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TV Time vs Trakt vs OpenTV: Which Feels Most Like TV Time?

People searching "TV Time vs Trakt" usually want one answer: if I move, will it still feel like the app I used every day? It is a fair question. Trakt and TV Time were always different kinds of product, and OpenTV is a third take.

This is a side-by-side look at all three. We make OpenTV, so we are not neutral, but we have tried to be fair and to source what we say about Trakt. Where Trakt is the better choice, we say so.

Three different ideas

TV Time was a free phone app, social at heart. You ticked off episodes, picked an emotion, voted for your favourite character, and read the comments under each episode. It stopped running after 15 July 2026.

Trakt is a service. Your history lives on Trakt's servers, tied to your account, and you reach it from its website, its own phone apps, or one of the many apps and media centres that connect to it. It has been running since 2010.

OpenTV is a phone and tablet app, for iPhone, iPad and Android. Your library lives on your phone, with no account needed. It looks and works like TV Time, and it is open source. It is not TV Time and is not affiliated with it.

The look and the daily routine

This is where the "feels like TV Time" question is really answered.

OpenTV is built to keep TV Time's habits. Four tabs: Shows, Movies, Explore, Profile. Watch List and Upcoming on the Shows tab. Posters up front, one tap to mark an episode. After an episode, the same prompts: a rating, "HOW DID YOU FEEL?", and "WHO WAS YOUR FAVORITE?". The colours follow the same rule of yellow for actions and green for done.

Trakt has its own design and its own way of doing things. Plenty of people love it. It is simply a different app, and coming from TV Time you will be learning new habits rather than keeping old ones.

If familiarity is your main goal, OpenTV is the closer match. That is the point of it.

What survives the import

Both OpenTV and Trakt can read the TV Time export.

OpenTV imports episodes with their watch dates, rewatches, show and film follows, favourites, episode and film ratings, emotions, favourite-character votes, lists, your own comments, and the people you followed. The steps are in how to get your TV Time history back.

Trakt's importer brings in your watch history too. One difference worth knowing: a reply on Trakt's forum on 9 July 2026 said episode ratings are not supported in its TV Time importer, so only show and film ratings come across. If you rated a lot of episodes, that matters.

Where your history lives

With Trakt, your history is on Trakt's servers. That has real advantages: it is on every device you sign in on, and on the web.

With OpenTV, your history is in a database on your phone. It works offline and with no account. To keep it safe, OpenTV backs up to your own iCloud Drive on iPhone or your own Google Drive on Android, for free. Your own devices can also stay in sync through that same iCloud or Google Drive, free and with no account. Syncing through our server is part of the optional OpenTV Plus subscription.

Neither model is wrong. They protect you from different things. We wrote about the trade-offs in what happens to your watch history when a tracker shuts down.

The social side

TV Time's comments were a big part of it. Trakt has comments under shows and episodes. OpenTV has them too, for people who join its optional community, and it also shows the archived TV Time comments through CommsUni.tv, with one-tap translation. See the TV Time episode comments are back.

Price and limits

Trakt has a free tier and a paid VIP plan. In 2025 it set stricter limits for free users, including caps on lists. Check Trakt's site for the current details, as they change.

OpenTV is free with no ads, and lists on your phone have no cap. The optional OpenTV Plus subscription adds extras like Watch together, Deep Stats, profile themes, and backup and sync through our server. Tracking never needs it, and nor does sync between your own devices.

Automatic tracking

Trakt has the widest range here, through media centres, plugins and connected apps.

OpenTV connects to Plex, Jellyfin and Stremio. It reads what you watched there and ticks off episodes of shows you already track. It is read-only and never sends anything back. See track what you watch on Stremio automatically.

Choose Trakt if

Choose OpenTV if

You can use both

These are not exclusive. OpenTV imports Trakt exports, so you can bring a Trakt history across at any time. See how to move your history from Trakt, Letterboxd, Simkl or IMDb.

Try it

Download OpenTV on the App Store or Google Play. For the detailed table, read OpenTV vs Trakt. For more options, see TV Time alternatives, and when you are ready, our import your TV Time history guide.

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