StoryGraph vs Goodreads — initial impressions

Two biggest advantages?

Not owned by the Yellow Satan of Amazon, and offers half-star, even quarter-star, reviews. And, speaking of, if Amazon's going to treat you like the Mafia for reporting fact-free reviews, since it's removed both the unlike button and the opportunity to comment? Fuck Amazon and delete your account, like I did.

A third big advantage is listed further down.

Chaotic neutrals?

Goodreads has friends, while StoryGraph has a community where you can find or create friends. (Nobody that I know of on Goodreads is over there yet.)

Storygraph lets you mark books as not finished, or 50 or 75 percent read. Nice, but you can say that in the review itself as well.

Not quite so good on StoryGraph?

Its tags (limited to five per book) vs Goodreads shelves. Sorry, this isn't even close. One "versus" comparison site claims StoryGraph has shelves; that was at first news to me, but I eventually realized that the "tags" button on the home page for a book has Goodreads' shelves imported. BUT? I don't see a way to create new ones.

Then, one weird one, with a sidebar.

Goodreads lets you do hyperlinks as well as other basic HTML type stuff in the review. Storygraph has a "Medium"-type editor where it's simple clicks for bold, italic, bullet lists, etc.

DOES NOT let you do hyperlinks. Not only, unlike a Medium or a Patreon, does it not have a menu button to click, but if you drop a correctly formatted "a=href" in the body of your review, it still won't run it as hypertext, and it ALSO will not convert your bare URL inside that into a clickable link.

And, it has no immediate plans to do so, though that's under long term possibilities. A "roadmap" link mentions other items.

That iself, with all the crowdsourcing about ideas as well as transparency on what's under discussion? HUGELY better than Goodreads.

Goodreads has a bulletin-board like feedback page. They'll have listed ideas similar to yours if posted, but they will also censor you. No, really. I posted asking about fractional-star reviews and it was hauled down.

When I first launched on StoryGraph, I was confused about a couple things, and I eventually DMed its Twitter account. Very responsive, and eventually, the person there said "Hit us up with other future ideas."

A "neither / nor"? Goodreads is all free, cuz ... owned by Yellow Satan. I don't see ads on there (some people say there's ads on there) from all the "internet condoms" I use. StoryGraph is like MeWe, the alternative to Facebook created from old Google+ floor sweepings. Its basic version is free, then it has a paid upgrade version. (Maybe things like "shelves" are on the paid version.) And, in any case, paying $50 a year doesn't appeal to me.

Content warnings? Meh. In fact, they make me think that StoryGraph is "woke," and that these are like "trigger alerts." And, a lot of other stuff appears pegged at the younger half of GenX if not Millennials. And, despite what StoryGraph told me on Twitter DM when it was first talking to me, a lot of it appears pitched more to fiction than nonfiction.

Another issue, where StoryGraph's cure is worse than the illness, possibly. Goodreads allows "review bombing" by people who haven't read a book. That said, I do it on occasion, most recently on a book about female ghosts of New England or something, where it was filed under "history" and "memoir." Since ghosts don't exist, I noted the book couldn't be either. I also "bomb" things like JFK conspiracy theory books, but I know the conspiracy theory isn't true. I consider this different from Trump Trainers bombing modern politics reviews. Well, StoryGraph lets you mark a book as "did not finish." You can then state way, but you CANNOT give it a rating. 

And, at least under the free plan, I don't see where you can either "like" or comment on others' reviews.

There's also Powell's Bookstore reviews, if, like StoryGraph, you don't want to benefit Bezosville but do want to help an actual bookstore. And, it's in "librul" Portland, Oregon, and has or had a reputation tied to that. Sadly, for people who think Goodreads is clunky compared to StoryGraph, Powell's is 10x clunkier compared to Goodreads. AND, it's not publicized or promoted. Like Firefox vs Google Chrome, Powell's has had a marketing opportunity bonanza and done nothing.

So, right now? On some reviews, though not all, I've been posting a full review only at StoryGraph then linking to that at Goodreads.