Goodreads vs Libby: what's the difference?
Updated 29 October 2026. Made by Lucas Paraizo, who builds Liber, a bookshelf app for the books you own. Liber is neither of these apps, so read the last section knowing that.
In short: Libby lends you ebooks, audiobooks and magazines from your public library, free with a library card. Goodreads doesn't lend anything: it's where you keep a record of what you've read and want to read, rate it, and see what friends and other readers think. They do different jobs, so most people who use one can happily use both.
What is Libby for?
Libby is for borrowing. Its own help pages describe it as a free app for ebooks, digital audiobooks and magazines from your public library, with "no subscription costs, no in-app purchases, and no late fees". All you need is a library card from a library that offers it.
What you can borrow depends on your library: it chooses which titles it buys, and it sets how long a loan lasts and how many you can have at once. Loans end on their own when they're due. If a book is out on loan you can place a hold, and Libby can download it for you when it comes in. Libby is digital only, so your library's paper books aren't in it.
What is Goodreads for?
Goodreads is for keeping track and finding the next book. It calls itself the world's largest site for readers and book recommendations: you shelve books as read or want to read, rate and review them, see what friends are reading, and get suggestions. It's an Amazon company, and members in some countries can add their Amazon book purchases to their shelves.
Goodreads doesn't hold any books for you to read. It's a record and a community, not a library or a shop.
How do they compare side by side?
| Libby | Goodreads | |
|---|---|---|
| Main job | Borrow and read library books | Track, rate and review books |
| Can you read books in it? | Yes: ebooks, audiobooks, magazines | No |
| To start | Free with a library card | Needs an account |
| What's available | Whatever your library has bought | Any book in its catalogue, whether you own it or not |
| Social side | Not its focus | Friends, reviews, reading challenge |
| Your history | A timeline of loans, exportable as a spreadsheet | Shelves, exportable as a CSV file |
| Paper books | No, digital only | Yes, any edition |
Can I import my Libby history into Goodreads?
No, not directly. Goodreads' help page says plainly that you can't import from Audible, OverDrive or Libby; its advice is to search for each title on Goodreads and add it to your shelves yourself.
What Libby does let you do is keep your own copy. In Libby, open Shelf, tap Timeline, then Actions and Export Timeline, and choose Spreadsheet. That saves your borrowing history to your device. It won't go into Goodreads as it is, because Goodreads' file import needs an ISBN for every book, but it's a useful list to work from when you add books by hand.
Should I use Libby, Goodreads or both?
Use Libby if you want to read without buying, and your library offers it. Use Goodreads if you want a record of everything you read, wherever it came from, plus reviews and recommendations. You can do both: find a book on Goodreads, borrow it in Libby, then mark it read on Goodreads.
Neither is built to show the paper books already on your own shelves: Libby only lends digital books, and Goodreads keeps them as lists.
Where does Liber fit?
Liber is for the physical books you own, on iPhone. You scan a barcode or search a title and each book appears as its spine, in the cover's colours and at its real size, so your phone shows your actual bookcase. It has no account, works offline, and tracks who you lent a book to. It doesn't lend ebooks like Libby or have reviews and friends like Goodreads.
If you already use Goodreads, Liber imports a Goodreads export, and Liber's own export opens in Goodreads. It's free for your first 100 books. There's more in Liber vs Goodreads, StoryGraph and Libib, and help with imports on the support page. Or see what Liber looks like.