The Best Reading Trackers That Don't Sell Your Data (2026)

Every app in this category says some version of "we respect your privacy" somewhere in its App Store description. Almost none of them say what their business model actually is, and if an app is free, ad-free, and doesn't sell your data, one of those three things is usually not true. So instead of another listicle that repeats marketing copy, this is a shorter list of trackers I could actually verify the claim for: I read the privacy policy, the App Store/Play Store data-safety label, or the source code (where there is one) before putting each app here.

That means this list is short. It's missing plenty of well-known reading apps, some because they run on an ad-supported free tier, some because their privacy policy reserves the right to share data with "partners" in language vague enough to mean almost anything, and a few because I simply couldn't verify the claim well enough to stand behind it. Being left off isn't necessarily an accusation; it just means I couldn't confirm the "no data selling" part specifically, which is the one thing this list is actually about.

Kitaaben is on this list; I built it, so read that bias in from the start. I've tried to describe the others as fairly as I'd want a competitor to describe mine.

The StoryGraph is the most established name here, and it's already the default recommendation whenever someone asks for a Goodreads alternative. It's independently owned, bootstrapped since 2019, ad-free, and funded through Patreon and one-time donations rather than advertising or a data partnership, which is precisely the kind of business model that lets an app credibly say it isn't selling your reading habits to anyone. Comments, DMs, and a public follower count all exist, but they're off by default, so the social layer is opt-in rather than the whole point.

Where it differs from Kitaaben: The StoryGraph is still fundamentally a community platform; mood and pace tracking, buddy reads, and a shared recommendation engine built from other readers' ratings are the actual draw. If you want any of that, it's a genuinely good, privacy-respecting way to get it. If you want a shelf that isn't a platform at all no community layer, nothing to opt into or out of that's a different shape of app, covered further down.

Openreads is the one to point to if "don't sell your data" isn't reassuring enough on its own and you want actually to verify it- it's free, open source (GPL-2.0), with the code on GitHub for anyone to read. No ads, no account required, no analytics phoning home by default. It stores your library locally on-device, which is either exactly what you want or a real limitation depending on whether you read across more than one device; sync isn't the point of an app like this the way it is for a hosted product.

It's a genuinely different kind of trust model than everything else on this list: you're not trusting a privacy policy, you're able to read the code that determines what the app does with your data. That's a rare and valuable thing in this category, even if the tradeoff is a plainer feature set and no cross-device sync out of the box.

Bookmory is an offline-first tracker, Android-first, with an iOS version too that keeps your library on your device rather than a server. Its privacy policy and App Store data-safety listing both say the developer doesn't collect the books, ratings, or notes you enter, and doesn't share that data with other companies. Some third-party crash/analytics logging exists, which is common and not the same thing as selling your reading list, but worth knowing if "nothing at all leaves the device" is the bar you're holding it to.

It's a solid, no-frills tracker for someone who wants ratings, a TBR list, and reading stats without a social layer closer in spirit to a private log than a platform.

This is where I'll describe my own app the same way I described the others: plainly, with the tradeoffs included.

Kitaaben is a private reading tracker, page-by-page progress, a personal library, an in-browser PDF/EPUB reader, and a journal you can turn into an AI-assisted review afterwards. No public feed, no follower count, no algorithm surfacing "trending" books at you. It has a reading streak, same as most trackers do, but it's private-only, visible to no one but you, and it doesn't shame you for breaking it; missing a day just quietly resets the count instead of dropping you off some public leaderboard. It syncs to your own Google account, not a third-party database, and there's nothing to advertise against because there are no ads to sell.

The honest tradeoff, compared to the other three: Kitaaben is hosted, not open source, so "trust the code" isn't on the table the way it is with Openreads; you're trusting the same kind of privacy commitment as The StoryGraph or Bookmory, not independently verifying it yourself. And it's a newer, smaller project than any of the others here, which cuts both ways: less of a track record, but also actively built by one person who reads every reply.

If you want community features, buddy reads, shared stats, other readers' recommendations without an ad-supported feed, The StoryGraph is the strongest pick on this list, and it's not close. If you want to actually verify the "we don't sell your data" claim yourself instead of trusting a privacy policy, Openreads is the one built for that, with the tradeoff of local-only storage. If you want the simplest possible private log with no social layer at all, Bookmory or Kitaaben both fit, and the difference mostly comes down to whether you want an in-browser PDF/EPUB reader and AI journal-to-review tooling bundled in (Kitaaben) or a plainer, purely offline Android/iOS app (Bookmory).

None of these is the right answer for everyone. If what you actually want is the biggest possible book database, the most active friend activity feed, and the most complete integrations with libraries and retailers, Goodreads still does that better than any app on this list that's a real tradeoff, not a gap to spin around. The apps here are for the specific case where that tradeoff isn't worth it to you anymore.

If you try any of them — including Kitaaben — I'd genuinely like to know what worked and what didn't. Write to me at [email protected].

Thanks,
Nandan