Find the right tools for your library
Capture your books, find the copy you own, and keep a shared library organized. See how AllMyBooks compares with other apps on the jobs you do at your shelves, with dated facts and links to the sources.
Two facts about AllMyBooks sit under every comparison: a Library here is co-owned by your keepers — one shared catalogue with member roles, not a personal account others peek into — and there are no item caps, so a 3,000-book collection is as welcome as a shelf of thirty.
Side by side
| Feature | AllMyBooks | LibraryThing | Libib | CLZ Books | Goodreads | Readerware |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shared library | AllMyBooks strength: One Library co-owned by the people who keep it — family, or a church or school’s volunteers — a shared catalogue with member roles, and no cap on members or books. | Caveat: Family collections can use one LibraryThing account. TinyCat provides separate staff logins for circulation; LibraryThing cataloguing uses the shared account. | Limitation: Built around one manager per account — multi-user management is a Pro feature, priced per additional manager, aimed at organisations. | Limitation: One account, one owner — sub-collections exist within an account, but no multi-user household model is documented. | Limitation: Individual accounts with a friends-and-followers model — there's no shared household catalogue. | Caveat: The Standard Edition is a single-user desktop database. Sharing meant the Client/Server Edition — a central database on your own network that several copies of the program connect to — or syncing to the Readerware Mobile companion. |
| Pricing & item caps | AllMyBooks strength: No item caps — catalogue as many books as you own. Free during our launch trial, and accounts created during the launch phase keep the full free tier forever; a supporter plan follows for collector-depth features, and export is never gated. The no-caps promise covers catalogue items; image storage has a fair-use ceiling we would talk to you about before applying. | No LibraryThing catalogue-size limit. | Limitation: Free up to 5,000 items and 100 collections; Pro raises the item cap to 100,000. | Caveat: Sold as yearly subscriptions (web and mobile are separate products), each starting with a free trial. | Free and ad-supported, with no paid tier. | Limitation: Sold as a one-time purchase with no catalogue limit, but it can no longer be bought, upgraded, or registered: the vendor site is gone and no support exists. |
| Adding books | AllMyBooks strength: ISBN barcode scanning in the browser — no app install — plus shelf-photo scanning for whole shelves, both uncapped. Pre-ISBN books resolve by LCCN. | ISBN barcode scanning in the mobile app and cataloguing from library sources. The app documentation describes barcode capture and cover uploads. | Barcode scanning through free iOS and Android apps, across all five media types. | Excellent, very fast barcode scanning built for working along a shelf, resolved against a 40-million-ISBN database. | Cover and barcode scanning in the mobile app, including a bulk-scan mode. | Auto-catalogued by ISBN, LCCN, or UPC — typed, or scanned with a USB barcode scanner — from library sources including the Library of Congress, the British Library, Library and Archives Canada, and the National Library of Australia (Amazon lookups were removed in version 4.25). |
| Collector detail | AllMyBooks strength: Every copy is its own record: printing, condition with dated photos, inscription notes, a value basis you set yourself, and custom fields. | Work and edition records, tags, reviews, and library classifications. | Caveat: Item-level tags, notes, and reviews on every tier; batch editing is a Pro feature. | Condition, purchase details, storage locations, tags, and value fields per book. | Limitation: One record per title on your shelves — its duplicate-finder treats the same book shelved under two editions as something to merge, and there are no per-copy fields like condition, printing, or location. | Dewey and call number fields, up to six authors plus illustrator, translator, and editor, item and cover condition, signed, purchase price, date, and place, item value with a valuation date, copies, locations, and ten free-text user fields. |
| Lending | Loans with due dates and return nudges, plus a patron checkout mode for classroom shelves and little free libraries. | LibraryThing includes basic lending with borrowers, due dates and statuses. TinyCat adds a patron-facing catalogue and circulation tools. | Limitation: Lending, holds, and patron management are Pro features. | A mature loan manager: borrowers, due dates, overdue warnings, and scan-to-return. | Limitation: No lending or loan tracking. | A built-in Loan Tracker in every edition (borrower, loan date, due date, overdue searches). The Client/Server Edition adds the Loan Client: borrower records, borrower barcode labels, and scan-a-borrower, scan-a-book checkout. |
| Public sharing | Share a curated showcase by link, or give a tiny library its own public catalogue page anyone can browse without an account. | Catalogues can be shared with the LibraryThing community; TinyCat gives a small library a patron-facing online catalogue. | Caveat: A basic public collection page is free; search, holds, and self-checkout on that public site need Pro. | A read-only public link to your catalogue via CLZ Cloud sharing. | Public profiles and shelves within the Goodreads community. | Limitation: No online catalogue. Sharing meant exporting an HTML report to publish yourself, or the Readerware Mobile companion app synced over your own network. |
| Import & export | AllMyBooks strength: Readerware, Goodreads, StoryGraph, and LibraryThing exports are recognized automatically — a Readerware TAB export brings copies, shelves, Dewey and call numbers, loans and want-list rows across; any other CSV (CLZ Books included) imports via column mapping, and a UTF-8 MARC 21 file — a LibraryThing MARC export, say — imports with its LC and Dewey classes. Export your whole catalogue as CSV or JSON anytime. | Exports as Excel, tab-delimited text, JSON, or MARC. AllMyBooks imports both the tab-delimited export and the UTF-8 MARC export: a MARC file carries the LC and Dewey classes, keeps "Your library" records as copies, and offers Wishlist records for the want list. | Caveat: CSV import and export on all tiers; importing rows without an ISBN or UPC ('Force Import Mode') needs Pro. | Your full catalogue exports to CSV or text from the app's Import/Export menu (mobile) or File → Export to → Text (desktop). | Caveat: CSV import (desktop, ISBN required) and CSV export of your library from My Books; the developer API no longer issues new keys and is slated for retirement. | File → Export opens an Export Wizard writing CSV, TAB-delimited, HTML, and several legacy formats, with an option to include a header line naming the columns; an Import Wizard reads CSV/TAB files. |
Competitor facts verified against each product's own public pages; each detail page shows its "as of" date and sources.
The detailed comparisons
AllMyBooks vs LibraryThing
AllMyBooks helps you capture whole shelves, find the copy you own, and manage a library together. Compare those everyday workflows with LibraryThing’s catalogue and community tools.
Facts as of October 2026.
Read the comparisonAllMyBooks vs Libib
A multi-media cataloguing app — books, movies, music, video games, and board games — with a generous free personal tier and a Pro tier for organisations that lend.
Facts as of July 2026.
Read the comparisonAllMyBooks vs CLZ Books
A veteran collector-focused cataloguing suite with best-in-class barcode scanning and its own curated book database, sold as yearly subscriptions.
Facts as of July 2026.
Read the comparisonAllMyBooks vs Goodreads
The world’s largest reading-social platform — reviews, recommendations, and reading tracking — rather than a tool for cataloguing the physical books you own.
Facts as of July 2026.
Read the comparisonAllMyBooks vs Readerware
A desktop book cataloguer for Windows, Mac, and Linux sold from 1999 by Readerware Corporation to collectors, home libraries, schools, and churches. As of September 2026 its website no longer exists (readerware.com redirects to an unrelated business), it cannot be bought or supported, and its documentation survives only in the Internet Archive — installed copies keep running offline.
Facts as of September 2026.
Read the comparisonAlready leaving one of these?
Step-by-step switching guides, organised by the platform you run the old app on, with a plain account of what carries over.