Witch one do you prefer?
What do you use them for?
What could they improve?
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Archives of Nethys is generally preferred on these boards (from what I see at least).
It is not for profit (although does accept donations to support it), which means that the person who does the website is allowed to post setting specific info and names which makes checking stuff from books easier. d20 will change the names around and flavor text for copyright reasons.
I always try to use AoN, but since it is essentially a one man crew he can't update everything as quickly as d20. I think he just finished Ultimate Wilderness. That's not slow by any means, but for a lot of more recent books you'll have to use d20.
I personally dislike the layout and navigation for d20, AoN is much more intuitive for me. I don't think AoN cover third party, so there is that too.
It's kind've like Netflix vs. Hulu.
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d20pfsrd has nifty tables for class archetypes in which you can easily determine which of them would "stack" if you want more than one archetype. Unfortunately they're not particularly quick on updating. You also have to be careful designing PFS characters because, as MageHunter pointed out, they rename things. AoN has by far the better structure for deities and clerical domains and subdomains.
I always double-check both. (AoN in particular is indispensable for PFS character design because it has the PFS logo next to everything that is "legal".)
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d20 has better search function. When I'm trying to reference something quickly I'll look there.
AoN has better quality information. The don't rewrite the rules to "clarify" them. They don't have to get rid of setting specific information.
In general if I need a quick reference I go to d20 because of it's better search function. If I really want to make sure that I have the correct rules as written in the book, I go to AoN.
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I both agree and disagree with Claxon. I agree that d20 is faster if you're searching for a specific known thing. Like "OK, my pre-gen has this spell on its list but I have no clue how that works, what's the rules for that one?" I wind up searching for things on AoN far more often, though, because it's fantastic for finding things I didn't already know existed or know the name of, and that's because it's far easier to filter the result set for the type of thing that I'm looking for. If I want magic items that interact with a ki pool and are PFS legal, I can get results that are exactly that on AoN, but I'd be digging through a lot of stuff I didn't want on d20.
Where d20 excels, in contrast, is hotlinking between relevant articles. If an archetype grants you a class feature from a different class, on d20 you'll have a link right there to that class feature, while on AoN you'll have to go pull up the class and find that feature.
In short, I use them both, depending on what kind of rabbit hole I'm falling down and what kind of rabbit I'm pursuing.
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It is not for profit (although does accept donations to support it), which means that the person who does the website is allowed to post setting specific info and names which makes checking stuff from books easier. d20 will change the names around and flavor text for copyright reasons.
This isn't entirely accurate. AoN also includes affiliate links to Amazon.com, just as d20pfsrd.com does, which means he earns affiliate income from sales of Paizo books you buy on Amazon after clicking there.
Paizo decided after d20pfsrd.com opening opengamingstore.com, we were no longer allowed to use the Community Use Policy.
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I generally prefer the d20pfsrd site. Much easier to use and navigate in my opinion.
Unlike others, I actually like the notes on relevant FAQs and questionable wording (and I think it is usually pretty clear when they make a note on something that it isn't part of the original text).
Obviously for setting specific stuff Nethys works better.
I think there is room for both though, and I am glad to have those tools available. For me, both make the gaming experience better and I'm grateful to them both.
I don't like the advertising on d20pfsrd, I'm happy to donate to the AoN patreon.
AoN does not like to come up on Google searches. Is that because they are not as popular or is it because they are not running ads? To fix this I've taught my text prediction 'site:archivesofnethys.com', This way I can quickly search the site.
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D20pfsrd for quick searches, archetype tables are a huge help for me because I love stacking archetypes, and the prerequisite hyperlinks are nice, BUT...
I absolutely ALWAYS double check with Archives of Nethys for the real, unadulterated information.
When it comes to what amounts to database entries (feats, spells, etc.), I'll pick Archives of Nethys, hands down. For stuff that doesn't fit into the site's paradigm, d20pfsrd.com is fine.
Why I prefer Archives of Nethys when applicable:
1. Things are easier to find, better sourced, and named correctly.
2. AoN only references Paizo content, so I don't have to worry about a bunch of third party rules being mixed into the descriptions of other mechanics.
3. Since the site is not for profit still subject to the Community Use Policy, I don't have to constantly update my ad blocker to auto-hide the latest annoying popup.
That said, d20pfsrd.com does the Pathfinder community a great service, and I still head there for things AoN doesn't cover, such as situational rule systems. Plus, as seen above, the site developer frequents the forums and is, as far as I've seen, good people.
(Edited for accuracy.)
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I won't touch d20 with a 10 foot pole. Hate the ads, pop-ups, and how they mix 3rd party content into things. I avoid it at all costs, and have almost managed to teach my friends not to link me anything from it.
I use Archives of Nethys for most things, as the PRD hasn't been updated recently, but if it's not on one of those two, I look things up in my PDFs or hardcopies.
I do use d20 more for the hotlinking and they have more resources. I don't like how 20 has altered the wording or format of rules at times, and actually made things more difficult to interpret correctly.
Anon has allowed me to find things by the exact name, since they don't have to alter the name. That can be really useful.
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I tend to go to the PRD because it's faster than both of them to me, when the resource is actually on the PRD. <---This needs to be updated. I wouldn't mind if Paizo just paid Anon to do the update as a freelancer. They would have to setup something that kept him out of their main system.
If it's not on the PRD I then go to D20.
Last I go to Anon if needed.
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Both sites are great, but I immensely prefer d20pfsrd. For me, it's so much easier and faster to find what I might need to know during a game. If someone has a question about a rule or anything else it's what works best for us by far.
We also use 3PP in our games. A lot. So d20pfsrd is another reason I use it almost exclusively. I don't use the Golarion setting so things that are specific to it, such as the deities or artwork, are of no use to me.
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I use them both, but spend most of my time on d20pfsrd
I like that they have the clarifications right there on the same pate. I don't like having to sort through to figure out what is 3rd party, but ease of use wins most of the time.
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I also mostly use d20pfsrd, because of the increased update speed and because it suits my searching/navigating needs just fine. I do like how the the FAQ/clarifications are presented. We don't use much 3pp, but I don't find it difficult to sort through (though it would be nice to be able to filter 3pp out of search results).
I find AoN most useful to me personally in keeping updated with new softcovers, since it supports browsing content by the source. On several occasions I've made a decision to purchase a book based on skimming AoN (most recently, Heroes of the High Court). I occasionally use AoN to check setting-specific material, but since I don't run or generally play in Golarion it's not a major feature for me.
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Haven't seen this posted yet: d20 has the rules text for non-character elements. The general rules for attacking, movement, environment, etc. ar not on AoN, or at least nowhere I have found before. d20 is far better in laying out that information. AoN is much better for feats, magic items, archetypes, basically anything named.
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I use both but prefer AoN. One of my biggest complaints about d20 is the way 3pp gets mixed in with the regular stuff and of course pop ups are a nuisance. Though I have noticed the spells lists can take a little while to lead on AoN.
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As with a lot of the above posters I generally use the d20pfsrd a lot more. But if I am looking for something specific like which deity, faction, region, etc is required for a trait or feat or whatever I always check AoN.
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Yes, clearly, if you prefer ONLY Golarion-content, or ONLY PFS-legal content, then AoN is probably your better option. d20pfsrd.com is probably better suited to those who are open to 3rd Party content, or those who run their own home campaigns, or those who want a complete rules reference site. To each their own, but d20pfsrd.com leans more towards players and GMs who run custom home campaigns and likely in their own campaign settings, and those who like to look at content OTHER than just that from the primary publisher (meaning, open to other publishers content.)
Thanks everyone for continuing to support d20pfsrd.com and for those who prefer AoN, to each their own! I hope you are enjoying gaming is the main goal, and I suspect you are!
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I use both. They both have features I like when I look something up.
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I mostly use and prefer use d20pfsrd even though my table mostly runs APs and AoN would be more intuitive for Golarion items and not. It was the first site I used so I naturally stuck to it. I hear PRD has the final authority on rules and not but as others have said, it is not updated as fast. More recently I have been corroborating the information of AoN and d20pfsrd since I have been branching off of playing mostly martials. I feel like d20pfsrd's format is more legible than AoN which is kind of formatted like the actual books though that is completely personal preference. The links on srd are helpful though recently they all started linking to these pages of recommended links.
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Having the rules handy for just about anything from d20 is very helpful to a couple of my players who don't own a Pathfinder rulebook. When creating a character, updating one, or wanting to know how this, that, or the other thing works is invaluable to them.
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Both are good. AoN works better if you're looking up something Golarion-specific, and some of its tables are a bit cleaner, but otherwise D20PFSRD tends to be a bit more complete. Certainly if I'm looking up 3PP content, D20PFSRD is the only option.
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Both sites are pretty good, but I will give credits to the Archives for allowing to search by sources.
I use both depending on what I'm doing. There are positives and negatives to both.
AON is good for looking up PFS legal stuff, and I like that the alternate race abilties are separated out by what they replace.
D20 for 3PP and it is often (but not always) much easier to search.
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I use both but generally prefer D20. As someone who like stacking archetypes to see what kind of interesting characters I can make I love the archetype compatibility table on D20. It's also a lot easier to use when I'm searching for something in particular. AoN on the other hand I'll use when I'm looking for things like magic items since it's got items from the softcovers and I generally don't use any 3PP. I'm thankful for both because they each have their strengths.
I find the same thing on d20 and faster, at least for me and my group.
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I find AoN easier to navigate and better at presenting information - and I find its information more reliable and easier to trust of the two.
It is slower for sure, but given I can get information I need during other players' turns if in game or I'm just using it for planning, then that's no issue.
I'll go to the PRD when able for game rules, but otherwise d20SRD is quite helpful on that matter, as it's far more up-to-date.
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I find d20pfsrd a more useful resource when browsing for interesting character ideas and such. However AoN has a massively better way of listing magic items - d20pfsrd doesn't have a list of all the magic items in price order, just those from the first few rule books which makes it hard to find interesting items of the right cost. It would also be nice for d20pfsrd to have a tick box in the search to remove 3pp listings - some of the paizo stuff gets lost amongst this.
However the linking between pages is a massive bonus and makes it really easy to find out what the monsters spell does, or what that feature does quickly without having 101 page loads trying to find it. Plus the rules there are very handy when you don't have the book/PDF to hand.
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Yes, clearly, if you prefer ONLY Golarion-content, or ONLY PFS-legal content, then AoN is probably your better option. d20pfsrd.com is probably better suited to those who are open to 3rd Party content, or those who run their own home campaigns, or those who want a complete rules reference site. To each their own, but d20pfsrd.com leans more towards players and GMs who run custom home campaigns and likely in their own campaign settings, and those who like to look at content OTHER than just that from the primary publisher (meaning, open to other publishers content.)
Thanks everyone for continuing to support d20pfsrd.com and for those who prefer AoN, to each their own! I hope you are enjoying gaming is the main goal, and I suspect you are!
Keep doin' what you're doin'. : D
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You can also error check the info from these sites by looking the same thing up on both of them. If they agree, then they probably both captured the source material accurately. If they disagree, you may want to investigate further to figure out which (if either) is correct.
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AoN for information on a source, feat, spell etc. Also for making any PFS character
d20pfsrd for game rules and quicker GMing (since creature abilities are usually linked to their rules.)
To be very honest, if it wasn't for both of these sites, I and likely many in my local PF community would have quit PF a long time ago.
NO ONE wants to have to dig through 3 dozen+ books to make a character.
AoN and d20pfsrd, keep it up!
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If I know what book a rule is in, I will use PRD to quickly pull it up (assuming the PRD has it). AoN doesn't contain rules of play or monster rules, and d20pfsrd combines rules from various book sources.
If I know the exact feature name (and it's not Golarion-specific), I'll use d20pfsrd.
If I'm browsing options, I will use Archives of Nethys.
If I want to quickly compare options with very specific requirements (eg. monsters with CR < 6 that are outsiders with a poison ability and fire resistance [there are 5!], or all feats that reference attacks of opportunity), I will use the spreadsheets that d20pfsrd is based on.
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AoN for information on a source, feat, spell etc. Also for making any PFS character
d20pfsrd for game rules and quicker GMing (since creature abilities are usually linked to their rules.)
To be very honest, if it wasn't for both of these sites, I and likely many in my local PF community would have quit PF a long time ago.
NO ONE wants to have to dig through 3 dozen+ books to make a character.
AoN and d20pfsrd, keep it up!
For sure, what matters most is that the sites exist. I couldn't handle working without them.
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I like d20 better just because of how it looks and feels.
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Yeah these sites are the reasons I prefer Pathfinder really. It makes the game so much easier to learn than 5e
I've never played 5e (or 4e for that matter) so I can't speak to how easy they are to learn. But with the character creation and other rules on d20 it's awfully handy when you have desk that doesn't have room for a stack of books when making the bad guys.
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Clearly such an important issue can only be resolved in a rap battle.
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As a new player, I personally prefer the d20pfsrd. I LOVE the filtering options, since the kitchen sink approach to spells and skills and feats and everything else over on AoN can be really overwhelming, not to mention in my game we're only using the Core book and nothing else, so there's a ton of cruft to dig through to find what Iwant.
Response time is also a big factor, I find AoN to be slow as molasses, even just loading regular pages. The last time I tried to filter a spell list it took literally 18 seconds, I timed it. That's just ridiculous.
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I used d20pfsrd exclusively. I can look up a rule we're unsure of or the description of a spell in seconds. It's the handiest thing we have for our sessions.
I use AoN when I want more accurate information and D20PFSRD when I want to look something up quick. It's kind of a petty reason but I can type pfsrd faster than I can type Nethys, so if I'm just looking up a spell or feat real quick, it's gonna be d20. I'll probably switch to AoN for looking stuff up on a phone now that they're gonna flag on google as AoN and not require me to type out Nethys.
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Archives of Nethys is now becoming the official pathfinder, starfinder, and eventually Pathfinder 2 reference site. Hopefully that means the website is updated more frequently and has rules content and not just database content. Archives has already been putting in rules and is adding more fairly frequently. That said there's a decade of rules to be added to the database.
I prefer Archives, though I admit the fact that d20 is more accessible at the moment for rules referencing.
A reference for the thread; AoN has recently added rules content to their site. Aside from 3PP information, I can now use AoN for everything I care about. There is also a robust custom search function for spells.
Quality of life wise, it would be nice to be able to customize the general search to a subset of books. Even better would be the capability to save a list locally via cookies to remember your most common search set.
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As a new player, I personally prefer the d20pfsrd. I LOVE the filtering options, since the kitchen sink approach to spells and skills and feats and everything else over on AoN can be really overwhelming, not to mention in my game we're only using the Core book and nothing else, so there's a ton of cruft to dig through to find what Iwant.
Response time is also a big factor, I find AoN to be slow as molasses, even just loading regular pages. The last time I tried to filter a spell list it took literally 18 seconds, I timed it. That's just ridiculous.
FYI, the Spells page loading times got much improved over the weekend.
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As a GM I prefer D20PFSRD due to it being easier to search and find what I'm looking for.
But I know that every single one of my players prefers AoN for character creation. And I agree with them in that regard; if I were to ever make a character I'd use AoN for most everything. (Because I rarely look at AoN I'm not as familiar with where things are so I'd likely use both sites for different aspects of the rules. For example, AoN doesn't appear to have the chart for character advancement so I'd look at D20PFSRD because I know exactly where it is.)