TV Track vs Refract

Where Refract is genuinely better

Refract wins on breadth. It is a newer, free, no-ads tracker built for everything you watch, read and play, so alongside movies, TV and anime it also covers books and games in a single library. That scope is its whole point: if you want one place for your films, your series, your reading list and your backlog of games, TV Track does not try to be that. Refract also ships native apps on iOS and Android, and it imports from Letterboxd, TV Time, IMDb and Trakt via a ZIP backup, preserving ratings, watch dates and your watchlist.

There is a nice bonus too. Refract makes a separate free companion tool called TV Time Out by Refract, a browser extension that exports your TV Time data locally as JSON, CSV or ZIP. It is fully client-side, with no account and no server, which makes getting your history out of TV Time genuinely painless. We think that is a great little tool, and it happens to pair well with the next point.

The bigger picture is philosophy. Refract is betting that people want one shelf for their whole media life, so a film you watched, a novel you finished and a game you are halfway through can all sit in the same timeline. If that is how you think about your hobbies, a single app with a single login and one set of stats is genuinely convenient, and Refract has clearly put care into making that scope feel coherent rather than bolted together. For a lot of viewers that is the deciding factor, and it is a fair one.

Where TV Track wins

Breadth has a cost: a tracker that covers five kinds of media rarely goes as deep on any one of them. Following a weekly show is a different job from logging a film you finished, and it is the part most trackers do least well. It needs to know which episode is next across a dozen series at once, when the next one airs, and how to nudge you when it does. TV Track picks a lane, TV shows and movies, and goes all in. You get an automatic "up next" queue that always knows the next episode, anime laid out in the correct TVDB episode order, and a release calendar with free daily 9am push notifications so you never miss a premiere. You also get two-way Trakt sync, ratings out of ten with reviews and twelve community reactions, comments with photos and GIFs that auto-translate, favorite-character voting per title, custom posters and drag-and-drop lists, watch stats, and support for seven languages. The lists are properly editable, with a cover image, drag-and-drop reordering and your own poster art per title, and the social side is built in rather than tacked on, so reactions and comments read like a conversation about the show instead of a raw feed.

That depth shows up in the small daily moments. The "up next" queue means opening the app already tells you what to watch tonight, with no scrolling or searching. Anime fans get episodes ordered the way they actually aired rather than a scrambled streaming order, which matters for long-running series. The release calendar plus a free daily 9am push keeps returning shows on your radar without you checking, and because reactions and reviews carry live community averages, you get a quick read on a title before you commit an evening to it. None of this is gated behind a paywall, because there is no paywall.

And you are not locked in either way. TV Track imports a Refract export in one click, keeping your real watch dates, and re-importing never duplicates, so the two apps are complementary rather than a hard either-or. Many people use Refract for their books and games and let TV Track handle the shows and films, syncing the parts that overlap. TV Track is an installable PWA that behaves the same on iPhone, Android and desktop, it is private by design, and it gives you a full one-click .zip account export whenever you want your data back out. An Android app is on the way to Google Play, and everything you build in the meantime carries straight over.

The honest short version: pick Refract if you want one app across movies, TV, anime, books and games; pick TV Track if TV and movies are your focus and you want them done deeply and free. Neither choice is wrong, and neither app makes you delete the other, so there is no downside to trying both.

TV Track vs Refract, side by side

Comparison based on publicly available information, July 2026. Check getrefract.app for current features.

Frequently asked questions

Is TV Track or Refract better?

It depends on what you want to track. Refract wins if you want one app across everything you watch, read and play: movies, TV, anime, books and games, with native iOS and Android apps. TV Track wins if TV shows and movies are your focus and you want them done deeply and free: an automatic "up next" queue, anime in TVDB order, a release calendar with free daily reminders, two-way Trakt sync and watch stats. Both are free with no ads, so many people happily use them side by side, one for the wider media shelf and one for shows and films.

Can I move from Refract to TV Track?

Yes. TV Track imports a Refract export in one click, preserving your real watch dates, and re-importing never duplicates. Nothing overwrites your library, so you can also merge a Refract import with TV Time, Trakt, Letterboxd or Watchfolio.

Is Refract free?

Based on publicly available information, Refract is free with no ads and no caps, and offers native apps on iOS and Android. TV Track is also fully free with no ads and no premium tier. Check getrefract.app for current details.

What is TV Time Out by Refract?

It is a separate free companion tool from Refract, a browser extension that exports your TV Time data locally as JSON, CSV or ZIP. It runs entirely client-side with no account and no server. TV Track can import a TV Time export directly too, so either route works to bring your history across.

Does TV Track track books and games like Refract?

No. TV Track focuses on TV shows and movies and does them in depth. Refract has the broader scope, also covering anime, books and games. If you want a single tracker for all of those, Refract fits; if TV and movies are your priority, TV Track is built for that.