StoryGraph vs Goodreads comes down to one question: community or numbers? Pick Goodreads if you want a huge community, reviews and friends who are already there. Pick StoryGraph if you want detailed charts, mood-based recommendations and a quieter, ad-free experience on its Plus plan. Both are free to start, and both are English-only.

Talemi is our app. It’s neither of these, but it’s a reading tracker too, so at the end we say when it might fit. In the Goodreads and StoryGraph comparison we only state what the official App Store listings and the services’ own pages confirm. We checked everything on 12 October 2026. Features and prices change, so look at the store listing before you decide.

The short answer

Goodreads

If you want to read other people’s reviews, join groups and see what your friends are reading, assuming they already have accounts.

StoryGraph

If you like numbers: reading charts, stats by genre and mood, recommendations tuned to what you’ve read.

Both

StoryGraph imports your Goodreads shelves, so you don’t start from scratch.

Side by side

Goodreads StoryGraph
Owner Amazon (deal announced in 2013) The StoryGraph Limited
Price free, with ads free; Plus $4.99/month or $49.99/year (US App Store)
Stats Year in Books recap charts, streaks, stat comparisons on Plus
Recommendations based on books you’ve read machine learning, mood and pace filters
Yearly goal Reading Challenge yearly goals for books, pages and listening
Themed challenges seasonal challenges create your own or join others
Ratings whole, half and quarter stars half and quarter stars
Reading together groups and book clubs buddy reads, readalongs, book clubs
Goodreads import n/a yes: shelves, custom shelves become tags
App language English English

Based on the App Store listings and the services’ own pages, checked 12 October 2026.

Stats and charts

StoryGraph clearly wins here. Its App Store listing lists reading charts, streaks, yearly goals for books, pages and listening, and progress updates with a built-in reading journal. Plus adds custom charts, stats filters (fiction only, a custom date range and so on) and stat comparisons, including against other readers.

Goodreads keeps it simpler. Its listing mentions progress updates by page or percentage, a yearly goal through the Reading Challenge, and Year in Books, a recap of everything you read that year. If a count of finished books is all you need, that’s plenty.

Recommendations

Goodreads recommends books based on what you’ve read and rated, and adds lists of the most anticipated releases plus the Goodreads Choice Awards vote. StoryGraph describes its recommendations as machine-learning based and lets you browse by mood and pace: something adventurous and fast, or something darker and slower.

Which one suits you better depends on your reading. The easiest test: add your last few books to both and compare the first suggestions.

Community and friends

This is where Goodreads is strong. It has been around since January 2007, according to its About page, and its listing claims more than 150 million members. You get reviews, comments, groups and clubs. If your friends are already there, that’s hard to beat.

StoryGraph’s community is smaller, but its reading-together tools are clever. In buddy reads you can leave reactions on specific parts of a book, and comments stay locked until the other person reaches that point. There are also readalongs and book clubs.

Books in other languages

Both apps are English-only. Catalogue coverage is a separate question. As a quick test we searched Goodreads for three Polish titles (Remigiusz Mróz’s Kasacja, Szczepan Twardoch’s Król and Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak’s Chłopki) and found all three. StoryGraph’s search needs an account, so we didn’t test it. If you read a lot of translated or non-US editions, try a few of your own titles in both.

For a wider comparison, see Goodreads alternatives compared. If you read in Polish, Talemi vs Lubimyczytać covers the local option.

How to move from Goodreads to StoryGraph

  1. Download your Goodreads library. Use the Import and export page (you need to be signed in).
  2. Create a StoryGraph account and choose the Goodreads import.
  3. Upload the file. According to the listing, StoryGraph brings over your currently-reading, read, to-read and did-not-finish shelves, and turns custom shelves into tags.
  4. Check the result. Spot-check a few books, especially non-English editions, and fix any that matched the wrong edition.

Reviews and friends don’t move over automatically: you rebuild your community in the new place.

If you just want to read more with friends

Sometimes it isn’t about reviews or charts. You just want to pick up a book more often and have someone to race. That’s what Talemi does: a shelf with progress on the spines, page and minute logging, a daily goal, and reading challenges with friends counted in pages, books or minutes. It works in English, Polish, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Being honest about the limits: Talemi has no ratings, no reviews and no Goodreads import, the app is still in development and isn’t in the stores yet, and its catalogue is built on Open Library’s open data. If reviews matter to you, use Talemi alongside one of the apps above rather than instead of it. For more on choosing a tracker, read how to choose a reading tracker app.

Curious what it looks like? See how Talemi works or join early access.

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