Former MAL/Kitsu users, what made you switch?

I tried to use MAL but i genuinely just thought it was ugly as hell. Just logged everything in my brain until someone suggested anilist to me which is definitely more visually appealing.

switched from MAL like 2 weeks ago(ish) and i switched purely because it being down so often got so bad that my friends and i took turns checking if it was up

I was also on MAL
I changed because AL is WAY more beautiful, it has an unlimited number of favorites and it's actually useful to follow people (cause having friends on MAL doesn't do shit)
Also the stats tab is pretty neat

I hated MAL making you use the 10 point rating system, and I hated that you couldn't decide between english and romaji titles so when I found out AL had that stuff I switched

tbh, some mal users suck, they see a review they dislike and be like:

i have used anilist way more than i usually do and i would rather use their episode discussion as well since everyone on mal tries to compete to create their episode thread first lmao.
though in all fairness, with the large user base on mal it would make sense if you saw shitty gatekeepers everywhere. and i don't think anilist is innocent too lol.
i haven't gone away from mal completely but i wouldn't be surprised at myself if i just used anilist as a primary listing site in the future. also mal keeps going down like every week.

Unpopular opinion, but I thought MAL was an eyesore. But that's just me

mal was just shit
the profiles were too difficult to customize without all this css nonsense
you couldnt use mal with animemusicquiz because the api is busted
theres no dark mode
the web design is dated as all hell looks like a late 2000s early 2010s website
you couldnt use english titles even though theyre in mals database
you have unlimited favorites on anilist
and following people actually does something
on mal it did fuck all
basically
anilist does everything mal can do
but a million times better
also it would go down so goddamn often

I already didn't like that MAL had an ugly interface and made me use a weird password. I made an account for anilist because the list would work on animemusicquiz, and have been using it since. Have also seen more anime since I"ve gotten on here. :)

MAL crashed for a really long period of time in 2018, I lost all trust in their system since then and migrated.

I used to use MAL, but the sight crashes, and the poor aesthetic of it put me off. I prefer this site without a doubt

I had plenty of reasons to absolutely hate that website, in particular here are the major reasons:

Elitism - Honestly, this wouldn't have bothered me so much if the reviews weren't so all in your face along with the forums but they just were. The constantly amount of rate trolling I see, and just elitism from just rating and reviewing alone is just insane. It's one thing to rate something poorly if you have a different opinion, but it's another to go on an entirely different level and just rate everything poorly and "pledge your superior taste" with a mean score less than 5. Like seriously, if you have a mean score less than 5 you either have serious issues or are just trolling. It's one of the major reasons why I moved here, since it seems like most of the users here are somewhat serious and there aren't many trolls. (but I'm sure this will change as the site continues to grow)

The layout - After all of these years, they still haven't fixed the layout? The only good thing about it is the CSS customization, otherwise it looks horrible. Looks straight up like it's from 2010 and STILL hasn't been changed to this day. It was so bad I had to use tampermonkey scripts so somewhat ease the pain. There's even petty stuff like, a limit on favorite characters (unless you donate).

Forum toxicity - I don't know why, but the forums seem very toxic and I kind of get the impression that the same people on the forums are the ones writing these troll / elitist reviews. Most threads are "taunting" in ways that won't break the sites rules but will get you kind of upset sometimes. It's just not fun.

Yeah, there's quite a bit of annoyances, but I have to say. Most of us used MAL because there was no better alternative and it had the biggest library at the time. But, that's until anilist came along :)

MAL was down all the time so i decided to check out AniList. I moved because AniList looks alot better, isn't down all the time, is easier to navigate and following people does something here.
The only thing i have a little bit of a problem with is the Session expired thing. But AniList is still 1000x better than MAL.

mals awful buggy mess of a layout, them making you pay to add more than 10 favorites, did i mention that their rewatch feature literally only half works, looks ugly, no customization for scoring methods, etc

got permabanned from mal lmao

Honestly, I switched cuz most of my friends are here. I still prefer MAL for scores and news. And sadly lelouch aint at top here :/

switch over from MAL aswell.
I switched over cause a fuck ton of my friends use it and I was alone on MAL. I also heard about the user friendly environment and the less toxic people. I also looked up what it was like before I joined and saw there was a dark mode, better UI, very pleasing stats page, scoring system, and makes usefulness of friending people (Unlike MAL... friends dont do shit on there)

i had some mobile app that stopped mal compatibility and switched to this site. one day i checked this site out on desktop and it just seemed better cus it has a lot of stuff mal doesnt

edit: sorry for the awful grammar in this post. too lazy to fix tho

I feel like I have been all around. I got off MAL because I was obsessed with a dude that had those initials. It was too traumatic for me to go there. AnimePlanet I was using for a while but the community seemed full of vermin which is not my right atmosphere. I have had Kitsu most recently and found it to be the best one. Very interactive. The iPhone application however was not being updated and buggy.
I appreciate the new experience ☺️

used MAL for over 2.5 years, still using it as backup, but I am spending way more time here by now for three reasons: 1. MAL is more down than not these days 2. limited favorites until you pay 3. there are plenty titles missing from their database for reasons like "not available in print", welcome to the digital age <<
Anilist is great compared <3

came for the more accurate rating system (and also cuz mal was down), stayed for the awesome ui, entertaining forums (some of them), and wayy better community interaction.

tbh i didnt even know you could friend others on mal until 3 months later lol

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one, but I switched due to MAL shutting down for like 2-3 months back in 2018. Once I discovered AL and it's beautiful UI and features, I can't go back to MAL anymore.

interface and better rating system

I originally switched when MAL's servers just completely exploded and died for about 4 months. That was some time around May 2018? There are some things about MAL that I still prefer over Anilist, but at this point, there's no point to go back.

MAL was an eyesore. I stumbled upon this and made the jump

because mal wasn't working right with amq. that's literally it

I used MAL briefly until I realized they removed the API, also I probably won't switch back (because I think the API is back now) because I hate how people make their page look like an eyesore with all their custom shit

I switched when MAL removed the API. I can't live without the API.

Almost 4 months ago, a video that popped up on my 3am spree showing the flaws of MAL .

Great vid, I mean it a great site but this video makes a good point on the moderation of the site (for the fact that it the most popular site for anime).

Along with the fact that I was getting tired of the format.

Though without MAL I wouldn't be here.

I use both, but I gotta say, i'm probably only staying on MAL because its familiar to me,, AL is pretty userfriendly as far as the site goes, but I have a few customization things I really like on MAL that, obviously, aren't on AL.

Left Kitsu in 2016 because the forum frequenters were trolls, haven't looked back since.