Letterboxd alternative
Letterboxd for your films. Stadu for your life.
This is not a "Letterboxd is bad" page. Letterboxd is excellent. It is just that your year was not only films — and everything else you did has to live somewhere else.
The honest version
Stay on Letterboxd if
- The community is the point — reviews, followers, and reading what other people wrote is half of why you log.
- You want public lists and a profile other people can browse.
- You mainly log films and are happy for everything else to live elsewhere.
- You are on iPhone. Stadu is Android-only for now.
Move to Stadu if
- You are tired of your year being split across four apps that never talk to each other.
- You want films next to the books, gigs, trips and life events from the same week.
- You would rather not have an account, a profile, or your viewing history on somebody else’s server.
- You want everything on one timeline anchored to your birthdate, with your age beside each entry.
Stadu vs Letterboxd
| Stadu | Letterboxd | |
|---|---|---|
| What you can log | Films, TV, books, games, concerts, places, trips, life events | Films. Ongoing TV series are not supported (some miniseries and TV movies are) |
| Account | None — no sign-up, no email | Required to log, rate or review |
| Where your data lives | On your phone | On Letterboxd’s servers |
| Works offline | Yes for everything logged; online only to search new entries | No — it is an online service |
| Data export | Free — whole Lifeline to one backup file | CSV export exists, on a paid tier |
| Social features | None. No feed, no followers, no public profile | The main attraction — reviews, lists, followers |
| Price | Free, no subscription, no ads | Free tier plus paid Pro and Patron tiers |
| Platforms | Android (iOS planned) | Web, iOS, Android |
Competitor details checked against their own sites in September 2026. Prices and limits change — follow the links before deciding.
What Letterboxd genuinely does better
Letterboxd won film logging for a reason. The database is excellent, the design is lovely, and the community turned a private habit into something social — the reviews are frequently better than the films. If you log films in order to read what other people wrote about them, nothing here replaces that, and this page is not trying to.
Stadu has no social layer at all. No feed, no followers, no profile. That is a deliberate trade, not a missing feature — but it is a trade, and if the community is why you log, you already have the right app.
Where the single-category model breaks down
Open your Letterboxd diary for a given month and you get a genuinely satisfying record of what you watched. What you do not get is the book you read on the train that month, the gig you went to, or the week you spent in Lisbon.
So those go into Goodreads, and a games tracker, and your camera roll. Four apps, four accounts, four exports. And still nothing that can answer the question you actually care about years later: what was that year like?
Stadu is built around that question. Every entry, whatever its type, lands on one chronological Lifeline in the year it happened, with your age next to it.
Film logging in Stadu
The mechanics are familiar: type a title, pick the right result, and the poster, year and director fill themselves in from TMDB — the same database Letterboxd's own catalogue grew out of. Rate it out of five, add a note, add your own photos.
Unlike Letterboxd, ongoing TV series are first-class here: a show is its own entry type rather than something the model does not accommodate.
No account, and nothing uploaded
Letterboxd needs an account because it is a service — your diary is on their servers so other people can see it. That is the product working as designed.
Stadu has no account because it has no server. Nothing is uploaded, there is nothing to sign up for, and your entries export to a single backup file you keep. Whether that is an upgrade or a downgrade depends entirely on whether you wanted anyone to read your diary.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a Letterboxd alternative that tracks books and games too?
Can Letterboxd track TV shows?
Does Stadu have reviews and followers like Letterboxd?
Can I import my Letterboxd diary into Stadu?
Is Stadu free?
Is Stadu on iPhone?
Keep the diary. Widen it.
Films, books, games, gigs, places and trips — on one timeline.
Available now on Android. iOS coming later.