<p>Recruitment of young scleractinian corals is essential for the persistence of coral reefs, but the early life-history stages of corals are poorly understood. We used photographic surveys to characterize community composition of juvenile and adult corals in the western Pacific archipelago of Palau. Four of our sites were classic reefs exposed to open-ocean conditions, and three were “extreme reefs”—semi-enclosed lagoons with higher water temperatures and high coral cover. We surveyed all adult and juvenile coral genera present at each study site in 2021–2022, and we sampled transects at each site to characterize juvenile and adult community composition quantitatively in 2023. Results of this study supported previous research showing significant differences in community composition of adult corals between extreme and classic reefs. For juvenile corals, we found different community composition but similar richness, density, and genera present between reef types. Differences in community composition could be driven by larval retention and strong post-settlement selective pressures at extreme reefs in Palau. Our study sites were unexpectedly impacted by Typhoon Nalgae in 2022, and recruitment of opportunistic species following this disturbance may partially explain our results. Community composition was different between adults and juveniles at both extreme and classic reefs. At some sites, coral genera were not observed as juveniles but were observed as adults, possibly as a result of reproductive or recruitment failure. At classic reefs, higher generic richness of juveniles compared to adults, combined with some genera being observed as juveniles but not as adults, suggested that post-settlement mortality shapes community composition. Future studies should focus on disentangling early life-history dynamics to understand factors shaping coral communities across extreme and classic coral reefs in Palau.</p>