Best Anime Planet Alternatives in 2026: Tested and Ranked
The best Anime-Planet alternatives in 2026: AniList, MyAnimeList, Simkl, MangaUpdates, and Achriom, tested and ranked for anime and manga tracking.
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Anime-Planet is still the best place to find your next show and the weakest place to keep the record of what you watched. Two decades of user-submitted recommendation pairings are genuinely hard to beat. The tracking around them is a website with no app, no public API, and statistics that stop at a count.
If you want a straight replacement that covers anime and manga the same way, use AniList. If you want the biggest community, use MyAnimeList. If you want episodes logged without touching a list, use Simkl. If your reading was the part Anime-Planet was really carrying, use MangaUpdates. If anime is one part of a wider taste, use Achriom.
How we picked: every app here is judged on the same six things: what formats it covers, what platforms it runs on, whether it accepts your Anime-Planet export, whether it can log episodes automatically, whether you can get your data back out, and price. See the full media tracker comparison for all 17 trackers side by side.
Quick verdict:
- Best straight replacement: AniList
- Best for community and scale: MyAnimeList
- Best for automatic episode logging: Simkl
- Best for manga: MangaUpdates
- Best for anime alongside your films, books, and albums: Achriom
Why people leave Anime Planet
Nobody leaves because the database is bad. The reasons are narrower and they repeat.
There is no app. Anime-Planet is a site, and the phone experience is the mobile site. Every other tracker in this category either ships an official app or exposes an API that lets other people ship one.
Nothing logs itself. The browser extensions that mark episodes as you stream, MALSync foremost among them, support MyAnimeList, AniList, Kitsu, and Simkl. Anime-Planet sits outside that ecosystem, so every episode is a manual edit.
The statistics are thin. You get counts. You do not get the shape of your taste: which studios you finish, which seasons you abandoned at episode three, how your ratings drift over a year.
Ads on a free site. Fair enough for something that has run since 2001 without a paywall, though it wears on you at volume.
What to look for in an Anime Planet replacement
Five things decide whether a move sticks:
- Anime and manga in one account. Splitting them across two apps undoes half of what Anime-Planet was doing for you.
- An import path. Your Anime-Planet export is MyAnimeList-format XML, so ask whether the destination accepts XML directly.
- Apps and an API. An open API is what produces good phone clients, Discord bots, and stat sites.
- Automatic logging, if you stream. Manual tracking survives about a month for most people.
- A real export back out. Any tracker that cannot hand your history back is a place you are renting.
AniList
Best for: a modern list that behaves like current software
AniList is where most Anime-Planet refugees land. It covers anime and manga chapter by chapter, the interface is fast, custom lists are flexible, and the statistics page tells you something. Its GraphQL API is public and well documented, which is why the surrounding ecosystem of mobile clients and tools is the strongest in anime tracking.
What it does well:
- Direct XML import, so your Anime-Planet export goes straight in
- Genuinely useful stats: studios, voice actors, release years, score distribution
- Custom lists and advanced filtering that hold up at a thousand entries
- Automatic episode logging through MALSync and similar extensions
The limitation: discovery is weaker than what you are leaving. AniList tells you what is popular this season. It does not have Anime-Planet’s twenty years of human pairings behind a recommendation. The head-to-head is in AniList vs MyAnimeList, and the wider set of options is in the best AniList alternatives. Free, with cosmetic extras for supporters.
MyAnimeList
Best for: the largest database and the busiest community
MyAnimeList is the default of the category, and its scale is the reason. The database is the most complete, the seasonal charts move fastest, and the forums are still where a show gets argued about the week it airs. Anime and manga both, tracked properly, with the XML format everything else in the category has standardised on.
What it does well:
- Coverage that reaches obscure OVAs and light novel adaptations
- Seasonal charts and airing schedules that update quickly
- Forums and reviews with actual volume behind them
- The most reliable import and export story in anime tracking
The limitation: the interface shows its age and the ads are heavy on the free tier. If you found Anime-Planet cluttered, MAL will not feel like relief. See the best MyAnimeList alternatives if you want the fuller picture. Free with ads, with a paid supporter tier that removes them.
Simkl
Best for: logging episodes without thinking about it
Simkl is the answer to the manual-editing problem. Install the browser extension, watch on Crunchyroll or Netflix, and your progress updates itself. It also tracks TV and film in the same account, which suits anyone whose watching is not strictly anime.
What it does well:
- Automatic scrobbling from streaming services via browser extension
- Anime, TV, and film in one place with a shared calendar
- Imports from MyAnimeList XML and other trackers
- Free for everything most people need
The limitation: no manga, and the anime community layer is thin. Simkl records what you watched and has very little to say about it. Discovery is the weakest of anything here.
MangaUpdates
Best for: the manga half of your Anime-Planet account
If the lists you actually maintained on Anime-Planet were manga, MangaUpdates is a real upgrade rather than a sideways move. It tracks releases chapter by chapter, knows which group published what and when, and its series records carry serialization detail that general trackers skip entirely.
What it does well:
- Release tracking that tells you the moment a new chapter lands
- The deepest manga database of anything on this list
- Reading lists with per-chapter progress
- Free, with no upsell
The limitation: manga only. Pair it with AniList or Achriom for your anime, or accept two apps for two jobs. The interface is functional rather than pleasant.
Achriom
Best for: anime tracked as one part of your taste
Achriom starts from a different question. Your anime sits in the same library as your films, TV, books, albums, and games, and an AI librarian reads across all of it. Your Anime-Planet export imports directly, since it is MyAnimeList-format XML.
What it does differently:
- One library for anime, films, TV, books, albums, and games
- An AI librarian you can ask real questions, like which of your novels shares something with the series you rewatch
- Private by default: no followers, no feed, no profile to perform
- Half-star ratings, a did-not-finish state, and a full export back out at any time
- Free with unlimited items and 10 AI messages a month; Pro is $9.99/month for 200
The recommendation problem Anime-Planet solved with community pairings, Achriom approaches from your own collection instead. See what you can ask your AI librarian for the range of it.
The limitation: no automatic scrobbling, and no anime community. The anime database is broad rather than encyclopedic, so a 1994 OVA with forty ratings on MAL may be thinner here. The value is in connection across formats.
One library instead of five accounts. Achriom keeps your anime next to your shows, films, books, and albums, with an AI librarian that finds the threads between them. Your Anime-Planet export imports directly, and a full export back out is there any time. Free to start, no card.
Import your anime list →Quick comparison
| App | Scope | Community | Auto logging | AI features | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anime-Planet | Anime + manga | Medium | No | No | Free with ads |
| AniList | Anime + manga | Large | Yes (browser ext) | No | Free |
| MyAnimeList | Anime + manga | Very large | Yes (browser ext) | No | Free with ads / supporter tier |
| Simkl | Anime + TV + film | Medium | Yes (browser ext) | No | Free / optional VIP |
| MangaUpdates | Manga only | Medium | No | No | Free |
| Achriom | Anime, films, TV, books, albums, games | Private | No | Yes (AI librarian) | Free / $9.99 mo |
Which should you use?
Use AniList if: you want the same coverage in better software. The import is quick, the stats are worth reading, and the app ecosystem means you are never stuck at a desktop.
Use MyAnimeList if: you want the biggest database and a community that shows up every week. Accept the ads or pay to remove them.
Use Simkl if: you stream and you know you will stop logging by hand. It is also the pick if your anime and your live-action watching belong in the same account.
Use MangaUpdates if: manga is the priority and you want to know the day a chapter drops.
Use Achriom if: anime is one thread of a wider taste and you would rather run this migration once. Books, films, albums, TV, and games in one library, with an AI that reasons across all of them.
Also worth considering
Kitsu comes up in older lists and should not. It still has a working importer, but the platform is effectively inactive as of 2026, with development stalled for years and the mobile apps gone. Moving a library there turns one migration into two.
Trakt is excellent at TV and film and treats anime as ordinary television, which some people prefer and most anime trackers refuse to do. No manga, and no anime-specific metadata.
What an anime tracker cannot tell you
Every app above holds one shelf of your taste, and the interesting questions live between shelves.
Cowboy Bebop is a jazz record that happens to have a plot, so the truthful answer to what it is like sits in your albums rather than your anime list. Perfect Blue and Black Swan are the same film about the same fracture, made thirteen years and one ocean apart, and no anime tracker will ever put them next to each other. Vinland Saga sends people to the Norse sagas, then to the histories, then back. Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End works on you for the same reason a certain kind of elegiac fantasy novel does, that a long life makes every goodbye a rehearsal.
An anime-only tracker cannot follow any of that, because it never sees the rest of what you love. Achriom holds all of it in one place, which is why finishing a great novel can produce a watch recommendation and a book can point you at an album.
The honest answer
The right choice comes down to which half of Anime-Planet you were using.
- Better tracking, same scope: AniList
- Community and database scale: MyAnimeList
- Hands-off episode logging: Simkl
- Manga depth and release alerts: MangaUpdates
- Anime understood alongside everything else: Achriom
Plenty of people run two. Keeping an Anime-Planet account for browsing while tracking elsewhere is a reasonable setup, and nothing about the export stops you from trying two destinations with the same file.
More on tracking anime: for the full field, read the best anime tracking apps and the best apps to track anime. If you also keep a MAL account, how to export your MyAnimeList data covers the file format in detail. For one library across every format, see the best all-in-one media tracker.
How to move your Anime Planet list
- Open your list settings on Anime-Planet and use the export option. Anime and manga export separately, so you get two files.
- Extract the download if it arrives compressed. A raw .xml works everywhere; some importers reject a .gz with an error that never mentions compression.
- Upload the anime file, then the manga file, in whichever destination you picked. AniList, MyAnimeList, Simkl, and Achriom all accept the format directly.
- Spot-check five entries: one finished with a rating, one dropped, one in progress with an episode count, one rewatch, and one obscure title. If episode progress looks wrong, export again before you go further.
- Keep the file. It is your backup, and it does not expire.
Related guides:
Common questions
What is the best free Anime Planet alternative?
AniList and MangaUpdates are fully free with no meaningful feature gates. MyAnimeList is free with ads. Simkl is free for everything most people need. Achriom’s free tier holds unlimited items with 10 AI messages a month, and it is the only one that tracks anime alongside books, films, albums, TV, and games.
Does Anime-Planet have an API?
No public one. That absence is why no third-party Anime-Planet apps exist and why the scrobbling extensions skip it. AniList’s GraphQL API and MyAnimeList’s official API are what produce the mobile clients and stat tools people miss when they use Anime-Planet.
Will I lose my Anime-Planet recommendations if I switch?
The pairings themselves stay on the site, and you can keep browsing them without an account. What you lose by moving your list is the personalised layer built on top of it. AniList and MyAnimeList both have recommendation features that are algorithmic and weaker. Achriom replaces it with a librarian that reasons from your own collection instead of from other users.
Which Anime-Planet alternative has the best mobile app?
AniList, through its own app and a large ecosystem of third-party clients built on its API. MyAnimeList has an official app that works. Simkl’s app is solid and pairs with its extension. Achriom runs on the web and as an Android app, with the same library everywhere.
Can I track anime and manga in the same app?
Yes. AniList and MyAnimeList both track anime by episode and manga by chapter in one account. MangaUpdates is manga only. Achriom files manga with your other books, so your reading stays together rather than splitting between an anime app and a book app.
Is Anime-Planet shutting down?
There is no indication of that. It has run continuously since 2001 and is actively maintained. People leave for what it lacks rather than out of any concern about it disappearing, which makes this a migration you can take slowly.