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AniList vs MyAnimeList

Today, there are many people who watch anime. Everybody keeps track of what they watched in a different way; some people remember what they watched, some people write it down on their phone, and some take this further by writing it down in a notebook. However, the easiest and most convenient method today is to use a website or service that is specifically for tracking anime.

Everyone who got into watching anime has heard about MyAnimeList, or MAL for short. It is a website where you can track your anime; you can rate it on a scale of 1–10; and it also has a forum where you can communicate and share your opinions on anime, manga, and other related content. Not a lot of people know, but MAL is not the only mainstream anime tracker available right now. There are other services, like AniDB, Kitsu, and AnimePlanet, but none of them comes even close to becoming a competitor to MAL; expect Anilist, or AL for short. In this mini essay, I’m going to be talking about the differences between Anilist and MyAnimeList, pros and cons, and why I switched from MyAnimeList to Anilist.

MyAnimeList is pretty old at this point (launched in 2004), and you can see that in their website design, it is not necessarily a bad thing; some people might prefer this design over the newer and more modern design from Anilist. Both websites have an account system, so you can sync to all of your devices and backup your anime at any given moment. Both of these services have any anime that you can think of. MAL, being the older brother, had an edge during the early days of AL, but nowadays AL has just as much, if not more, manga and anime on their database. There are still things that are better on MAL, like the forums. There are forums on AL too, but they are nowhere near as close to the ones on MAL. Leaving aside the fact that MAL has been here longer than AL, people just ask better and more valid questions on MAL forums. One aspect where MAL is a step ahead is the custom CSS anime lists, which let you show your anime list in your own unique style. But this is not a reason to stick to MAL; AL’s watchlist UI is still beautiful. It all depends on you, whether you want to put in the extra work to make it look beautiful or if you are fine with the default look from AniList.

AniList has some very strong points that make MyAnimeList a deal-breaker for me. I used MAL and AL for equal amounts of time, then switched from MAL to AL, and here’s why:

• The scoring system - On MyAnimeList, you have a simple yet efficient scoring system from 1 to 10, but there are times when a show is better than an 8, but not quite a 9 at the same time. You can’t score a show with an 8.6 or 9.2 on MyAnimeList, but this is where AniList comes into play. On AniList, you have different scoring systems, like 3/5 stars, 10 point decimal, and 100 point, and you can go even further by giving ratings to individual aspects of the anime (story, audio, characters).


• Native Dark Mode - Native Dark Mode is a normal feature on AniList, but not on MyAnimeList. This might be a personal preference, but I don’t want to get CS-GO-style flashbanged while looking for Christian anime. ;)


• Search Engine - MAL’s search engine works fine most of the time, but there are times when even if I search something correctly, it doesn’t appear. Also, the number of tags you can use for searching on AniList is higher compared to MyAnimeList.


• Top Anime rigged on MAL - Everyone who used MAL at some point probably noticed that the first anime on the Top Anime List is "Full Metal Alchimist". I do not think this is a bad show, but MAL users like to rig the rating system to keep their favorite anime on top. This is not the case on AniList, maybe because of the smaller userbase and because users don’t care so much about rigging the rating system.


• Support for non-japanese content - On Anilist you have more support for non-japanese content, meaning that you can also track your Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese anime or mangas and manhwas.


• Add more than 10 in your favorites - If you want to have this feature on MyAnimeList you will have to become a “MAL Supporter” which is around 3$/month or 30$/year; but if you have an AniList account, you will get this feature for free.


• Broken API - Most of the time, if there is an app with MAL and AL integrations, AniList will work better and have more features. (At some point MAL even disabled their API, so you weren’t able to use MAL integration on apps that offered this feature.)


• Appss - MyAnimeList is the only platform that has an official app for both Android and iOS, but it has its downsides. AniList doesn’t have an official app, but both Android and iOS have a variety of third-party and open-source apps. My personal favorite app for AniList is "Ryuusei." It is an iOS app; I do not own an Android phone at the moment, so I can’t talk about other apps. I will update this post once I try some of the Android apps.


• Switching from MAL to AniList is really easy - There is even a simple guide made by Ladmxt; I will link it here in case you want to switch and don’t know where to start.

This is pretty much what I wanted to say about these websites. Both have upsides and downsides; it only depends on how you look at them. At the end of the day, it’s your choice; I’m just a dude on the internet who wanted to share his opinion about this subject.