Webtoon Vs Tapas

Today we are going to be going over the pros and cons of the 2 largest webcomic websites on the internet to see which one is better for posting your beautiful comic on. It’s Tapas. I have a huge list of features that prove Tapas is better. Which is why if you have to choose between the 2, choose LINE Webtoon. And here’s why. 

Now it’s important to note that comics can be posted on both websites. There are no laws stopping you. Unless of course you are directly paid for exclusivity rights. Otherwise, post it on both of those sites and any other site you wish.

With said, let’s go over what this video will be about. First we will be going over 5 features for both readers and creators that Tapas absolutely nails. And why in the end LINE Webtoon still wins. 

Keep in mind that I love both of these websites and enjoy comics from both sites. We also post our comic, Novaborn: Tale of Inpherna, on both sites and try to keep up with both communities. It is actually through our comic that we have learned so much about these websites.

But anyway let’s get on with it.

Notifications

How much better are notifications on Tapas?

Do you want to know the moment someone has commented on one of your comic pages? Well on Tapas notifications will be there for you so you can quickly respond. This can be especially helpful for comments on older pages allowing you to respond and let the reader know you are still listening.

Webtoon will ONLY email you if someone responds to your comment in particular. Not just for any old comment. And since they only send out emails, I wouldn’t want the flood of emails. I’d prefer to be notified by the app on my phone.

But it isn’t just notifications for comments and likes, it is also for messaging! Want to have a private chat with another user? If you’re on Tapas, just send them a message! Want to stop having private chats? Just block them.

There have been a few times that I have wanted to chat with my fellow creators on Webtoon and have had to scour through their social media links just to say hi! And if I want to chat with a fan, well that’s just not gonna happen. It’s difficult to build a community and work together with other creators when you have to go to other sites and apps to do so.

On a side note, we do have a discord where we enjoy chatting with a small but awesome group of Novaborn fans. Feel free to chat with us there!

Statistics

How many subscribers do you have? How many page views?

It’s always important to know how things are going and statistics help you figure that out quite easily. Unless of course they are about completely useless stats.

We will take a look at Webtoon first. On their site it shows how many updates we have had, our page views, overall subscribers, and that’s about it.

There’s so little information here it’s essentially useless. Especially since these stats are from early in the month so it’s even less information.

But on Tapas they give you the details on the entire past year of statistics. Including views, likes, subscribers, and comments. They do all look very similar, but trust me they are very useful. 

On Webtoon, I’d have to come back at the end of each month and take a screenshot to get a look at how the comic has been doing over time.

The spikes and dips on Tapas are especially useful, but we will talk about those later. The point is you can use this information to find out how you’re doing and what has helped your comic.

Publishing

Why is publishing episodes so much easier on Tapas?

So our comic Novaborn: Tale of Inpherna, subscribe now, is released every Saturday at 7am-’ish’ mountain standard time. And I say ‘ish’ because it very much depends on the day. You see, unlike Facebook, YouTube, and most every platform on the internet including Tapas, you can’t schedule a post on LINE Webtoon. What you have to do is setup everything for your next update beforehand, and then on the day of release, set a personal alarm to post the comic.

Some days we have been so tired we would post it the night before, simply due to the fact that we can’t be trusted to not sleep through our alarms. Because we sometimes do.

Meanwhile Tapas will publish the exact second we scheduled it for. Because that just makes sense. And on top of that, you can schedule multiple posts in any order. Not on Webtoon, though. If you want to post something before a draft you already made, you have to delete the post and create a new post. Then, after you wait to post the new post, you have to recreate the old post all over again.

At the end of the day, being able to schedule posts, and in any order, is a huge quality of life improvement.

Also, you can post gifs on Tapas without being a sponsored creator so there’s that too.

Forums

Where can we find the best Forum?

Our comics isn’t made by a single person. In fact, it’s a 4 person team now. I write the story and do a basic layout, Brittany fixes it up and adds the lettering, then it goes to our line artist Quincil, and finally our colorist Soojung paints in the colors. Brittany then finishes up the lettering and formatting and gets it all ready with a new scrollable layout for the internet.

Collaboration is important and you need a place to meet new team members. Forums can be a great place to find new team members and friends. It can also be good for feedback and support. Comic making isn’t easy and sometimes we need places to get together to support each other in creating.

Let’s take a look at what Webtoon has. Oh. It has nothing. There is nowhere to have fellow Webtoon creators converse. Well, they can still go to the Tapas forum I guess. And some do.

Novels

If you have ever spent more than 5 minutes on a collaboration forum, you would know that there are far more writers looking for opportunities than there are opportunities. And although books are not comics and there are websites dedicated to only being writing websites I still feel they should have a home together. As pretty as comics are, I keep reading because of the writing and I would rather just have the words if they can’t draw. So this one is a bit petty, but I stand by it. Tapas has novels and LINE Webtoon doesn’t.

So Tapas is clearly the better website to host your comic on right? Sadly, all of these points are destroyed by the one fact about Webtoon.

Number 1 thing that makes Webtoon better.

They are bigger. That’s what it boils down to sadly. They have a much larger audience.

How exactly though?

Alright so let’s put up some stats on the screen.

According to Similarwebs.com Webtoon gets 47.88 million visits on their website every month. Meanwhile Tapas gets 8.89 million views in a month which is 5 times less traffic. They simply don’t have the audience to compete with Webtoon despite having far better features for the creators. And honestly, I think that’s part of the problem. Tapas has spent most of their time and effort attracting creators, but not enough time bringing in the readers. Personally, I don’t think I’ve ever seen an advertisement for Tapas on the internet. I have seen quite a few for Webtoon though.

This is because Webtoon is backed by Naver, the internet giant out of south Korea. This allowed them to grow into the giant they are today through advertising and connections.

But let’s give some specific examples here. We started our comic on Webtoon and Tapas roughly the same time in july 2017. As of writing the script for this video we have 994 subscribers on Tapas, and 12,031 subscribers on Webtoon. We get more daily views on Webtoon than the best month we ever had on Tapas.

Oddly enough, Tapas was leading the subscriber battle at first. After we posted our first 5 pages we were featured on the daily snack by the staff. The daily snack is seen by all those with the Tapas app. With that we gained our first 994 subscribers. And then no one else came and we proceeded to lose subscribers for the next few years as Webtoon started to grow. We have only now regained our former glory 2 years later, simply because there was no way to find our comic on Tapas.

Meanwhile when we barely had time to count as we finally reached 1000 on Webtoon. 2 days later, 2,000. 2 days later, 3,000. 2 days later 4,000. These were due to us being advertised on the website under various categories and being recommended from similar comics. After reaching the 1,000 mark people began to naturally come across our comic. It began to grown organically. Which never happened on Tapas. The growth was so slow that we lost subscribers faster than we gained them. Not due to the content of our comic, but due to the lack of an audience.

Now, what should we do now?

Creators, just put your comic on both websites, but if you really want to choose, just put it on LINE Webtoon.

Readers, just read both sites, although Webtoon usually has the bigger community.

Webtoon. If you are listening, PLEASE add these features. It will improve the quality of life for both your creators and readers. Yes you’re on top, but you must improve or one day you may no longer be the best.

Tapas. Start a massive ad campaign. You have far more creators than you have readers, so bring in those readers. And change your name back to Tapastic or something, because Tapas is spanish for snack and it really messes up your google search-ability.

But that’s it for me, subscribe for more on what we’ve learned our journey making comics and video games.

And let us know in the comments what’s your favorite, whether it be on Webtoon, Tapas, or any other website.