Track Everything for Free with No Ads and No Self-Hosting in 2026

The previous post on the best platforms to track movies, TV, anime, and manga ended on a hard truth: the only apps that actually unify everything in 2026 are Ryot and Yamtrack, both of which need you to run Docker on your own server. That's not what most people want.

This post is the opposite cut. Three strict rules:

Completely free. No paid tier required for full tracking.
No ads. Not in the web UI, not in the mobile app.
Fully managed by the website. No self-hosting. No Docker. No VPS. No "pip install." No browser extension required just to make it work.

That's a cruel filter. It eliminates Letterboxd (mobile app added ads in 2026), Goodreads (added profile ads mid-2026), MyAnimeList (always ad-supported with a paid "remove ads" tier), and every self-hosted solution. What's left is a small, honest shortlist — and a four-app combo that covers movies, TV, anime, manga, games, and books without you spending a rupee or watching a banner.

The strict shortlist (what survived)

Eight platforms passed all three rules in 2026:

Platform	Tracks	Why it passed
AniList	Anime + manga	Free, no ads, no paid tier exists
Simkl	Movies + TV + anime	Free, no ads in web/app, generous limits
Trakt	Movies + TV	Free, no ads, Feb 2026 raised free limits to 250 watchlist + 5 lists + 100K history
Backloggd	Video games	Free, no ads, optional cosmetic Patreon only
Hardcover	Books	Free, no ads, full features
The StoryGraph	Books	Free, no ads on free tier
Bangumi (bgm.tv)	Anime + manga + games + music + drama	Free, no ads, community-driven
Kitsu	Anime + manga + LN + drama	Free, no ads, open-source backend

That's the entire set. Anything not on that list either runs ads, gates core features behind a paywall, or asks you to host the server yourself.

What didn't make it (and why)

This is the part most blogs skip. Knowing what got cut is how you avoid signing up for something that will start charging you in six months.

Letterboxd — added ads to the mobile app

Letterboxd is still the gold standard for movies-as-a-hobby, but in early 2026 the mobile app started showing third-party ads on the free tier. Removing them costs $19/yr (Pro) or$ 49/yr (Patron). The web UI is still mostly clean. If your "no ads" rule is strict, Letterboxd is out — but if you only browse on the web, it sneaks back in.

Goodreads — added profile ads in mid-2026

Goodreads has always been clunky, but it stayed ad-light until mid-2026 when ads started appearing on profile pages and review feeds. Confirmed by the r/goodreads community. Use Hardcover or StoryGraph instead.

MyAnimeList — always had ads, "remove ads" is the paid tier

MAL Supporter is $2.99/mo and its main perk is ad removal. That's the business model. The catalog is still the largest in anime/manga, but if the "no ads" rule is hard, AniList is the substitute — same media types, modern UI, no ads at any tier.

TV Time — ad-supported by design

Free with ads, $3.99/mo to remove them. Cleanly fails the rule.

Anime-Planet — has the free legal streaming, has the ads

The "free legal anime + tracker in one" pitch is unique, but the streaming is what's monetised, with ads.

Ryot, Yamtrack, MediaTracker, Movary, Bookwyrm — self-hosted only

These are excellent and ad-free, but they need a server. The federated "cloud" instances of Bookwyrm exist, but you're trusting a stranger's server, and instances come and go. Doesn't fit "fully managed by the website" as a reliable promise.

Achriom — has a free tier, but the AI features need Pro

Free tier is real, but the AI librarian (the actual differentiator) is limited to 50 messages/month before $9.99/mo Pro. Treat it as freemium, not free.

Notion / Airtable templates — free, ad-free, cloud-hosted… but not a tracker

You can build a tracker on Notion or Airtable for free. But it's a spreadsheet with extra steps — no episode-level scrobbling, no auto-import when a new season airs, no community ratings, no calendar feed. Useful for niche habits (e.g. tracking books you've gifted), wrong tool for "what episode am I on of Severance."

The eight survivors, one at a time

AniList — anime + manga, the modern free default

URL: anilist.co
Covers: Anime + manga.
Apps: Web, plus excellent third-party iOS/Android/Windows/macOS apps built on the public GraphQL API.
Free? Yes. Ads? None at any tier. Self-hosted? No — fully managed.

AniList is the clearest "passes" on the list. There is no paid tier because there is nothing to upsell — the platform is community-supported and the API is open. Custom list statuses, multiple scoring systems (10-point, 100-point, stars, smileys), customizable colour schemes, and a real-time activity feed.

If you've been on MyAnimeList for years, MAL-Sync (a free browser extension) can mirror your list to AniList — and from then on you can use either, or both. AniList also imports MAL exports directly.

Simkl — movies + TV + anime, the cloud "almost-everything"

URL: simkl.com
Covers: TV shows, movies, anime. Not manga, books, or games.
Apps: Web, iOS, Android, Windows, plus Plex/Kodi/Emby/Jellyfin scrobbling addons and a Chrome extension.
Free? Yes, generously. Ads? None on free tier. Self-hosted? No.

Simkl is the closest single platform gets to "everything you watch in one place." The free tier doesn't have the 100-item-watchlist style nonsense that other platforms tried in 2026 — full tracking, full calendar, full auto-scrobbling from Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Prime, Apple TV, and the big media servers. Imports from 21+ services if you're migrating.

The honest gap: Simkl doesn't track manga. The marketing copy sometimes blurs this, the actual UI confirms it. Pair Simkl with AniList and you've covered movies + TV + anime + manga without leaving the cloud and without paying or watching ads.

Trakt — movies + TV, scrobbling king (and 2026 actually fixed itself)

URL: trakt.tv
Covers: Movies + TV. Anime works but is treated as generic TV.
Apps: Web, iOS, Android, plus a deep ecosystem of third-party apps (Wako, Rippple) and media-server integrations.
Free? Yes. Ads? None. Self-hosted? No.

A correction worth flagging: when the May 2025 Trakt V3 migration first landed, the free tier was capped at 100 watchlist items and a lot of people (myself included) jumped ship. In February 2026 Trakt loosened those limits — free users now get 250 watchlist items, 5 personal lists, and 100,000 watched-history entries (forum post). That's enough headroom for almost any real backlog.

VIP exists ( $4.99–$ 9.99/mo) for unlimited lists, advanced filtering, and year-in-review, but nothing about it is required to use Trakt seriously. The free tier is genuinely free, with no ads, in 2026.

If you live in Plex, Jellyfin, Kodi, or Emby, Trakt's scrobbling is still the deepest integration in the field. If you live mostly on streaming apps, Simkl edges it out. Either way, neither charges you to track.

Backloggd — games, no compromises

URL: backloggd.com
Covers: Video games (data from IGDB).
Apps: Mobile-friendly web; mobile app in development.
Free? Yes. Ads? None. Self-hosted? No.

Backloggd is the only mainstream game tracker that genuinely respects the free tier. Logging, playtime, platform ownership, lists, reviews, following, stats — all free. The optional Backer tier ($3/mo via Patreon) unlocks profile cosmetics and beta access; nothing functional is gated.

This one is a clean pass. If you also play games, just use it.

Hardcover — books, indie, with an actual API

URL: hardcover.app
Covers: Books.
Apps: Web, iOS, Android.
Free? Yes. Ads? None. Self-hosted? No.

The indie alternative to Goodreads, built by a small team that publishes monthly dev reports and revenue numbers. Free tier has unlimited tracking, half-star ratings, custom lists, and a "For You" feed. The Supporter tier ($4.99/mo) adds librarian access and Discord perks — not core features. Public GraphQL API — rare for a book tracker.

The StoryGraph — books, the stats one

URL: thestorygraph.com
Covers: Books.
Apps: Web, iOS, Android.
Free? Yes. Ads? None. Self-hosted? No.

The other indie Goodreads alternative. StoryGraph's pitch is the stats and mood-based recommendations — track which moods/themes you gravitate to, not just star ratings. Plus tier ($4.99/mo) unlocks buddy-reads, more advanced stats, and challenge customization, but again the core tracker is free and clean.

Pick Hardcover if you want a developer-friendly platform with an open API. Pick StoryGraph if you want better stats out of the box. Either is fine — both are ad-free and cloud-hosted.

Bangumi (bgm.tv) — Japan/China-leaning all-in-one

URL: bgm.tv
Covers: Anime, manga, games, music, drama (and live-action TV through the drama category).
Apps: Multiple unofficial mobile clients on iOS/Android (the platform has open APIs).
Free? Yes. Ads? None. Self-hosted? No.

The hidden gem of the shortlist. Bangumi is a community-driven Chinese platform (Chinese UI primary, but English titles work and most browsers auto-translate it cleanly) that quietly tracks more media types in one place than any other free, ad-free, cloud-hosted option. Anime, manga, games, and music in particular are all first-class.

The catch is the language barrier: the UI is Mandarin and the community discussion is too. If you're comfortable with browser auto-translate, this is the closest thing to a single ad-free cloud "everything tracker."

Kitsu — anime + manga + light novels + drama

URL: kitsu.app
Covers: Anime, manga, light novels, Asian drama.
Apps: Web, iOS, Android.
Free? Yes. Ads? None. Self-hosted? No (the backend is open-source under Apache-2.0, but kitsu.app itself is fully managed by the team).

Kitsu lost some momentum to AniList over the past few years but is still a clean, modern, fully cloud-hosted option that respects the rules. The light-novel and Asian-drama support is the differentiator if those are your thing.

What the rule fails to give you

Three honest trade-offs from being this strict:

No single cloud platform tracks all six categories (movies, TV, anime, manga, games, books) for free with no ads. Bangumi gets closest but is in Mandarin and weak on Western movies. Anything that promises "all six in one ad-free free app" is either self-hosted (Ryot, Yamtrack), running a freemium AI gimmick (Achriom), or about to start showing you ads.
Auto-scrobbling is mostly free already — Trakt and Simkl don't charge for the streaming-service detection, and Mihon's tracker sync for manga is free too. The exception is anime: Crunchyroll/HiDive scrobbling typically needs the MAL-Sync browser extension (free, ad-free, but it's a third-party browser extension — counts against the "fully managed by the website" rule if you read it strictly).
No social network in this shortlist is huge. Letterboxd has the activity. Serializd has it for TV. Both are cut from this list — the first by ads, the second by the small Playwire footer it now carries. If "what are my friends watching" is the actual reason you want a tracker, you may need to relax the ad rule slightly.

The four-app combo that covers everything

If you want one prescription, here it is. Four free, ad-free, cloud-hosted accounts, no servers anywhere:

Simkl (movies + TV + anime) + AniList (manga) + Backloggd (games) + Hardcover or StoryGraph (books)

Total cost: zero. Total ads: zero. Total servers you maintain: zero. All four have proper mobile apps and import/export so your history isn't locked in.

If you'd rather not use Simkl (some people prefer Trakt's scrobbling for Plex/Jellyfin libraries), swap it for Trakt — the post-Feb-2026 free tier is generous enough for almost everyone. Same rules met, slightly different strengths.

Why this is harder than it should be

A free, ad-free, cloud-hosted media tracker is genuinely expensive to run. Database storage, image CDN, mobile-app maintenance, scrobbling infrastructure — somebody has to pay for it. Most platforms solve that with one of three things: ads, a paid tier, or "you host it yourself."

The platforms on this shortlist solve it differently — community donations (AniList, Bangumi), generous free tiers backed by an optional premium (Trakt, Simkl, Hardcover, StoryGraph, Backloggd), or an open-source license that lets the team accept contributions (Kitsu).

That's why the list is short. It's also why it's worth chipping in a few dollars to the ones you use most, even if their free tier covers your needs — that's how the next AniList or Backloggd stays free for the next person who comes along with the same three rules.

Closing

If you stick to the rules — free, no ads, no self-hosting — the answer in 2026 is genuinely just four apps: Simkl, AniList, Backloggd, and Hardcover/StoryGraph. (Or Trakt instead of Simkl, if you prefer.) That's the whole answer. Anything more elaborate is either paying you back in ads, charging you for a tier you don't need, or asking you to become a sysadmin.

For most people, that's not a compromise. It's the right answer.