?
For various book readers, Goodreads was an excellent choice for social interactions and creating bookshelves. This website also helps organize books with different labels, like read it, will read, and more. Besides, you can leave a review on these books, give the book a star rating, and review others’ ratings on a book.
However, it was clear that the Amazon developers didn’t care about the outdated design, bugs, and limited features of Goodreads. Therefore, people turn to several other websites similar to Goodreads, which offer them better options, features, and preferences. Using various modern data and searches, we articulated a list of the top 7 alternatives to Goodreads that will offer a more modern and user-friendly interface with sophisticated features.
Part 3. 7 Best Goodreads Alternatives
The best Goodreads alternative varies based on what each reader values most in a book community platform. You may be looking for websites that have privacy systems, customization options, and various advanced features. Let’s delve into the world of Goodreads competitors and choose for yourself which alternative suits your interests and needs.
1. StoryGraph
StoryGraph is an excellent all-in-one platform and a Goodreads alternative that offers all your bookish needs. This app keeps track of your reading habits and records them in a graphical manner that you can view whenever. Moreover, the AI of this website learns about your interests and provides you with personalized book recommendations. You can use filters to find the perfect book and add live comments with your friends for an immersive reading session.
Pros
- With StoryGraph DNF, you can mark where you left your book unfinished with just one click.
- Keep a reading journal alongside your progress by recording personalized notes and thoughts.
Con
- The community feature barely has any updates, and you are not able to see your friends.
2. Litsy
Another one of the best Goodreads alternatives is Litsy, where you can share and discover different types of books with your group of friends. Moreover, people interact with each other by posting reviews and writing blurbs to share their bookish experiences. Trending and popular books are recommended by authentic readers and not by algorithms. This way, you can seek out others’ opinions on a book and comment on each other’s posts for social interaction.
Pros
- You can easily access Litsy on various devices, such as Chromebooks, iOS, and Android.
- Litsy private policy maintains all rights of the app, peoples reviews, and records and doesn’t tolerate spam or mistreatment.
Con
- This app lacks the ability to provide extensive cataloging features for users who are looking for in-depth book search.
3. Basmo
Basmo has an outstanding power of AI that can skyrocket your reading experience to the next level with its advanced features. It is an excellent candidate for sites like Goodreads, as you can digitally scribble ideas on your favorite book. Furthermore, if anything interesting caught your eye during reading, scan and highlight that line or passage with your phone. With Basmo, you can keep every book organized, make TBRs lists, and arrange books like in a bookshelf.
Pros
- This best Goodreads alternative includes an AI ChatBook feature that lets you ask questions and summarize the book for a comprehensive read.
- Get into a reading habit by setting a goal tracker that gives you the daily reading steps to achieve a good habit.
Con
- The advanced features can only be fully accessed by paying a subscription fee.
4. Booksloth
The best bookish community you can find to connect with various bookworms is Booksloth, another alternative to Goodreads. You can browse new books and get personalized recommendations with its 35 million+ books. Moreover, it lets you join a community to chat and discuss your favorite book with other book lovers. Users can also rate books using various badges to define the reading element of the book, its characters, and world-building.
Pros
- The Book Club feature works similarly to an actual book club where readers interact and share their opinions.
- In the activity tab, you can review various challenges and look at your reading progress as well.
Con
- Booksloth user base is still underdeveloped, which can cause disturbance in the community.
5. Bookly
If you want a powerful book reading tracker with numerous features, then Bookly is the best alternative to Goodreads. Users can time their book reading from start to finish while listening to ambient sounds to reach daily reading goals. Additionally, this app provides you with detailed insight into your total number of pages, books, and reading speed. You can also store and access your Wishlist books from any device by syncing them to the cloud feature.
Pros
- Bookly Assistant feature can help you get personalized reading suggestions, reminders, and reports.
- You can set up your own book collection, where you can add favorite eBooks and create an entire library.
Con
- There are a number of technical issues in this app, like freezing interface, broken reminder, and more.
6. BookBub
BookBub is not like the other book-reading apps, but it is an excellent Goodreads alternative that primarily deals with eBooks in various categories. You can also find the best-selling eBooks, as this website uses a tracking feature to provide you with personalized results. Furthermore, with every book, you get a detailed description of the book with several reader reviews. If interested, you can share it with your friends on Facebook, email, or on Pinterest for a worthy read.
Pros
- You can follow the work of any author you like by following them on this website.
- There are a number of filtration system on this website, and you search any book by category, price, and retailer.
Con
- BookBub has no sense of community engagement or social events that can enhance your reading spirit.
7. LibraryThing
Another app like Goodreads is LibraryThing, which is a free, library-quality inventory that tracks your reading progress. It mostly consists of books, DVDs, CDs, ISBN, and BINC, and these rely on Amazon data. Other than that, the talk feature of this website includes several reading challenges that you can set for yourself to get into reading habits. If you want to download eBooks, you can do so in various formats, like Excel, text, and library (MARC) records, using multiple links.
Pros
- Enhance your reading sessions by joining some activities in the group tab, which also include site group, helper group, and more.
- The Zeitgeist of LibraryThing includes vital statistics on multiple things, like book categories, top series, awards, and many more.
Con
- This website is not ideal for organizing eBooks as there is no categorization feature.
Part 4. Enhancing Your eBook Reading Experience with Afirstsoft PDF
Every avid book reader strives for the immersive experience of book reading, and with the above-mentioned sites like Goodreads, they can achieve that. However, if you want the ultimate reading experience, then we have the perfect reading software for you. Afirstsoft PDF is an all-in-one PDF editor and reader tool that offers unlimited possibilities for bringing life to your reading.
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This tool provides several advanced AI features, which help you seamlessly annotate, read, and edit your PDF books. Furthermore, you can streamline your reading session with the read feature that offers a crystal view and navigation from page to page. You can also neatly organize the PDF pages according to your will with the organizer feature. Besides, users can extract the essential pages from the PDF and save them as a separate file for a better read.
Key Features
- AI: You can enhance your overall reading experience with the AI chat and summarizer feature, which also helps you interact with the PDF. Moreover, get your questions answered by an AI and extract essential information in the form of summaries with this tool.
- Convert: The convert feature offers users a variety of formats, such as Word, JPG, PPT, EPUB, etc., for a diversity of documents. This will help preserve the document’s layout, formatting, and content to ensure a seamless transition between formats.
- OCR: If your document contains different scanned documents and images, use the OCR feature to transform them into editable content. You can interact with the PDF, which increases your productivity and lets you make appropriate changes.
- Edit: With the Edit feature, users are allowed to modify text, images, and other elements within a PDF document. Afirstsoft PDF provides intuitive tools to add, delete, and alter text without compromising the original formatting.
- Annotate: To boost PDF readability and engagement, you can use the annotate feature, which offers users various options. These include adding comments, highlighting text, and adding stickers to your PDF document.
- Cloud: This efficient tool’s cloud feature allows users to store, access, and manage their PDF documents online. Additionally, this feature ensures that you can access all your documents across all devices, like Web, Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
Conclusion
To conclude this article, we understood that Goodreads had been the best place to read and share eBook reviews, but in 2023, it lost its flare. That is why people are recommended to consider Goodreads alternatives, which offer more than just an eBook reader website. We discussed the top 10 apps similar to Goodreads that include a number of advanced book reading, tracking, and interacting elements.
Other than that, if you want a more immersive reading experience, download your favorite eBook from these websites and convert them into PDFs. You can also personalize them into more interactive and engaging content with the Afirstsoft PDF tool and its robust editing and annotating features. Therefore, if you want endless customization possibilities and an optimum PDF solution, try this tool today.
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