Trakt is the tracker power users reach for. Connect it to Plex, Kodi, Jellyfin or an app, and it scrobbles automatically — every episode you play checks itself in, feeding a deep well of stats, calendars and watchlists. It’s an engine with an API, integrations and a community attached.
Seen is the opposite premise on purpose. It’s a private catalog you update by hand: search a title, mark it seen, add a reaction or a note, move on. Nothing is watching your media server, nothing scrobbles in the background, and there’s no public profile or feed on the other side of it.
If you live inside a Plex/Kodi setup and want every play logged for you, Trakt is built for exactly that. If the automation and the stats-heavy dashboard are more than you want — and you’d rather a quiet, deliberate record — this is the comparison for you.
At a glance
| Seen | Trakt | |
|---|---|---|
| Core model | Private hand-kept catalog | Automated scrobbling engine |
| Auto-tracking via Plex/Kodi/etc | — (manual by design) | ✓ |
| Stats & calendars | Light, personal | Extensive dashboards |
| Social / public profile | — | ✓ |
| Pushed recommendations | — (ask, don’t get pushed) | ✓ |
| Reactions & notes | ✓ private | Comments & ratings |
| Aesthetic | Minimal, text-first | Data-dense, poster-heavy |
Where Seen is different
Manual on purpose. No scrobbler, no media-server hooks, no background agent logging what you play. You decide what counts as “seen” and record it yourself — a smaller, more deliberate catalog instead of an exhaustive auto-generated log.
Private by design. No public profile, no followers, no shared activity. Your catalog is a tool for you, not a dashboard for anyone else. Full data ownership lands with self-hosting (on the roadmap, not ready yet); for now the hosted app simply keeps your catalog to itself.
Nothing pushed at you. No engine nudging you toward the next thing. When you do want a suggestion, you go to an intelligence layer that actually knows your taste and ask — a film companion you reach for, not a recommendation sold to you.
Text-first, deliberately quiet. Where Trakt leans into dense dashboards, charts and poster grids, Seen is typographic and calm. Less to configure, less to look at, less to manage.
Where Trakt is the better pick
Be honest with yourself here. If automatic scrobbling is the whole appeal — you want every Plex or Kodi play logged without lifting a finger, deep year-in-review stats, a public profile, an API to build on, and an upcoming- episodes calendar — that’s Trakt’s entire reason for being, and Seen deliberately doesn’t compete on it.
Coming from Trakt?
A Trakt connection is on the roadmap so you can bring your watch history across. It isn’t shipped yet — follow the roadmap to know when it lands.
Want the quiet version of tracking what you’ve watched? Try Seen.