What is Hardcover?
Hardcover is a social network for people to track what they read and want to read, make lasting connections with other readers and find life-changing books. We're anti-Amazon, pro-author, actively pursuing feedback and just getting started. 📚
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Goodreads alternative
- AI recommender
- Book tracking
- Excellent interface
- Planned features
- Branding and design
- Fast performance
- Community engagement
- Granular statistics
- Independent platform
- Librarian AI
- Reader-centric
- Reading goals
- Social feed system
Cons
- Complex feature names
- Limited book editions
- Missing book covers
- Occasional bugs
- Performance issues
Tool Details
| Categories | Social & Community, Social Networking, Books |
|---|---|
| Website | hardcover.app |
| Became Popular | March 2, 2022 |
| Platforms | Web · iOS · Android |
| Social | Twitter · Instagram · Facebook · GitHub |
Recent Reviews (11)
Fast and stable app with a good vibe and a nice community around it. It has reading goals; also you can track your books (read, TBR, etc.); can create Lists of books, ask questions (called prompts).
SWEET! As an avid book reader this is going to be super helpful for me. I'm sharing it with my team as well. Thanks for making this Ste and Adam, this is amazing! (And as a marketer, I loved loved loved the branding and design, too...)
Better Goodreads! All the features I need for tracking my books and sorting them, and also discovering new books and learning which ones are most likely to be a good match for me!
Ok so I don’t know much about Product Hunt, but I made an account just so I could leave this supportive review! I’ve tried a lot of Goodreads alternatives and haven’t been into them. Mostly because they seem to have only a few gimmicky (imo) features that don’t long-term add any value to the reading app experience, so I always end up back on Goodreads anyway. BUT I’ve been using Hardcover for about two weeks now and I finally feel like there’s an app that has the potential to be a viable — and improved! — version of Goodreads. Interface and branding are excellent. It seems like they may be working out some kinks in the functionality (for me, many books are not displaying the correct covers and some seem to be displaying as another unrelated book), but I feel good about their ability to tidy this up. The app is already promising, but I love that they have the planned/in-process/proposed features displayed and available for suggestion. I think that especially when some of these new features are up and running, this app will be pretty much all I could ever want in a book tracking app! Excited to see what their plans for collaborating with authors/publishers entail. Good luck guys!
This is the first Goodreads alternative that actually feels sustainable as a replacement. So many other book social and reading log apps are out there, but Hardcover is the first where I've felt they're releasing features (and for a bootstrapped app they have incredibly momentum releasing new features and improvements) that actually improve on what Goodreads offers, instead of just being "less bloated." Adam and Ste are dogfooding the app like crazy as they build it, and their obvious love of reading and books shows in every decision and aspect the product. I have a lot of confidence in this app getting better and better as they continue to develop it. Since I know they're reading, I will offer 1 piece of feedback: this concept of the "Airlist," I really don't get what it's for, or why that's its name. Is it, like, built on Airtable under the hood, and the name is playing off that? If so, non-tech readers won't get that and it's confusing. Can it have a more book-relevant name? Is there a function to it existing? I dunno.
Hi everyone! I've been involved with Hardcover as a user and supporter for over a year now, and I also joined its Librarian corps when the team first opened it up. I'm a mega-reader, averaging over 200 books per year for the last 4 years, and I'll still get near that number this year even when I was *trying* to go slower. BookSirens.com ranks me among the Top 1% in both reading diversity and readers helped among all those who have submitted data for their analysis. Hardcover has been great in so many areas already, and we're really just getting started. We've already got one of the best AI tools in the game, if not *the* best. We've already got some of the most granular statistics of any book library system I've found to date - and I've found a lot of them over the years. Our social feed system is already one of the better ones out there, easily allowing you to see feeds of just those you follow or even all activity on the system with just a single click, as well as the sometimes-infamous-in-other-systems "For You" feed, which combines the two and tailors them to your interests. As @stelofo and @adamfortuna have said, we're all about making this site the go-to place for *every* reader and *everyone* involved in making books happen. We don't care if you're reading the first book you've read since high school or if you read hundreds of books per year, we want to be the place where you come to find and talk about books. And yes, we even want to be the place that authors, publishers, and everyone else in the industry can come to find the tools they need for their various functions as well - and while we have some ideas there, we'd love to hear what *you* think so that we can try to be the first to make those ideas a reality. So come join us, and let's make revolutionize this game in ways it never has been before.
Overall it's great. You still can see some performance issues and places to polish, but it's sooo much better than goodreads. I will go up to 5 stars when i will be able to find all of books I'm interested in or if i will get the option to add a book myself (I'm from Poland, polish books are still hard to find on Hardcover). One other thing - when i find my book it's usually English version, which for me is fine, but It would be great if i could choose (or manually add) my localized edition. If i read something in polish i would like to have the polish edition in my bookshelf. So - choosing book edition on bookshelf would be awesome.
Been using it for a few months, mainly to track recommendations I get elsewhere. The search function is quite good, and adding missing books via ISBN is fairly frictionless. I tried the AI recommender the other day and found some cool books. Still run into the occasional bug or finicky feature but it's my favourite book tracker (I've tried Goodreads, LibraryThing and Oku). I paid for premium the other day to support development.
SO nice. Finally, a Goodreads replacement. Really nice UI, fast and way easier than Goodreads. Recommendations will get better as more users get on. I only wish it could connect with my Kindle and automatically mark things read for me, but that's not their fault.
I'm in love with the UI of this website, what a great discovery! The interface is so easy to use, I can't wait to read more books to add them to my library 👀
I love it! Specially their recommendation feature and the librarian AI. It is so easy to find books I will love 😲
Frequently Asked Questions about Hardcover
When did Hardcover become popular?
Hardcover became popular around March 2, 2022.
What are the main advantages of using Hardcover?
The top advantages of Hardcover include: goodreads alternative, AI recommender, book tracking, excellent interface, planned features.
What are the disadvantages of Hardcover?
Some reported disadvantages of Hardcover include: complex feature names, limited book editions, missing book covers, occasional bugs, performance issues.
What is Hardcover's overall user rating?
Hardcover has an overall rating of 4.8/5 based on 16 user reviews.
Is Hardcover available on mobile devices?
Yes, Hardcover is available on iOS (App Store) & Android (Google Play).
What type of tool is Hardcover?
Hardcover belongs to the following categories: Social & Community, Social Networking, Books.
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