A 7-year-old app starts moving to the web: Stash and the "game Letterboxd" gap on Android
What it is A phone app for logging games you've played, are playing, or want to play, with ratings, reviews, and following friends. Its users are mainly on Android.
Why it took off The category leader Backloggd has only ever been web-based, and players wanted to log on their phones. Stash built 2.4M installs through Play Store search and word of mouth on forums ("Backloggd has no app, use Stash"). October's ranking rise came from it moving its profile page, review sharing, and Top 9 grid onto the web.
CHow you could follow Don't just build another game-logging app. Copy its method of finding gaps: pick a category where the leader is web-only and users are begging for an app, build for Android first, generate detail pages in bulk from public databases to capture search, and add a no-signup sharing toy.
Global rank 146k · 90 days ago, top 1M+
stash.games's global traffic rank has jumped from around 1M to 146k in October. It looks like a newly risen site, but it's actually a game-logging app launched 2019 years ago that has 2.4M installs on Google Play, and it started moving onto the web this month. What's worth watching isn't this jump but how it got started: the biggest player in the category was web-only, so it built an Android app.
"None of them have a phone app"
In 2024 Nov 16, a user named Messofanego on the gaming forum ResetEra posted a thread titled "Stash is one of the best game-logging apps." Here's what he wrote:
Backloggery, Backloggd, and HLTB all lack phone apps. Stash has no desktop version and no website. Importing Steam carries playtime over automatically, which for me is the killer feature; I don't have to enter hours by hand.
Those few lines pretty much sum up Stash. Players have always wanted to record their games: what they've played, what they're playing, what they want to play, a rating, a couple of lines, and a way to compare with friends. That's been done on the web for ages. Backloggd, called the "game Letterboxd," ranks around 29k globally; HowLongToBeat, Backloggery, Infinite Backlog, and Grouvee are all websites too. But when a player finishes a session and wants to log it from the couch, what's in their hand is a phone.
On Backloggd's public roadmap, "Build an Android app" has about 20k votes and "Build an iOS app" about 15k, and as of October 2026 neither has shipped (Omniphile 10-31 comparison). A review site updated its Backloggd write-up in Oct 27 with a one-line verdict: "For logging on a computer, it's the best free tool. For logging on your phone, skip it. It still has no app."
What it is
Stash is a phone app: search for games, put them into "Want to play / Playing / Completed / Shelved," rate and review, follow other players, get release alerts, and import your Steam library. Game data comes from the public game database IGDB, and the app says "300k+ games."
It's made by Oleksandr Trykashnyi from Ukraine, who lists himself on LinkedIn as "Chief Android Engineer, Stash co-founder." The App Store listing is an individual developer account. The iOS version launched in 2019 Sep 15, and the Google Play version a week later.
Almost all the scale is on Android:
| Metric | Sources | |
|---|---|---|
| Google Play cumulative installs | 2,393,351 | Google Play,11-03 |
| Google Play rating | 4.67 stars, 16,918 ratings | Google Play,11-03 |
| New installs in the last two days | About 5,300 (two-day figure, reference only) | Google Play, 11-01 to 11-03 |
| US iOS store rating | 4.72 stars, 589 ratings | App Store,11-07 |
| Claimed on the website | "1M+ users" | stash.games |
Android and iOS differ by twenty to thirty times. The person who built the app came from Android engineering, which is probably not a coincidence.
Money comes from three places: ads in the app; in-app purchases, which Google Play lists at $0.99–$39.99; and a Pro annual fee that several third-party comparison sites list as $29.99 to $49.99 (unverified). Revenue has never been disclosed.
Where users come from
Mainly store search plus word of mouth; I haven't seen paid acquisition.
- Google Play search. Search for terms like "game tracker" or "backlog" on Play, and there are almost no rivals at the same scale. The second-ranked Minimap I could find has only 54k installs. Omniphile's comparison calls it "the most-downloaded Android game-logging app" outright. After seven years, 16,918 ratings is itself a ranking advantage.
- "Looking for recommendations" threads on forums. ResetEra, Reddit's r/gaming and r/Indiangamers, the French r/jeuxvideo, and Nintendo community Famiboards keep showing versions of the same line: "Backloggd has no app, so I use Stash."
- Hundreds of thousands of game pages. stash.games generates a page for each game from IGDB data, plus a page for each user review, and every page carries a "Download the app" button. Its web users are mainly in Brazil, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Turkey, and the Philippines. It has ranked in the top 2026k in those countries since May 500 (Chrome real-user data), while the US doesn't make the list. That matches the Android user distribution.
- Its own social presence is small. 148 TikTok followers, 251 on Threads.
What happened in October
| Timeline | Event |
|---|---|
| End of September | Global traffic rank broke into the top 1M for the first time |
| Around Oct 13 | Web profile page redesign launched |
| Oct 16 | Official LinkedIn post: "Stash is coming to the web," with the goal of bringing the full app feature set over |
| Oct 23, day 29 | Android adds "comments on comments"; iOS adds "share reviews"; shared links all point to stash.games |
| Oct 28 | Web "Top 9" launched: pick 9 favorite games to form a grid, no signup or app needed, then download or share the link |
| Nov 5 | Rank reached 146k and is still climbing |
The timing lines up, but the rank started moving at the end of September, half a month before the official announcement. The remaining gap may come from the redesign's gradual rollout, more game pages being indexed by search engines, or the app's own API requests also running through this domain (inference, can't be separated). Absolute web traffic is still small and doesn't make the global top 1M of real users. So this jump reflects existing app users and content being routed to the web, not the site pulling in a new batch of users.
Top 9 isn't new either: my9maker, grids.fun, and Topsters existed long before. Stash's version adds one thing: the 9 games you pick plug straight into its game library and app.
Who it's competing with
| Competitors | Where | Compared with Stash |
|---|---|---|
| Backloggd | Web | Category leader, rank around 29k; no app. Stash's web push now puts it in direct competition |
| GameTrack | Mainly iOS, with Android too | Strongest on iOS, around 1,250 ratings in the US store; free, connects 7 platforms' libraries, and 10-30 just released 7.0. Stash only connects Steam |
| HowLongToBeat | Web + app | Core is "how long to beat," not logging and social |
| Infinite Backlog, Grouvee, Backloggery | Web | Older websites; the last two are declining in rank |
| GG(ggapp.io) | App + website | Started the same year, but the iOS version hasn't been updated since April 2025 |
| Omniphile, Minimap, Logg, Raven, Sessionist, Cartridge, Backloot, GameDial, savepoint, and others | iOS / Android | A batch that appeared from late 2025 to autumn 2026, mostly with single-digit ratings |
Stash has no feature moat, and its platform sync is weaker than GameTrack's. Its moat is the Android ranking, ratings, and users built over seven years, which latecomers can't get.
If it were you
One-line verdict: Don't build another "game Letterboxd"; learn its method of finding gaps. On Android, Stash has held that spot for seven years. On iOS, a dozen new apps suddenly fought for it this year, and Backloggd owns the web.
Who it suits: indie developers who can build native Android apps and are willing to spend years in one category, slowly building through store search and word of mouth.
Who it doesn't suit: people who want revenue within three months, and people who plan to grow through paid acquisition (tools like this have low ticket prices, around $30 a year).
How to do it:
- Look for categories where the leader is web-only and users are asking for an app on roadmaps or forums. Backloggd's 20k votes are the evidence of demand, and the same signal can be found in other categories: logging and rating books, board games, anime, podcasts, hiking, wine, and perfume.
- Build for Android first; competition there is far smaller than on iOS.
- Use public databases (like IGDB) to generate detail pages in bulk, each with a download button, to capture long-tail search over time; make user reviews into searchable pages too.
- A play-without-signup share toy (9-grid, year-in-review) so content carries your domain out.
How they got users: store search keywords, plus answering "is there an app for XX" posts on forums and Reddit. Stash's own social barely had followers and still reached 2.4M.
Is there a window: no hard deadline, but the earlier you hold store rankings the better. Once the big sites ship their own apps, the slot closes. Watch Backloggd's roadmap.
Signs you read it wrong: Backloggd ships a real Android app and Stash's install growth visibly slows; or the category's top sites launch apps within six months.
Research notes: competitor table, acquisition evidence, full research report
- Competitors
Name Where Launched Scale How it differs from this one Backloggd Web 2020 Tranco ~29k, CrUX global top 50k; no app, roadmap has ~20k votes for an Android app The category's default answer, but web-only; Stash is a native app that only recently added web GameTrack iOS About 2021 US iOS ~1,250 ratings, Play 139 reviews; version 7.0 2026-10-30 Free sync of 7 platform libraries, iOS-first; Stash only syncs Steam but its Android installs are an order of magnitude higher HowLongToBeat Web About 2011 Tranco ~32k Core is completion-time data, not social logs Infinite Backlog Web About 2016 Tranco ~230k Web, free sync for Steam/PS/Xbox/GOG Grouvee Web About 2013 Tranco ~330k and falling; iOS 2026-07 in testing Mostly web, app not officially out yet Backloggery Web 2007 Tranco ~86k and falling Old-school hand-filled lists, no app GG (ggapp.io) iOS 2019 iOS 2025-04, then stopped updating Contemporaneous rival, now semi-dormant Omniphile / Minimap / Logg / Raven and other new apps iOS 2025-11 to 2026-09 Ratings 0–3 (appstore library); Minimap Play ~54k installs New entrants with no install or rating accumulation like Stash's Steam / Xbox / PlayStation App Big-company features — — Only manages its own platform libraries; no cross-platform logging or review social - Where users come from
- Verified Google Play store search + long-term reputation: launched 2019, 2.4M installs, 4.67 rating; Play's #2 in the category, Minimap, has only ~54k installs; Omniphile calls it the most-downloaded Android game tracker app
- Verified Forum/Reddit reputation: ResetEra "Stash is one of the best video game tracker apps", r/Indiangamers, r/gaming, r/jeuxvideo, Famiboards "Backloggd has no app, a friend recommended Stash"
- Verified Programmatic SEO (IGDB game pages + user review pages): search results full of stash.games/games/<slug> and api.stash.games mirror pages; CrUX shows several non-English countries persistently in the top 500k
- Inferred Web version + share links (profile pages, review shares, Top 9): LinkedIn 2026-10-16 "Stash is coming to the web"; iOS 2.6.12 (10-29) adds review sharing; Top 9 2026-10-28 launched; timing matches the Tranco climb
- Verified Owned social: TikTok 148 followers / 31 posts, Threads 251 followers, LinkedIn 1 followers; very small
- Inferred Paid acquisition: our Meta/Google/TikTok ad libraries show no match
Stash (stash.games) research report
Channel: web (Tranco climb recall, pool C1) | Research date: 2026-11-07 | One-line verdict: This is not a new product. It is a Ukrainian individual/small-team game tracker app, launched 2019 years ago, that reached 2.4M installs through Google Play store search and word of mouth. The website's October climb corresponds to its 2026-10 start of moving the app to the web (web profile pages, review share links, Top 9 9-grid generator), not to a new web product breaking out on its own.
1. What it is
- Stash - Video Games Tracker: a Letterboxd for games. Log played / playing / wishlist / dropped, rate and review, follow friends, new-game alerts, Steam import; game data from IGDB. (Official site mirrored at api.stash.games, read via Jina 2026-11-07; App Store description)
- Developer: Oleksandr Trykashnyi (Ukraine; LinkedIn lists him as Lead Android Engineer and Stash co-founder). The App Store developer account is in a personal name; iOS category is Social.
- Launch: iOS 2019-09-15, Google Play 2019-09-22 (iTunes lookup; our googleplay library
app.released). Product Hunt launch 2023-11-09, 123 votes (data card). - Scale (Android is the bulk):
- Google Play cumulative installs 2,393,351, rating 4.67 from 16,918 reviews; includes ads, in-app purchases $0.99–$39.99 (googleplay library app_snap, 2026-11-03). 11-01→11-03 observed increase 5,307 (about 2.6k/day, two-day total, a single reading shouldn't be taken at face value).
- US iOS has only 589 ratings at 4.72 stars, current version 2.6.12 (2026-10-29, added review sharing) (iTunes lookup 2026-11-07). In our appstore library it only appears in the Ukraine store (Social top grossing, #126, rating 129).
- The official site claims "1M+ Users Worldwide."
- Website: until recently mostly the app's landing page plus shareable game detail / review pages (programmatically generated from IGDB: /games/<slug>, /games/<slug>/reviews/<user>, /users/<name>), each page a "Get App" download prompt. The whole site sits behind Cloudflare human verification; the same site is fully accessible and indexed on the api.stash.games subdomain (large numbers of api.stash.games/games/... pages in Jina / Exa search results).
2. How to read the traffic data
| Date | Tranco rank |
|---|---|
| 2026-09-24 and earlier | Not in the top 1M |
| 2026-10-01 | 679,634 |
| 2026-10-08 | 546,475 |
| 2026-10-15 | 400,296 |
| 2026-10-22 | 240,287 |
| 2026-10-29 | 169,369 |
| 2026-11-05 | 146,291 |
(traffic library rank_day)
- Tranco is a 30-day rolling average: it entered the top 1M at the end of September and climbed to 146k through October, suggesting a step change in traffic from roughly mid-to-late September, still rising in early November.
- CrUX (real Chrome users, latest through 2026-09): stash.games has been in the top 500k tier since 2026-05 in Brazil, Spain, Italy, Mexico, Turkey and the Philippines; France went from the top 1M to the top 500k in July, and India dropped from the top 500k to the top 1M in August. It is absent from both the global and US rankings (traffic library crux_domain). In short, real web users have been there all along, mostly in non-English markets (consistent with the app's Android user base), but the volume is small. October's climb is not yet reflected in CrUX; that needs October data, expected mid-December.
- The timing of the climb lines up with these web-side moves:
- Around 2026-10-13: new web profile page goes live (site CSS version string
?v=20261013-avatar-2, recorded in Wayback CDX); - 2026-10-16: official LinkedIn post "🚀 Stash is coming to the web! … the redesigned user profile is live first, with the goal of moving all app features to the web" (linkedin.com/posts/stashgames_stash-is-coming-to-the-web…);
- 2026-10-23 / 11-02: Android 2.49.4 adds "replies to comments," iOS 2.6.12 (10-29) adds "review sharing"; the shared links are all stash.games URLs;
- 2026-10-28: web "Top 9" 9-grid generator launches, no signup and no app install required; generates 3×3 cards for download or share link (Threads @stashgames 10-28 post, 15 views);
- A "Use App" entry appears in the nav bar (web version entry point).
- But Tranco started moving at the end of September, before the 10-16 announcements. The stretch before late September may come from gradual rollout of the web redesign, more programmatic game pages being indexed by search engines, or app API requests hitting the main stash.games domain (api.stash.games and the main site share one registrable domain, which Tranco's DNS-based data sources count). I cannot verify which one it is.
- Around 2026-10-13: new web profile page goes live (site CSS version string
- Bottom line: absolute web traffic is still small (CrUX is not in the global top 1M), and the bulk of traffic is still the app, especially Android.
3. Competitors
| Product | Form | Launched | Scale | How Stash differs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Backloggd | Web (no app) | 2020 | Tranco ~29k, CrUX global top 50k; roadmap still has ~20k votes for an Android app and ~15k for iOS unbuilt (Omniphile 2026-10-31 article) | The default answer for "Letterboxd for games", but web-only. Stash is the reverse: app-only, just starting on the web |
| HowLongToBeat | Web + app | Around 2011 | Tranco ~32k | Core is completion-time data, not social logs |
| Backloggery | Web | 2007 | Tranco ~86k (falling) | Old-school hand-filled lists |
| Infinite Backlog | Web | About 2016 | Tranco ~230k | Free sync of Steam/PS/Xbox/GOG |
| Grouvee | Web (iOS 2026-07 in testing) | About 2013 | Tranco ~330k (falling) | Mostly web |
| GameTrack | iOS/Mac/Android | About 2021 | US iOS ~1,250 ratings, Play 139 reviews; version 7.0 released 2026-10-30, free sync of 7 platform libraries | The strongest rival on the iOS side, with far more complete platform sync than Stash. Stash's Android scale is an order of magnitude larger. |
| GG(ggapp.io) | App + website | 2019 | iOS 2025-04 and no longer updated (Omniphile) | half-abandoned |
| Omniphile, Minimap (54k installs on Play), Logg, Raven, Sessionist, Cartridge, Backloot, GameDial, Gaming Views and more | iOS / Android | a batch launched between 2025-11 and 2026-09 | rated 0–3 in our App Store library | a batch of small "Letterboxd for games" clones that popped up in 2026, none with real traction yet |
| Playnite | Open-source Windows | 2017 | — | desktop launcher aggregation, not social |
| Steam / Xbox / PlayStation App | Big-company features | — | — | only covers its own platform's library, no cross-platform logging or reviews |
| Top 9 generators: my9maker.com, grids.fun (Tranco 360k→570k), Topsters 3 (~550k), PubMeeple | Web | — | — | Stash's Top 9 came later; the only difference is that it plugs into its own game library and app funnel |
4. Where users came from (growth tactics)
| Channel | Evidence | Confirmed? |
|---|---|---|
| Google Play store search + long-term word of mouth | launched in 2019, 2.4M installs, rated 4.67; there are almost no rivals of comparable size in "game tracker / backlog" on Play (second in our library is Minimap at 54k); an Omniphile review lists it as the most-downloaded Android game logging app | Yes |
| community word of mouth (Reddit / ResetEra / forums) | a ResetEra thread, "Stash is one of the best video game tracker… apps"; r/Indiangamers, r/gaming, r/jeuxvideo, and Famiboards posts saying "Backloggd has no app, I use Stash"; there's an official r/stashgamestracker | Yes |
| programmatic SEO pages (game pages built from IGDB data, user review pages) | search results are full of stash.games/games/<slug> and api.stash.games mirror pages; CrUX shows it consistently ranking top-500k in several non-English countries | yes (scale unknown) |
| web version + shareable links (profiles, review shares, Top 9) | LinkedIn 10-16 announcement, Threads Top 10-28 post 9, iOS 2.6.12 review shares; timing lines up with the Tranco climb | Timing matches; causation not verified |
| Owned social media | TikTok @stashgamestracker has 148 followers and 31 videos (TikHub); Threads 251 followers; LinkedIn 1 followers. Very small. | Yes, but a very small contribution |
| Paid acquisition | the card's ads are empty (none matched in our Meta / Google / TikTok ad libraries); the app itself monetizes with ads | None seen |
| Product Hunt | 2023-11-09,123 votes | yes, one-time |
| Media / big accounts | no media coverage found; x-radar shows 90 posts in the last 0 days | None seen |
5. Why it took off
- It owns the empty Android spot for "Letterboxd for games": the biggest, Backloggd, is web-only, and users have asked for an Android app on its roadmap for 20k votes with none delivered; HowLongToBeat, Infinite Backlog, Backloggery and Grouvee are all web; GameTrack is mainly iOS with Android added later. Stash has been a native app for 2019 years, Android-first (built by an Android engineer), and has been capturing these searches on Play for 7 years, building up to 2.4M installs.
- Word of mouth, not paid acquisition: forum posts saying "Backloggd has no app, a friend recommended Stash" keep recurring; there's no evidence of paid ads.
- This recent web ranking climb is the app expanding onto the web: starting in 2026-10 it moved user profiles, reviews and Top 9 to the web; every share generates a stash.games link, and people can view and make lists without installing the app; plus IGDB-powered game pages (hundreds of thousands) keep catching long-tail search. This is turning existing app users and content into web traffic, not a sudden new acquisition surge.
6. Differentiation
- Compared with the web camp (Backloggd, HLTB, Infinite Backlog): a native mobile app, especially on Android. That's its core difference, and why it broke out.
- Compared with the app camp (GameTrack, Omniphile, etc.): larger Android scale, free to use, social features (follows, comments, reviews) that came early; but platform sync only covers Steam, unlike GameTrack, which connects 7 platforms for free. There's no feature moat; the moat is first-mover advantage and the ratings and reviews accumulated on Play.
- The new moves (web version, Top 9) patch its weak spot, the web, and head-on compete with Backloggd. Top 9 itself isn't differentiated (my9maker, grids.fun and Topsters had it first); it just adds a sharing and funnel hook.
7. Visibility and copycats
- Visibility: it's circulating in small circles. Revenue isn't public (no TrustMRR listing or founder revenue posts), no media coverage found, 0 posts on X; it only appears in game-forum threads asking for logging app recommendations and in comparison articles against rival Omniphile.
- Copycats: no copycats targeting Stash directly; but in the "game version of Letterboxd" category, a batch of new iOS apps appeared in 2026 (Logg 07-13, Raven 03-18, Sessionist 03-31, Cartridge 05/06, Backloot 08-20, GameDial 09-02, Gaming Views 09-08, from our App Store library), none with traction yet.
8. What others can learn
- Look for categories where the leader is web-only and users are begging for an app on the roadmap (Backloggd's 20k votes are proof of demand), and build a native app, especially for Android, where competition is far thinner than on iOS.
- Batch-generate detail pages from a public database (IGDB), put a download button on every page, and capture long-tail search for years; user-written reviews become indexable pages too.
- Turn user content into shareable web cards (Top 9, review shares) that can be made without signing up, so each one spreads with the domain attached.
9. Still unclear
- What drove the late-September to October Tranco jump is unclear: the site redesign, share links, search indexing, or app API traffic going through the main domain; which one dominates can't be separated. October CrUX data won't be out until about mid-December.
- It's unclear whether the indexing of the full api.stash.games mirror was intentional SEO or a misconfiguration (it may create duplicate content).
- Subscription (Pro) revenue scale and conversion rate are unknown; Play in-app purchases range $0.99–$39.99.
- Install growth: we only have observations from the first two days of November, so the long-term curve is unknown.
Sources
- data card /home/ljr/fanout/why/cards/web_stash.games.json
- traffic library (rank_day, crux_domain, product_domain), 2026-11-07 queries
- googleplay library (app, app_snap, app_day, app_profile), 2026-11-07 queries
- appstore library app_profile, 2026-11-07 queries
- iTunes lookup id=1479450797
- official site (read via api.stash.games): homepage, /top9/, /events, /games/fortnite
- LinkedIn "Stash is coming to the web!" 2026-10-16
- Threads @stashgames Top 9 post 2026-10-28
- Omniphile "Best Game Backlog Apps in 2026" 2026-10-31 www.omniphile.app/blog/best-game-backlog-app
- ResetEra www.resetera.com/threads/stash-is-one-of-the-best-video-game…; Reddit r/Indiangamers, r/gaming, r/jeuxvideo; Famiboards (Jina search snippets)
- TikHub: TikTok @stashgamestracker profile data
- Wayback CDX (stash.games CSS version numbers)