One question settles this comparison faster than any feature list: do you want other people to see what you watch? Serializd is built on the answer being yes. It is a place to publish reviews, follow friends and argue about a finale. ReelStack is built on the answer being no. There is no profile, no feed and no account, because nothing you log ever leaves your phone.
Disclosure: we make ReelStack. Serializd is very good, it is free with no paid tier of any kind, and it is actively developed by someone who clearly cares about it. If the social side is what you want, we say so plainly rather than pretend ReelStack does that too.
The short answer
Serializd is the fit if you want to write and read reviews, rate individual episodes, or want it free.
ReelStack is built for tracking films alongside television, with no account and no audience, your watching stays yours.
Side by side
| ReelStack | Serializd | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A private tracker | A public review community |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad | iOS, Android, web |
| Account | None | Required |
| Films | Yes | No, television only |
| Visible to others | Nothing | Profile, reviews and diary by default |
| Where your library lives | On your device, synced through your own iCloud | On Serializd's servers |
| Price | Free to 8 titles, then $4.99 once | Free, no paid tier |
| Reviews and following | No | Yes, the main event |
| Rating granularity | Whole title | Episode, season or series |
| Viewing stats | Coming in 1.8: hours, episodes, a year of viewing, and a monthly wrap card to share | Yes, watch time and genre breakdowns |
| Episode alerts | On the day it airs | Yes, reminders and release dates |
| Where to watch | Shown per title, with rental only marked | Not the focus |
Checked August 2026 against both apps' current App Store listings.
Where Serializd is genuinely better
This is a longer list than we would like, and pretending otherwise would waste your time.
- The community, which is the entire point. Reviews, follows, and a real conversation about television. We do not have this and we are not building it. If what you miss about TV Time is other people, we are the wrong app.
- It is free, with no paid tier at all. Not a free trial or a limited tier. The whole app, at no cost. We charge $4.99 after eight titles.
- Episode level ratings. You can rate a single episode, a season or the whole series. ReelStack rates the title as a whole, and tracks your progress by season rather than episode.
- It runs everywhere. iPhone, Android and the web. ReelStack is Apple only.
Where ReelStack is different
Films count too
Serializd is television only, by design. If you also want to keep track of the films you mean to watch, that has to live in a second app. ReelStack holds both in one library, with films and shows sitting side by side in the same watchlist.
Nothing is public, because there is nothing to be public on
There is no sign up, no profile, no username and no follower count. Your library is stored on your device and syncs to your other Apple devices through your own iCloud, which means we never hold it and could not publish it by accident. For some people the social layer is the reason to use a tracker. For others it is the reason they stopped.
Knowing where to watch it
ReelStack shows which service each title is on, and marks the ones that are rental only rather than included with a subscription. That is a different job from reviewing, and it is the job we care about most: not what you thought of it, but whether you can watch it tonight.
You pay us, which tells you what we are
$4.99 once, first eight titles free, no ads and no subscription. That is worth saying plainly for a reason. Serializd is free with no paid tier, and free is genuinely wonderful right up until the bill arrives somewhere else. TV Time was free too, for 25 million people, until its owner decided the community was a cost rather than a business.
To be fair to Serializd, nobody has announced anything of the kind, and an independently run app is a very different situation from a venture-owned one. But it is a question worth asking of any free service holding years of your history, ours included if we were free: who pays for this, and what happens when they stop?
What ReelStack adds if you keep Serializd too
Plenty of people will run both, and that is not a compromise, it is two different jobs. Serializd is where you write about what you finished. ReelStack is the half Serializd does not do at all: private tracking, and a notification the day season four actually starts, with no post about it required. Keep Serializd for what it does best, and add ReelStack for the half that is missing.
So which one
Serializd
You want to write and read reviews. You rate episodes individually. You want it free. You track television and nothing else.
ReelStack
You track films as well as shows. You do not want an account or a profile. You want to be told when the next episode airs and which service has it, privately, on Apple devices.
Get ReelStack on the App Store
Available in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
Never miss an episode.
Free for your first eight titles, then $4.99 once. No account, no subscription.