The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) categorises its status as near threatened.

In roughly clockwise order: from Madagascar and the Gulf of Aden in the west, through the Maldives and southern India, through the East Indies, up to Japan, and down to northern parts of Western Australia, and to the Great Barrier Reef in the east.

[1][2][3] Goniopora stokesi has a reputation among aquarists both of being readily available commercially, and of being difficult to maintain in captivity.

[1] The specific epithet stokesi may be in honour of Charles Stokes (c. 1784 - 1853), a respected English amateur malacologist.

It would be necessary to consult the original paper describing the species[7] (which as of 2018[update] does not seem to have been digitised) to settle the matter.