Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Hardcover – Letterboxd for Books
Hi HN! A little over two years ago, Goodreads announced they were shutting off access to their API. I was using it to show what I was reading on my blog at the time, and started looking for alternatives. I found a few that showed potential. I'd been using Letterboxd for a few years at that point and felt it had something that was missing from GR and the others I found, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I decided to build it instead (I'm sure many creators can relate ). I made a post on the /r/cofounders subreddit about the idea, and found Ste. With me as a full-stack product dev…
Hardcover is a book tracking and social platform designed for readers who want to discover, log, and discuss books with a community. Built by a full-stack developer and product designer, it emerged as an alternative… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Hardcover – Letterboxd for Books launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
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Hey HN, I know reading books isn’t everyone’s thing, but it’s certainly been mine for as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, I felt like the online book space was missing a platform that does the book community justice. Goodreads is the go-to "social platform", but if you've been on Goodreads before, you'll probably agree that it's not all that social, and overall not all that exciting. So I set out to build what I personally was looking for (but could never find). The goal: to give the book community a more social and streamlined alternative to Goodreads or StoryGraph. We also felt like…
2022 · booqsi.com · its alternatives →
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Hi everyone, For the past couple months I've been working on a website with two main features: - https://book.sv - put in a list of books and get recommendations on what to read next from a model trained on over a billion reviews - https://book.sv/intersect - put in a list of books and find the users on Goodreads who have read them all (if you don't want to be included in these results, you can opt-out here: https://book.sv/remove-my-data) Technical info available here: https://book.sv/how-it-works Note 1: If you only provide one or two…
Nov 2025 · book.sv · its alternatives →
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Obooko▲269Hey HN, I'm George. I spent few months rebuilding Obooko, a free ebook platform that's been around since 2010 with 11 million downloads. Reading is losing to scrolling, but BookTok has 370B+ views. People want book content, they're just not reading books. I think that’s because modern reading hasn’t kept up with the pace of the internet. What I built Obooko is ad-supported like YouTube. No paywall, no subscription, no account required. 4,000+ books across 30+ genres. You can read in the browser, sync across devices, or download as PDF/EPUB/Kindle. The reader is built on EPUB.js…
Feb 2026 · obooko.com · its alternatives →
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Hardbound 3.0▲739Illustrated summaries of bestselling nonfiction books
2017 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Since 2005, Goodreads has been the default book tracking site, connecting millions of readers. But let’s be real—it’s barely changed in 20 years. It’s the same site it was, just with more ads. Still no half-star ratings. No proper DNF (Did Not Finish) option. UI still looks like it's from 2005. Amazon owns it and doesn't care. So I built Kaguya, a modern alternative, over the past 9 months. What’s live: Custom shelves (Organize however you want) Rich-text reviews (format your thoughts properly) 10-star rating system (More nuance than 5 stars) DNF, On-Hold, and other reading statuses Likes,…
2025 · kaguya.io · its alternatives →
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Hey HN, cofounder of Readwise here. We've been working on this cross-platform reader app for about 2 years, excited to finally share it in public beta. Probably the most notable thing that makes Reader unique is that it supports almost any content type you could want to save/read/highlight: * web pages * emails/newsletters * PDFs * ePubs * twitter threads * youtube videos (with transcripts) * RSS feeds With all of your knowledge content in one place, we built powerful reading and highlighting, as well as a bunch of novel triage/organization features, so you can actually…
2022 · readwise.io · its alternatives →
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Shelf.so is for sale on Spaceship. Secure checkout and quick transfer. See all purchase options. No hidden fees.
2021 · shelf.so · its alternatives →
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Shelvy Books▲52Hey HN! I built a little side project I wanted to share. Shelvy is a free, visual bookshelf app where you can organize books you're reading, want to read, or have finished. Sign in to save your own collection. Not monetized, no ads, no tracking beyond basic auth. Just a fun weekend project that grew a bit. Live: https://shelvybooks.com Would love any feedback on the UX or feature ideas!
Jan 2026 · shelvybooks.com · its alternatives →
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2019 · stack.app · its alternatives →
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Paperback▲151Simpler and tidier alternative to wiki pages
2021 · paperbackhq.com · its alternatives →
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My story: I founded this a couple of years ago because my school (I was 11/12 at the time) had recently purchased a library system which was horrible and ugly. I thought it could be made much better, so I coded for months on end to get this product working. I submitted this to a TV competition on national TV and got the opportunity to pitch this product in front of 500,000 viewers. I received a bursary of €2,000 from the show and used that money to grow the business. Currently the business is thriving and is growing rapidly. I'd really appreciate any feedback you might have. Thanks, Shane
2013 · libramatic.com · its alternatives →
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An end-to-end GoodReads Data Pipeline for Building Data Lake, Data Warehouse and Analytics Platform. - san089/goodreads_etl_pipeline
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! I built Bookhead because I used to work as a bookseller and I wasn't happy with the software options when I decided to sell my own collection online (with the hopes of one day growing so I can open my own brick & mortar). So I decided to make my own bookselling app...a classic hacker distraction. Bookhead has two main parts: 1. an inventory management app that allows a bookseller to list their books anywhere they want to sell books (like Squarespace, Biblio, eBay, Shopify (coming soon!), etc) 2. an e-commerce platform with a CMS for selling books and letting a store control their…
2025 · bookhead.net · its alternatives →
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Hi folks, I've launched "Booky" - app for organizing notes from books you read. App Store: https://apps.apple.com/pl/app/booky-organize-books-notes/id1492092565 With the app you can: 1. Snap picture of the book while you're reading it 2. Quickly highlight your favorite quotes 3. Sync your book shelf with Goodreads 4. Search in the notes you scanned Promo video: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lfnwb8cvi5oyfd9/preview.mov?dl=0 Those features are similar to what you might find in ebooks apps but the app enables you to do that with physical books.…
2019 · its alternatives →
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pipeRead▲102Hi HN, Piperead is a free web tool that uses AI to act as a personalized librarian. Instead of just genre tags, we use specific "personas" to generate recommendations. The goal was to make something simple, fast, and free. Because we achieved to keep minimum cost. The site is live at https://piperead.com We are trying to fine-tune the recommendation quality. Feedback on the UX and the recommendation relevance is very welcome.
Dec 2025 · piperead.com · its alternatives →
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Track, organize, and *actually* remember what you read w/ AI
2024 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
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Hi HN! I've been working on BookWith, an open-source e-book reader that integrates AI as your reading companion. The problem: Traditional e-readers are passive. When you encounter something unclear, you have to context-switch to search for it. Your highlights and notes remain isolated, and you can't easily connect ideas across different books. My solution: BookWith embeds an AI that maintains full context of what you're reading. It features: - Context-aware AI chat: Ask questions about the current page/chapter and get instant answers - AI podcast generation: Automatically converts book…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Get free and discounted Ebooks of your print or paper books
2015 · its alternatives →
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Track, recommend, and discuss your books
2022 · bookwormreads.co · its alternatives →
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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →