Best Book Tracking Apps: An Honest Guide
By The PageSwipe Team · 22 June 2026
"Book tracking app" means different things to different readers. Some people want to log every book they finish and watch their reading stats build over a year. Some want reviews and a community to argue about endings with. Some want to track the copies they own so they stop buying the same novel twice. These are genuinely different jobs, and no single app is best at all of them. This is an honest guide to the best book tracking apps — what each one is truly good at, and who each one suits. PageSwipe is one of the options, and we will tell you plainly where a dedicated tracker beats it.
The short answer
The best book tracking app depends on what you actually want to track. Choose StoryGraph if you want rich reading stats, mood and pace tracking, and reading challenges. Choose Goodreads if you want the biggest book database and the most reviews. Choose Bookly if you want to track reading sessions and the time you spend reading. Choose Libib or BookBuddy if your priority is cataloguing what you own. Choose PageSwipe if you want to track the books you own, share and lend them with people you trust, and run clubs — with basic reading status along for the ride.
TL;DR
- StoryGraph — best for reading stats, moods, pace and challenges; clean, data-rich, free to start.
- Goodreads — best for the largest database, reviews at scale and social reach.
- Bookly — best for logging reading sessions and time spent reading, with detailed personal stats.
- Libib — best for cataloguing books alongside films, music and games in one place.
- BookBuddy — best for deep per-book detail and loan tracking on iOS.
- PageSwipe — best for tracking what you own, sharing and lending it, and running clubs; reading status is basic by design.
First, decide what "tracking" means to you
The word hides two very different intentions. Sorting out which one you have makes the choice obvious.
- Tracking what you read. Progress through a book, finish dates, ratings, reviews, streaks, pages per day, genre breakdowns, yearly goals. This is reading-behaviour tracking, and it is what most "book tracker" apps are built for.
- Tracking what you own. Which physical copies sit on your shelves, where they are, whether you already have a title, and who you lent it to. This is cataloguing, and it is a different job with different tools.
- Sharing and lending. Whether you want a private log, a public shelf, or a connected library where friends can see what you have and ask to borrow it.
- Cost and limits. Whether there is a cap on how many books you can track for free, and what the paid tier actually adds. Always check current pricing.
Most readers care about one of the first two far more than the other. Here is how the main apps land against them.
The best book tracking apps, compared
StoryGraph
StoryGraph has become the favourite of readers who love data about their reading. It tracks moods, pace and genre, offers content warnings, sets up reading challenges, and gives you a genuinely rich statistics dashboard at the end of a year. Its recommendations lean on your logged tastes rather than a popularity chart, which many readers prefer.
Where StoryGraph is stronger than PageSwipe: reading-behaviour tracking, full stop. If your main goal is to see your reading habits laid out — how fast you read, which moods you gravitate to, whether you are on track for a yearly goal — StoryGraph does that far better than PageSwipe was ever designed to. It is a reading tracker first, and a good one.
Goodreads
Goodreads is the giant, and its scale is the point. An enormous book database, millions of reviews and ratings, reading challenges, and a social feed built around discovery. If you want to look up almost any book and read what thousands of people thought of it, nothing here matches its reach.
Where Goodreads is stronger than PageSwipe: reviews at scale, database size and social discovery. That is a different job from managing the copies on your shelves. Goodreads was not built to tell you which physical books you own, where they are, or who borrowed them, and it does not manage lending. If reviews and a huge catalogue are what you are after, Goodreads is hard to beat — and our guide to the best Goodreads alternatives covers the trade-offs in more depth.
Bookly
Bookly takes reading tracking to its most granular. It is built around reading sessions: you start a timer when you sit down to read, and it logs your time, pace and progress, then turns it into detailed personal stats, streaks and goals. For readers who want to build a reading habit and see the numbers behind it, Bookly is purpose-built for exactly that.
Where Bookly is stronger than PageSwipe: session-level reading tracking and time-based stats. If you want to know how many minutes you read this week and how your pace is trending, Bookly is designed for it and PageSwipe is not. Check its current free and paid tiers, as some stats sit behind the paid version.
Libib
Libib is a clean cataloguing tool with a strength most reading apps lack: it handles books, movies, music and video games in the same library. It offers barcode scanning, a free tier many hobbyists never outgrow, lending features, and published libraries others can browse. It leans toward cataloguing what you own rather than logging what you read.
Where Libib is stronger than PageSwipe: multi-media cataloguing. If you want your Blu-rays and vinyl in the same catalogue as your books, Libib is the better home. Our best Libib alternatives guide goes deeper on where it fits and where readers look elsewhere.
BookBuddy
BookBuddy is a long-standing iOS favourite for readers who want detail. Rich metadata per copy, custom fields, a mature loan tracker, reading status and data export. For someone who treats their catalogue like a card index and wants every field filled, it is thorough and polished.
Where BookBuddy is stronger than PageSwipe: depth of per-book detail and offline, on-device control, plus a well-developed loan tracker. Note it is iOS-focused, so it is less useful across a mixed-device household. Check current pricing for its full-feature version.
PageSwipe
PageSwipe answers a different question. Not "what have I read?" but "what do I own, and who can I share it with?" It treats your library as a connected library network — beginning with your own bookshelf. You build the catalogue fast with RapidScan, continuous ISBN barcode scanning, then you can share your library, lend and borrow, and run book clubs with people you trust.
PageSwipe is a free platform for readers and authors: scanning, cataloguing, sharing, lending, clubs, collections, discovery, book pages, and launch clubs are not gated. PageSwipe earns revenue through book-native advertising with authors and publishing houses at scale.
Where PageSwipe fits — and where it does not. PageSwipe includes basic reading status, so you can mark where a book stands. But if detailed reading stats, streaks, moods and pace charts are your main goal, be honest with yourself: a dedicated tracker like StoryGraph or Bookly will do that job better. PageSwipe's heart is the owned-library network — the simple, human fact that your friend owns this title, rated it, and can lend it to you. It also imports from Goodreads and from spreadsheets, so an existing list comes across without re-scanning.
Comparison table
A quick side-by-side on the dimensions that usually decide it. Features and pricing change, so treat this as a starting map and confirm current specifics on each app's own site.
| App | Best at | Reading stats | Tracks what you own | Sharing / lending | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| StoryGraph | Reading stats, moods, challenges | Excellent | No (reading log) | Reading community | Yes (check pricing) |
| Goodreads | Database size, reviews, social | Good | No (reading log) | Public profile; no lending | Yes |
| Bookly | Reading sessions and time | Excellent (session-level) | No (reading log) | Personal focus | Yes (check pricing) |
| Libib | Multi-media cataloguing | Basic | Yes | Publish + lending features | Included in the free reader product |
| BookBuddy | Per-book detail on iOS | Basic | Yes | Loan tracker | Free version + paid |
| PageSwipe | Owned library + sharing/clubs | Basic status | Yes (RapidScan) | Share + lend with people you know | Yes, unlimited (no cap) |
Illustrative summary only. Pricing and features are set by each app and change over time — always check current pricing and current feature lists before deciding.
So which should you pick?
Match the app to the job, not the other way round:
- You want to track your reading habits and stats → StoryGraph.
- You want reviews and the biggest database → Goodreads.
- You want to log reading sessions and time → Bookly.
- You own more than books and want one catalogue → Libib.
- You want maximum per-book detail on iOS → BookBuddy.
- You want to track what you own, share and lend it, and run clubs → PageSwipe.
Plenty of readers use two apps: a reading tracker for what they have read, and a library app for what they own and lend. There is nothing wrong with that — they are answering different questions. The mistake is expecting one app to do both jobs perfectly.
If it is the "what I own" job you care about
If the problem you keep hitting is standing in a bookshop unsure whether you already own a title, or lending books and never seeing them again, then a reading tracker will not fix it — you need something built around the copies on your shelves. That is where a connected library app comes in. You catalogue by scanning rather than typing, so getting hundreds of books in takes an evening, not a month, and then those books become searchable and shareable.
PageSwipe is built around exactly that: scan what you own with RapidScan, then share it, lend it, and run clubs with people you trust. You can read more about the approach on the PageSwipe home library app page, or at pageswipe.tech.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best book tracking app?
There is no single best book tracking app for everyone — it depends on what you want to track. StoryGraph is best for reading stats, moods and challenges. Goodreads is best for reviews and a huge book database. Bookly is best for tracking reading sessions and time spent reading. Libib and BookBuddy are best for cataloguing what you own. PageSwipe is best if you want to track the books you own, share and lend them, and run clubs with people you trust, with basic reading status included.
What is the difference between a book tracking app and a home library app?
A book tracking app is built to record what you read — progress, ratings, stats and reading habits. A home library app is built to catalogue what you physically own — the copies on your shelves — so you can search them, avoid duplicates and lend them. Many readers use both: a reading tracker for what they read, and a library app for what they own.
Is StoryGraph better than Goodreads?
It depends on what you value. StoryGraph is stronger for reading statistics, mood and pace tracking, content warnings and personalised recommendations. Goodreads is stronger for the size of its database, the volume of reviews, and its social reach. Neither is designed to catalogue the physical books you own or manage lending, which is a different job.
Is there a free book tracking app?
Yes. StoryGraph and Goodreads both have free versions, and several library apps offer free cataloguing. PageSwipe includes unlimited book cataloguing at no cost, with no per-book cap, plus free sharing, lending and clubs. Free and paid tiers differ between apps, so check current pricing before you commit.
Can PageSwipe track my reading progress?
PageSwipe includes basic reading status, so you can mark where a book stands. But its focus is different from a dedicated reading tracker: it is built around the books you own and the people you share them with. If detailed reading stats, streaks and pace charts are your main goal, a dedicated tracker like StoryGraph or Bookly will do that job better.
Start with the shelf in front of you
If you mainly want to track your reading habits, pick a dedicated tracker and enjoy the stats. But if the nagging problem is the books themselves — not knowing what you own, buying duplicates, losing lent copies — the fastest way to judge the fix is to catalogue a single shelf and see how it feels.
Scan your first book with RapidScan and watch your shelf become a searchable, shareable library — free, and with no cap on how many books you add.