Comparison

LitList vs Smoulder

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

LitList

Organize your reading life with this app. Track books, rate spice, tag tropes, and discover new reads tailored to your taste. Features include audiobook support, smart search, and social reading with friends.

Highlights
  • Log reading status and streaks
  • Audiobook tracking
  • Smart library search and filtering
  • Trope and spice tagging
  • Personalized book recommendations
  • Buddy reads and social sharing
  • Goodreads library import
Features
Read full description

The reading tracker that actually gets readers. Built for how BookTokers think: spice ratings, trope tagging, series tracking. Made for every reader.. Track any book, any genre, any format. TRACK YOUR READING - Log books as Reading, Read, Want to Read, or DNF/soft DNF - Reading streaks, daily goals, and session timer with page tracking - Audiobook support with listening hours and narrator info - Journal entries with mood tracking for each session YOUR LIBRARY, YOUR WAY - Beautiful cover grid with smart search - Filter by status, genre, and vibes (tropes & moods) - Series tracking with reading progress and book order - Spice ratings and trope tags — because BookTok gets it - Content warnings, half-star ratings, and spoiler-tagged reviews DISCOVER YOUR NEXT READ - Today's Pick — a free daily recommendation curated to your taste - Mood Match — tell it your craving and it picks from your own TBR - Browse by tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Found Family, and more - Filter by spice level from mild to explicit - New in Your Series — never miss a release READ WITH FRIENDS - Buddy reads with real-time progress sharing - Friends system with activity feed - Send book recommendations to friends - Shareable stats cards, reading challenges, and goals FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY - Create a reading profile for your child under your account - Track their books and milestones together - No ads ever shown to child profiles IMPORT & GET STARTED FAST - Import your Goodreads library in under 2 minutes — shelves, ratings, and read dates transfer automatically - Import from any reading app or CSV - Instant cover art, metadata, and series detection - Scan barcodes to add books in seconds, or batch-scan a whole stack GO FURTHER WITH LITLIST PLUS - Picked For You — unlimited personalized recommendation batches - Mood Match for your TBR - Search by theme, mood, or vibe - Premium stats card designs & Year in Review - All vibe themes — Romantasy, Cottagecore & Dark Academia - Unlimited reading challenges - Unlimited family profiles Built independently in Canada by a reader, for readers. No ads. No data selling. Just your reading life, beautifully organized. Terms of Use (EULA): https://litlist.ca/terms Privacy Policy: https://litlist.ca/privacy

About

Smoulder

Features
Read full description

Smoulder is a reading journal for romance readers. Finishing a book should feel like something. In Smoulder it does: close a book and you get a ceremony, then a reading receipt — a card with the cover, your rating, the tropes, and the line you kept. Save it, share it, or keep it to yourself. Every receipt you have ever been given is kept. THE SHELF Finished books stand on shelves by year, as covers, with your rating under each spine. A year of reading you can actually see. LOGGING BUILT FOR ROMANCE Rate in stars and log the spice. Tag the tropes that got you — enemies to lovers, only one bed, fated mates, touch her and die. Note how it left you: in tears, in a puddle of fluff, or both. Keep the lines worth keeping. THE ROSTER A card for every character you would risk it all for. Add his photo from your own library, his archetype, who you would cast, and the line that did it. Numbered, collected, yours. SERIES, SORTED Smoulder knows which book comes next. Start a series and it tells you what to pick up, so you never lose your place halfway through a trilogy again. THE DRAW Cannot choose? Let the cards choose. A tarot-style draw picks your next read from the books already on your shelf. GET YOUR BOOKS IN, FAST Search by title, or scan a paperback's barcode and watch the cover fill itself in. Bringing a library across? Import your Goodreads export in one go. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN A widget for whatever you are reading now: the cover, and how far in you are. Your library lives on your device. No account required.

Screenshots

LitList4 screens
Smoulder4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Smoulder at none against LitList's 2. LitList's advantage is device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.1 vs 18.0). On price, rating, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. LitList sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $5.99 per month. Smoulder asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for LitList against 5.0 for Smoulder. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 1 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
LitList versus Smoulder: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLitListSmoulder
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (1 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings11
Update frequencyWeekly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreemium—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone
Requires iOS15.1 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size65 MB4 MB
Age rating12+9+
DevelopermerakistormsCroftware LLC

In-app purchases

2 purchases

LitList

Subscriptions2
  • LitList Plus Monthly$5.991 Month
  • LitList Plus Annual$34.991 Year
None

Smoulder

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is LitList free?
LitList is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Smoulder free?
Smoulder is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, LitList or Smoulder?
LitList and Smoulder are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 1 ratings respectively.
Do LitList or Smoulder have ads?
Neither LitList nor Smoulder shows ads.

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