Goniasteridae are usually middle-sized sea stars with a characteristic double range of marginal plates bordering the disk and arms.

Most of them have five arms, often short and triangular, around a broad central disc; many species are pentagonal or subpentagonal, covered densely with granular, seed-like protuberances, hence the name of the family "seed-star" (gonium+aster).

The aboral face is often covered with tiny spines looking like paxillae.

[1] Main identification keys for this group include the presence of paxillae, granules, teeth, spines, or the shape and dimensions of marginal plate.

[2] They occur predominantly on deep-water continental shelf habitats (but a part of them inhabit shallow waters)[3] in all the world's oceans, being the most diverse in the Indo-Pacific region.