Wattpad alternatives for readers and writers

Wattpad is one of the biggest websites for reading and writing fiction online. But there are lots of great alternatives to Wattpad if you're looking for something different. Perhaps you don't want to have to fight for attention on a website with 90 million users.

Here are five Wattpad alternatives worth checking out.

1. Fictra - Best for human-written content

Fictra is a new website built for reading and writing content without AI. If you want to know all the fiction on a website is written by a human being, this is the place for you.

Fictra is a new platform dedicated to human-written fiction. No AI-generated stories, just original work by real writers. Explore a growing collection of stories across genres including crime, psychological thrillers and dystopian tech.

Fictra is also home to unique collaborative crime worlds told through realistic found documents, where readers uncover the truth piece by piece. There is a wide selection of genres to read on Fictra, from psychological thrillers to dystopian tech.

Fictra also organises competitions for authors and offers cash prizes to winners.

It's free to write on Fictra - create an account today.

2. Royal Road - Best for Fantasy and LitRPG

One of the big rivals to Wattpad is Royal Road. Its readership skews more male and it's more focused on fantasy and LitRPG than Wattpad, which is more of a generic platform.

Royal Road seems to be better than Wattpad in terms of writers getting paid as it's more friendly towards authors monetizing with external websites like Patreon. It does not have native monetisation features.

Feedback from readers tends to be more blunt than on Wattpad but is arguably more constructive.

3. Archive of Our Own (AO3) - Best for fanfiction

A good fan fiction alternative to Wattpad is Archive of Our Own (A03). Unlike Wattpad, which is a private for-profit company, Archive of Our Own was set up as a non-profit by the Organization for Transformative Works in 2009.

Lovers of fanfiction like A03 due to the absence of ads, algorithms or pushes towards monetisation. The search feature lets readers combine lots of tags together so you can fine-tune your search and find exactly what you're looking for.

4. Inkitt - Best for data-driven discovery

Inkitt is a very data-driven platform for writers. Stories that meet the right performance metrics are selected for publication on Galatea, Inkitt's paid app.

Unlike Wattpad, Inkitt selects authors based on data metrics collected from readers rather than by staff.

5. Tapas - Best for Webcomics

Tapas is a good change from Wattpad if you're looking for a platform that specialises in webcomics. Tapas offers genres such as Romance Fantasy, Action and Horror and there are web novels available as well now.

Readers on Tapas are generally older and more likely to be female than on Wattpad.

Writers are able to make money on Tapas by earning a share of payments from readers.

Summary

There are lots of alternatives to using Wattpad. Fictra is free to use, comes without AI slop and is particularly good for online crime fiction. Tapas is good for webcomics and Royal Road is a great choice for fantasy fiction.

Cover image: platform names shown in similar typefaces for illustration; these are not the companies' official logos.