Parch vs The StoryGraph: Which Should You Use?

The Short Version

Choose The StoryGraph if your favorite question is "what should I read next?" Its mood and pace tagging, detailed charts and recommendation engine are the best in the category, and features like content warnings and buddy reads have built a devoted community.

Choose Parch if your favorite question is "did I read today?" It has a session timer for print and audiobooks, a daily streak, a plan that paces a book to the date you want to finish, and a calm app built for logging in seconds. Both import your Goodreads library, so if you're coming from Goodreads, trying either costs nothing.

Where The StoryGraph Wins

The StoryGraph's signature is describing books by feel: every title carries community-generated tags for mood (dark, hopeful, reflective) and pace, so you can search for exactly the emotional experience you want next. Its stats pages are famously deep, with charts for moods, pace, genres, page counts and ratings distributions, and it supports half and quarter stars.

It also carries more of the social layer forward than Parch does: reading challenges, buddy reads, and content warnings contributed by the community. If you left Goodreads for its design but not its social features, The StoryGraph keeps more of that world. And it recommends books based on your preferences, which Parch doesn't do at all.

Where Parch Wins

Parch wins on the act of reading. Both apps keep streaks and count audiobook minutes, but The StoryGraph records progress after the fact, while Parch is built around the session: start the timer, read or listen, and the time and pages land in your log. After a couple of sessions it knows your pace and shows when you'll finish the book. Flexible goals adapt to books, pages, minutes or listening time, and one book can be print, ebook and audiobook at once, with each format keeping its own place.

Parch also plans ahead. With Premium, its reading guide takes the date you want to finish a book and the days you read, paces it out so you know how much to read each day, shows whether you're on track, ahead or behind, and reminds you on your reading days. If you fall behind, it asks whether to keep the date, keep your pace or pick a new one. The StoryGraph tells you what you've read; Parch helps you finish what you're reading.

And it's built for keeping and sharing your own reading, quietly. Your library is private, with no feed or followers. Scan text from a page to save a note or quote, look back on each month in a calendar view, and share a session's stats, a review, your month or your year as a ready-made card. Ratings go to two decimal places, so a book can be a 4.73 rather than the nearest quarter star.

Goals and Challenges

Both apps let you set a reading goal, but they treat it differently. The StoryGraph has reading goals and community challenges you can join, so part of the fun is reading alongside other people.

Parch keeps it private. In Profile, then Goals & Challenges, set a Books goal: yearly by default (it suggests 12), or monthly or weekly. It counts every book you finish in that period, including imported ones with a finish date, and nobody else sees it. If a public target ever starts choosing your books for you, our guide to why tracking your reading works covers how to keep a goal from turning into pressure.

The Deciding Questions

Ask yourself three things. First: which do you struggle with more, choosing books or reading consistently? Choosing, The StoryGraph's moods and recommendations solve exactly that. Consistency, Parch's sessions and streaks are built for exactly that. Second: do you want your tracker to feel like a rich data tool or a quiet daily companion? Third: do you want to read alongside other people, with challenges and buddy reads, or keep your reading to yourself? Neither answer is wrong; they're just different apps for different readers.

Our Goodreads vs StoryGraph comparison covers The StoryGraph against the platform most people are leaving, and our StoryGraph alternatives guide looks at the wider field.

Switching Between Them

From Goodreads, it's easy either way: both apps import the standard Goodreads CSV. Our export guide walks through getting the file, including on a phone. Some readers load the same file into both, run them side by side for a month, and keep whichever they reach for naturally.

From The StoryGraph to Parch, be aware of one thing first: Parch can't import a StoryGraph export yet. If you originally came from Goodreads, the simplest route is to export your Goodreads library again and import that into Parch, then add anything you've logged only on The StoryGraph by hand. If your history lives only on The StoryGraph, keep your StoryGraph export as a backup (Manage Account, then Manage Your Data, then Export StoryGraph Library) and start fresh in Parch from today.