The seven apps compared at a glance
| App | Best for | Free to use | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Goodreads | Huge catalog and social reviews | Yes | iOS, Android |
| StoryGraph | Stats and mood tracking | Yes | iOS, Android |
| Bookly | Timed reading sessions | Free tier, paid Pro | iOS, Android |
| Bookmory | Minimalist offline log | Yes | iOS, Android |
| Fable | Book clubs and community | Free tier, some premium | iOS, Android |
| Basmo | Reading journaling | Free tier, paid plan | iOS, Android |
| Leaf | Building a daily reading habit | Yes, habit features free | iOS, Android |
Goodreads: best for a huge catalog and social reviews
Goodreads is the giant. Owned by Amazon, it has the largest book database you will find, plus reviews, ratings, and a social feed where you can follow friends and see what they are reading. If your main want is to look up almost any book, read community reviews, and keep a public shelf of what you have read, Goodreads is hard to beat on sheer coverage.
The trade-offs are a dated interface and a feed that leans heavily on social and discovery rather than the day-to-day habit of reading. If you find that overwhelming, our free Goodreads alternative page is worth a look.
StoryGraph: best for stats and mood tracking
StoryGraph has become the favorite of data-minded readers. It is free, imports your Goodreads library, and shines at analytics: pace, page counts, genre breakdowns, and a distinctive mood and pace tagging system that helps you pick your next read by feeling, not just genre. The recommendations lean on your own data rather than ads.
It is an excellent cataloguing and stats tool. It is less focused on the daily-streak habit loop, so if showing up every day is your goal, you may want to pair it with, or swap it for, a habit-first app.
Bookly: best for detailed reading-time sessions
Bookly is built around timed reading sessions. You start a timer when you sit down to read, and it tracks minutes, pages per hour, and reading-time stats in real time. For readers who love granular data about their pace and want to build reading time as a measurable habit, Bookly is genuinely satisfying.
The catch is that the deeper habit and stats features, and unlimited books, sit behind a paid subscription. The free tier is limited. If you want the timed-session feel without the recurring charge, that is a common reason readers look elsewhere.
Bookmory: best for a minimalist offline log
Bookmory is the quiet, no-frills option. It is a clean reading tracker that works offline, logs your sessions and progress, and stays out of your way. There is no heavy social layer and no pressure to write reviews. For readers who just want a simple private record of what they read and how far they have got, Bookmory is a solid pick.
Its strength is also its limit: it is deliberately lightweight, so do not expect deep analytics or rich goal-setting.
Fable: best for book clubs and community
Fable leans hard into community. It is built around book clubs, curated reading lists, and shared discussion, with a polished, modern interface. If reading is a social activity for you, and you want to join or run a club and talk about books as you go, Fable is the most enjoyable of the bunch for that.
As a pure personal tracker it is less focused, and some of its content and club features are premium. It is best when community is the point.
Basmo: best for reading journaling
Basmo combines tracking with journaling and mood logging. Alongside sessions and goals, it encourages you to capture notes, quotes, and how a book made you feel, almost like a reading diary. For reflective readers who want to remember and process what they read, that journaling angle is the draw.
Like several others here, its fuller feature set is part of a paid plan, so check the current tier before you commit.
Leaf: best for building a daily reading habit, for free
Leaf is the habit-first option, and it is free to use, with no subscription required on the habit features. Where other apps optimize for cataloguing or stats, Leaf optimizes for one thing: getting you to read a little every day and keeping you doing it. You set a daily reading streak, choose a goal as a daily page count or a finish-by date, and watch a milestone tree grow as you stay consistent. Leaf Pro is an optional upgrade for cloud sync, multi-device, and an ad-free experience.
Its standout feature is streak recovery. Most streak apps reset to zero the moment you miss a day, and that single reset is where a lot of reading habits quietly die. Leaf lets you backdate a session, so if you read last night but forgot to log it, you can record it for the right day and keep your streak alive. One missed tap should not erase three months of progress.
Leaf also keeps things private and portable: your data lives on your device, no account is required to start, you can read fully offline, and import and export are built in. It tracks library books with due-date reminders too, and it runs on both iOS and Android. The full picture is on our reading tracker app page.
Get Leaf free
Build a reading streak you can actually keep, with no subscription required on the habit-building features.
How to choose the right reading tracker
Start with your goal, not the feature list. If you want the biggest catalog and social reviews, choose Goodreads. If you love data and mood-based picks, choose StoryGraph. If timed sessions motivate you and a subscription is fine, Bookly fits. If you want minimalist and offline, Bookmory. For book clubs, Fable. For journaling, Basmo.
And if your real challenge is consistency, reading every day rather than logging every book, pick a tracker built around the habit. That is where streaks, gentle goals, and streak recovery matter more than a giant database. The best reading tracker app is simply the one you will still be opening in two years, so favor the one whose core loop is free and forgiving.