Letterboxd vs Trakt: Which Movie and TV Tracker Is Right for You?
Letterboxd is the social network for film lovers. Trakt is the scrobbling tool for TV power users. They serve different people. Here is how to choose.
Most people searching “Letterboxd vs Trakt” are not actually choosing between them. They are figuring out which one fits the thing they actually do.
Letterboxd is a social network built around film. People log movies, write reviews, follow critics and friends, and build lists that circulate through the community. The social layer is the product.
Trakt is a scrobbler. It syncs with Plex, Emby, Kodi, and Jellyfin, tracks what you watch automatically, and stores detailed statistics about your viewing history. Most users treat it as a personal data layer, not a community.
The short version: if you watch mostly movies and want to be part of a film conversation, Letterboxd. If you watch a lot of TV and run a home media server, Trakt. If you track across multiple formats, read on.
What to look for in a media tracker
Five things separate a tracker you’ll actually use from one that collects data you ignore.
Logging style. Letterboxd makes logging a deliberate act: you rate, review, and date-stamp each film. Trakt supports both manual logging and passive scrobbling, pulling watch data from your media server without any manual input. The right style depends on whether you want a diary or a dashboard.
Social layer. Do you want to see what friends are watching, compare lists, or follow critics? Letterboxd is a genuine social network. Trakt has basic follow features, but community is not what it’s for.
TV support. Letterboxd covers film only. No episode tracking, no seasons, no series progress. Trakt covers both movies and TV at the episode level. For anyone watching ongoing TV, this distinction is decisive.
Export and API access. Both apps export your data. Trakt’s public API is developer-grade, fully documented, and used by dozens of third-party apps. Letterboxd’s API exists but is more limited and not as widely used by external developers.
Price. Both have free tiers that cover the essentials. Letterboxd Pro adds advanced filters for $19/year. Trakt VIP unlocks history beyond 12 months and extra statistics for $35.99/year.
Letterboxd
Letterboxd launched in 2011 and spent several years as a cult platform before becoming one of the dominant film communities online. The diary is the center of it: you log a film, date the watch, rate it out of five stars, write a review if you want, and it becomes part of your public history.
The social features are genuinely good. People follow directors, critics, and friends. Lists are a core part of the platform, and the best ones travel widely through the community. There is a distinct Letterboxd sensibility: film-literate, often genre-curious, with a strong representation of horror fans, arthouse devotees, and people who engage seriously with annual best-of lists.
The app’s limitation is its scope. Letterboxd covers movies. Some documentaries, some TV movies. If you want to track a TV series, you are on your own. The platform has never extended into episode tracking, and nothing suggests it plans to.
Pricing is straightforward. The free tier covers all core logging. Pro ($19/year) adds advanced filtering and removes ads. Patron ($49/year) supports the platform financially. Most users do fine on the free tier indefinitely.
For anyone who primarily watches film and wants to be part of the conversation around it, Letterboxd is the best option available.
Trakt
Trakt started as a developer project and still has that aesthetic. The interface is functional rather than polished. The design has improved over the years but remains utilitarian compared to Letterboxd.
What Trakt lacks in style, it makes up in infrastructure. The scrobbling integrations are class-leading: connect Trakt to Plex, Emby, Kodi, or Jellyfin, and your viewing history updates automatically as you watch. For TV in particular, this passive tracking is a significant advantage over any app that requires manual logging.
Coverage is broader than Letterboxd: both movies and TV, tracked at the episode level. You can see exactly which episodes you’ve watched, track progress through ongoing series, and get statistics about viewing hours across formats. For people who watch a lot of TV across multiple platforms, this depth is hard to find elsewhere.
The API is Trakt’s real competitive advantage. It powers dozens of companion apps, home automation setups, and third-party tools. If you ever want to build something with your viewing data or connect it to another service, Trakt is the natural foundation.
The social layer is thin. You can follow other users and see their recent watches, but it is nothing like Letterboxd’s community. Trakt users mostly treat the platform as a personal archive, not a social space.
VIP ($35.99/year) removes the 12-month history cap and adds extra statistics. The free tier is genuinely useful, but the history limitation is worth understanding before you commit long-term.
Achriom
Achriom tracks books, films, TV, albums, and anime in a single library. The approach is different from both Letterboxd and Trakt. The goal is not just logging what you’ve watched but understanding how it connects to everything else you love.
The AI librarian, available through the ChatGPT app, reasons across your full library. Ask it which films match the tone of a novel you recently finished, or which albums share a sensibility with a show you just watched. That cross-format reasoning is what neither Letterboxd nor Trakt can do.
Logging is intentional rather than comprehensive. Achriom is not built for scrobbling or for capturing every background viewing session. It is built for the things that matter to your taste.
For people who track books and music alongside film and TV, a single-medium tracker will always feel incomplete.
Want all of it in one place? Achriom tracks your films and shows alongside your books, music, and anime, with an AI librarian that finds the threads between them. That is the part no single-format tracker can do.
Try Achriom free →Head-to-head comparison
| Feature | Letterboxd | Trakt | Achriom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Movies | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| TV tracking | No | Yes, episode level | Yes |
| Books | No | No | Yes |
| Music / albums | No | No | Yes |
| Anime | No | Limited | Yes |
| Auto-scrobbling | No | Yes (Plex, Emby, Kodi) | No |
| Social community | Strong | Minimal | No |
| AI recommendations | No | No | Yes, cross-media |
| Public API | Limited | Excellent | No public API |
| Data export | Yes (CSV) | Yes | Yes |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Paid plan | $19/year (Pro) | $35.99/year (VIP) | Free to start |
Which should you use?
Choose Letterboxd if you primarily watch movies and want to be part of a film community. The diary format, the lists, and the social layer make it the best place to be a film person online. Nothing else comes close for pure film culture.
Choose Trakt if you watch a lot of TV, run Plex or another home media server, or want passive scrobbling rather than manual logging. The API and integrations are the best in class.
Use both if you care seriously about both film culture and TV tracking. They cover different ground with almost no overlap, so running both is common and makes practical sense.
Consider Achriom if you want to track across formats. Books, films, TV, albums, and anime in one place, with an AI librarian that reasons across all of them. If your taste does not stay in one lane, a single-medium tracker will always leave a gap.
The honest answer
Letterboxd and Trakt are not really competitors. Letterboxd is a film social network. Trakt is a TV scrobbling platform with excellent developer infrastructure. Asking which is better is a bit like asking whether a record collection is better than a filing system.
The real question is what you are actually trying to do. Log films and engage with a film community: Letterboxd. Track TV automatically and own your viewing data: Trakt. Track everything in one place and understand how it connects: Achriom.
Most people searching this comparison already have a sense of which way they lean. The question is usually whether the other one has something they are missing. For TV, Trakt’s scrobbling is hard to replace. For film culture, Letterboxd is the default home. Neither covers books or music, and neither connects your media taste across formats.
For more on the TV side of this, our Serializd vs Trakt and Trakt vs TV Time comparisons go deeper into the TV tracker landscape.
Common questions
Can I import my Letterboxd history into Trakt? Not directly. Letterboxd exports a CSV of your film history, and some third-party tools can help convert that format for Trakt import. The process requires manual steps, and neither platform officially supports direct cross-import with the other.
Does Letterboxd track rewatches separately? Yes. You can log each rewatch with its own date, rating, and review, separate from your first viewing. The rewatch history is preserved cleanly in your diary, which is one of the features film enthusiasts cite most often when recommending the platform.
Is Trakt useful for tracking movies too, or mainly TV? Trakt covers both movies and TV, and its movie tracking is solid. The film community aspect is essentially absent compared to Letterboxd, so if film culture and social features matter to you, Letterboxd is still the better home for movies.
What happens to my data if I stop paying for Pro or VIP? On Letterboxd, you keep all your logged films and history. You lose Pro-tier features like advanced filters, but the data remains intact. On Trakt, the VIP history extension rolls back and watches older than 12 months are hidden until you renew. The data is not deleted, but access is gated.
Are there privacy issues with public profiles? Both Letterboxd and Trakt default to public profiles. Letterboxd lets you switch to a private profile. Trakt has privacy controls as well. If you want a completely private library with no social component, Achriom is designed with privacy as the default: your library is only visible to you.
Can Trakt replace Letterboxd for movies? Functionally, yes, Trakt can log movies. But the experience is different. Trakt is built for data; Letterboxd is built for film culture. The reviews, lists, community discussions, and shared film vocabulary on Letterboxd are not replicated in Trakt. For most film enthusiasts, the two serve genuinely different purposes.