TV Time shut down on July 15, 2026
Trakt vs TV Time: the right replacement?
Trakt is the name that comes up most often when looking for a TV Time replacement, and it's earned: it's the richest tracking ecosystem out there. The thing to know before committing is what it actually costs once you outgrow the free tier.
Checked on September 30, 2026
Trakt and WatchTrail, point by point
| Criterion | Trakt | WatchTrail |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free with caps; VIP $60/year full price | Free, no ads |
| Free tier | Capped: 250 items per watchlist or list, 5 personal lists (announced February 2026) | Unlimited tracking, calendar, stats and import |
| Automatic tracking (scrobbling) | Yes — Plex, Kodi and many third-party apps | No: you tick episodes (or a whole season at once) |
| TV Time import | Yes | Yes, matched by ID rather than by title |
| Movies + shows | Yes | Yes |
What Trakt does better than us
- The most mature automatic tracking: if you watch through Plex or Kodi, your history fills itself in
- A huge ecosystem: dozens of third-party apps connect to it
- A mature API, used by a large share of the tools in this space
Where Trakt falls short
- VIP pricing doubled in February 2025: $60/year full price
- The free tier is capped: lists and watchlist are limited
- The interface is dense — an enthusiast's tool, not a mainstream app
Trakt is the right pick if…
If you run Plex or Kodi and automatic tracking is your top priority, Trakt remains the best option out there — and $60/year is a fair price for the manual work it saves you.
So where does WatchTrail fit?
WatchTrail comes at it from the other end: everything that was free on TV Time stays free here (tracking, calendar, notifications, statistics, import, export), with no caps and no ads. In exchange, there's no automatic scrobbling: you tick episodes — or a whole season in one click. And the community is young, that's worth saying.
Frequently asked questions
Can you bring your Trakt history into WatchTrail?
Yes, from its CSV export — announced as reserved to Trakt VIP subscribers, or produced by a third-party tool; the free export, as JSON files, isn't read yet. It is the most faithful of the five migrations we accept: a Trakt CSV export carries season, episode, watch date and the identifiers (TMDB, IMDb, TheTVDB): the history comes over episode by episode with its dates, and shows are matched by identifier rather than by title — so no mix-up between two shows sharing a name. Drop the file on the import page; the format is detected on its own.
Is Trakt free?
There is a free tier, with caps announced in February 2026: 250 items per watchlist or list and five personal lists. Beyond that you need VIP, $60 per year at full price.
Can you import TV Time history into Trakt?
Yes. The criterion that matters isn't whether an import exists, but how shows are matched: ID-based matching is far more reliable than title matching, especially across dubbed and original titles.
The real criterion: your history
Whatever tool you pick, check that it takes your TV Time export — and how. On WatchTrail, every show is matched by its ID, not by its title.
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Other services' pricing and features change over time: this page shows when it was last checked. When in doubt, the service's own page is authoritative.