# Best Apps to Track Anime in 2026: Tested and Ranked **Published:** August 3, 2026 **Author:** Achriom **URL:** https://www.achriom.com/blog/best-to-track-anime > The best anime tracking apps in 2026, tested and ranked: MyAnimeList, AniList, Kitsu, Anime-Planet, Simkl, and Achriom. **Tags:** comparison, guide, anime, cross-media --- **Anime tracking is a solved problem, which is why every app solves it slightly differently.** Six are worth your time in 2026: MyAnimeList for the database and the forums, AniList for the interface and custom lists, Kitsu for a clean start, Anime-Planet for human-written recommendations, Simkl for anime and Western TV in one free tracker, and Achriom for a private AI librarian that keeps your anime next to your books, films, and albums. If you want the biggest community and the most complete database, use MyAnimeList. If you want the app that feels built this decade, use AniList. If you watch anime alongside prestige TV and film, use Simkl. If you want the connections between what you watch and what you read, use Achriom. Plenty of people run two. **How we picked:** every app here is judged on the same six things: what formats it covers, what platforms it runs on, whether you can export your data, AI features, privacy, and price. See the [full media tracker comparison](/compare/) for all 17 trackers side by side. **Quick verdict:** - **Best overall database and community:** MyAnimeList - **Best interface and custom lists:** AniList - **Best clean starting point:** Kitsu - **Best recommendations written by people:** Anime-Planet - **Best free tracker for anime plus Western TV:** Simkl - **Best for anime alongside your books, films, and albums:** Achriom ## What to look for in an anime tracking app A good anime tracker should handle at least four of these six jobs: 1. **Episode-level progress**: where you left off in a 74-episode run, across seasons and cours 2. **A seasonal calendar**: what is airing, what drops this week, what got delayed 3. **Manga alongside anime**: the source material tracked in the same account 4. **Automatic syncing**: progress logged from Crunchyroll or a local player without manual clicks 5. **Real recommendations**: something better than "people who watched this also watched" 6. **Your data, portable**: a full export you can take somewhere else Anime lists get long and they get old. The thing that hurts a year in is a tracker that holds 400 titles and cannot tell you anything about them. ## MyAnimeList **Best for:** The deepest database, seasonal charts, and community discussion MyAnimeList has run since 2004 and it remains the reference point for the entire hobby. Nearly every anime discussion online cites a MAL score. The database covers obscure OVAs and 1970s series that other trackers simply do not carry, and the seasonal charts are the default way most people plan a season. **What it does well:** - The most complete anime and manga database anywhere - Seasonal charts that the whole community plans around - Active forums and club pages, which no competitor has replicated - Anime and manga tracked in one account - XML export that every other tracker on this list can import **The limitation:** The interface still shows its age, and the free tier carries ads. There is no native automatic tracking, so syncing from Crunchyroll means installing MALSync. The recommendation system leans on community affinity rather than anything that understands your taste. ## AniList **Best for:** A modern interface, custom lists, and airing schedules AniList is what MyAnimeList would look like if it had been designed in the 2020s. Fast, clean, and genuinely pleasant to browse. Custom lists let you organize by whatever categories you actually think in, which is the feature power users cite most often. **What it does well:** - The best-looking interface in the category by a wide margin - Custom lists and detailed statistics on your watch history - An airing schedule with countdowns to the next episode - An open GraphQL API, which is why so many third-party apps build on it - Free, with profile customization for supporters **The limitation:** The database is slightly thinner than MyAnimeList on older and obscure titles, and the activity feed makes the experience more social than some people want. Anime and manga only, so everything else you watch and read lives somewhere else. We covered the head-to-head in [AniList vs MyAnimeList](/blog/anilist-vs-myanimelist/). ## Kitsu **Best for:** Starting a list without the clutter Kitsu is the friendliest entry point of the three big anime-native trackers. The signup flow is short, the library view is uncluttered, and importing an existing list from MyAnimeList or AniList takes a couple of minutes. **What it does well:** - Clean, approachable design with a low learning curve - One-step import from MyAnimeList and AniList - Anime and manga in one library - Free. The PRO tier is no longer purchasable, its billing was removed in June 2026 **The limitation:** The smallest community of the three, so the discussion and recommendation layer is thin. Development has been quieter than AniList's. If the community is the reason you use a tracker, this is the wrong one. For the direct comparison, see [Kitsu vs MAL](/blog/anilist-vs-myanimelist/), and if you are switching, [AniList to Kitsu](/blog/anilist-to-kitsu/) walks through the move. ## Anime-Planet **Best for:** Recommendations written by actual humans Anime-Planet built something the others did not: a large database of user-written recommendations that explain *why* one series will scratch the same itch as another. It also carries legal streaming and manga reading links, so a recommendation can turn into watching something in one click. **What it does well:** - Recommendation pairs written by people, with reasoning attached - Legal streaming and manga reading links built into title pages - Anime and manga tracked together, with a strong manga side - Tag-based browsing that goes deeper than genre - Completely free **The limitation:** The interface feels dated next to AniList, and the community is smaller than MyAnimeList's. Anime and manga only. ## Simkl **Best for:** Anime alongside Western TV and movies, free Simkl is the one tracker here that treats anime as part of a wider watching life. It covers anime, TV series, and films in the same library, and its browser extension scrobbles automatically from Crunchyroll, Netflix, and other services. The calendar merges your airing anime with your Western shows, which is closer to how most people actually watch. **What it does well:** - Anime, TV, and film in one free account - Automatic scrobbling through a browser extension - A combined calendar for everything airing - Imports from MyAnimeList, AniList, and Trakt - Free for the core experience, with an optional VIP tier **The limitation:** The anime database is not as deep as MyAnimeList's on older titles, and the community layer is thin. No books, no music. We compared it against the biggest Western tracker in [Simkl vs Trakt](/blog/simkl-vs-trakt/). ## Achriom **Best for:** Understanding how your anime taste connects to everything else Achriom keeps your anime in the same library as your books, films, albums, and live-action TV, and an AI librarian reads across all of it. Ask why you keep returning to the same kind of story and it answers from your actual collection rather than from a genre tag. **What it does differently:** - Anime, manga, books, films, albums, and TV in one library - A librarian you can ask questions like "what should I read after **Oshi no Ko**" - Cross-media pattern recognition (the melancholy in **Frieren: Beyond Journey's End** connects to what is already on your shelf) - Private by default: no public profile, no followers, no score to defend - Full export any time, so your list is never trapped - Free tier with unlimited items and 10 AI messages a month; Pro at $9.99/month for 200 ![Oshi no Ko (2023)](/blog/assets/best-to-track-anime/oshi-no-ko-tv.jpg) ![Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (2023)](/blog/assets/best-to-track-anime/frieren-beyond-journey-s-end-tv.jpg) **The limitation:** Smaller anime-specific database than MyAnimeList, no forums, and no automatic scrobbling from Crunchyroll. The value is depth of understanding across formats rather than depth in one.

Your anime list is one shelf of a much bigger library. Achriom holds all of it in one place: shows, films, books, albums, and anime, with an AI librarian that finds the threads running between them. Full export back out any time. Free to start, no card.

Bring your list into one library →
## Quick comparison | App | Scope | Community | Auto-sync | AI features | Price | |-----|-------|-----------|-----------|-------------|-------| | MyAnimeList | Anime + manga | Very large | Via MALSync | No | Free with ads / paid supporter tier | | AniList | Anime + manga | Large | Via MALSync | No | Free | | Kitsu | Anime + manga | Small | Via MALSync | No | Free / optional PRO | | Anime-Planet | Anime + manga | Medium | No | No | Free | | Simkl | Anime + TV + film | Medium | Yes (browser ext) | No | Free / optional VIP | | Achriom | Anime, books, films, albums, TV | Private | No | Yes (AI librarian) | Free / $9.99 mo | ## Which should you use? **Use MyAnimeList if:** You want the complete database, the seasonal charts everyone references, and forums with two decades of history behind them. It is still the center of gravity. **Use AniList if:** You care about how the app feels to use every day. Custom lists, sharp statistics, and an airing schedule that does not make you hunt. **Use Kitsu if:** You are starting a list for the first time and want the least friction between signing up and logging your first show. **Use Anime-Planet if:** You pick your next series from recommendations and want to read why someone thinks two shows rhyme. **Use Simkl if:** Your watching is split between anime and Western TV and you want automatic tracking for both without paying. **Use Achriom if:** You read, watch, and listen widely, and you want one library that holds all of it with an AI that can talk about the connections. ## Also worth considering **MALSync**: a free browser extension rather than a tracker. It syncs your progress from Crunchyroll and other streaming sites straight into MyAnimeList, AniList, Kitsu, or Simkl. If your complaint about MAL is manual logging, this fixes it in about a minute. **Taiga**: a free, open-source Windows client that watches your media player and updates your list when you finish an episode. Built for people who watch local files rather than streaming. **Shikimori**: a large Russian-language anime and manga tracker with an active community and a strong database. Worth knowing about if that community is yours. ## The part no anime-only tracker can do MyAnimeList, AniList, and Kitsu are excellent at anime. None of them can tell you that the ache in **Frieren: Beyond Journey's End** is the same ache in **Kafka on the Shore**, because none of them hold your books. None can connect the jazz in **Cowboy Bebop** to the albums you already play, or explain why **Oshi no Ko** hits people who also love a particular kind of tightly plotted novel. ![Cowboy Bebop (1998)](/blog/assets/best-to-track-anime/cowboy-bebop-tv.jpg) Achriom holds all of it, which is why the librarian can answer that question at all. Your anime taste is a piece of a larger pattern, and the pattern is the interesting part. ## The honest answer Pick by the job you actually need done. - **Database and community:** MyAnimeList - **Best daily interface:** AniList - **Easiest start:** Kitsu - **Human recommendations:** Anime-Planet - **Anime plus Western TV, free:** Simkl - **Cross-media understanding:** Achriom Running two is normal and costs nothing. MyAnimeList or AniList for the seasonal ritual and the community score, Achriom for the library that holds the rest of your taste. They solve different problems and do not compete for the same slot. **More on tracking anime:** If you are leaving MAL specifically, read [the best MyAnimeList alternatives](/blog/best-myanimelist-alternatives/) and the three-way [MyAnimeList vs AniList vs Kitsu](/blog/anilist-vs-myanimelist/). For a single library across every format, see [the best all-in-one media tracker](/blog/best-all-in-one-media-tracker/). ## Common questions ### What is the best anime tracking app in 2026? MyAnimeList still has the deepest database and the largest community, AniList has the best interface, and Simkl is the strongest free option if you also watch Western TV. Achriom is the pick if you want your anime tracked alongside your books, films, and albums with an AI librarian that reads across all of them. ### Can I track anime automatically from Crunchyroll? Not natively in most apps. The MALSync browser extension syncs your Crunchyroll, HiDive, and other streaming progress into MyAnimeList, AniList, Kitsu, or Simkl. Simkl also has its own extension, and Taiga handles local video files on Windows. ### What is the best free anime tracker? Anime-Planet is free. AniList is free to track with, though a paid donator tier removes ads and raises some stat limits. MyAnimeList is free with ads. Simkl is free with an optional paid tier. Kitsu is free and its PRO tier can no longer be bought. Achriom's free tier gives you unlimited items plus 10 AI librarian messages a month. ### Can I move my MyAnimeList list somewhere else? Yes. MyAnimeList exports your anime and manga lists as an XML file from list settings, and AniList, Kitsu, and Simkl all accept that file. Achriom imports your library too, and exports it back out in full whenever you want. ### Is there one app that tracks anime, manga, books, and film? Achriom tracks anime, books, films, albums, and TV in a single library with one AI librarian across all of it. The anime-native trackers cover anime and manga only, which leaves the rest of your taste scattered across Goodreads, Letterboxd, and Last.fm. ### Does anime tracking work on mobile? AniList, Kitsu, and Simkl have solid mobile web and third-party apps built on their open APIs. MyAnimeList has official iOS and Android apps. Achriom runs on mobile web and inside ChatGPT, so you can ask your librarian what to watch next from your phone without opening a separate app.