7 Best Pastel Alternatives for Web Design Agencies in 2026

If you're looking for Pastel alternatives, you've likely run into some of these limitations:

• Mobile feedback is hard to get right. In Pastel, you check the mobile layout in a phone-sized view on your desktop. Issues that only show up on a real phone are easy to miss, like a menu that breaks on touch.

• There's no built-in screen recording for website feedback. A website comment in Pastel is typed text with an automatic screenshot. When a dropdown menu breaks, the client has to explain it in writing.

• Feedback is given on a Pastel canvas, separate from the website you're reviewing. Your client has to keep track of the canvas link, both to leave feedback and to see your replies. So does every stakeholder you add. Often the link gets forgotten and the feedback comes by email instead.

• Integrations are on the Team plan, and they work as an export. You pick comments on the canvas and send them to a tool like Asana, ClickUp or Jira. Replies and resolving still happen in Pastel, so your team ends up with two to-do lists for the same project.

Pastel still does a lot well. It reviews images, PDFs, video files and emails as well as websites, and keeps every version on the canvas so you can compare rounds of feedback.

The right Pastel alternative depends on who gives the feedback, where your team manages it and whether you can install a script on the site. An agency with non-technical clients on a staging site needs a tool that sits on the site itself. A marketing team marking up a live site it doesn't control needs a share link, much like Pastel's.

We start with Feedbucket, since client feedback for web design agencies is what we know best.

Best Pastel alternatives at a glance

Prices are for the plan an agency needs, billed monthly, as listed on each tool's pricing page in November 2026.

1. Feedbucket

Feedbucket is a website feedback tool built for web design agencies. Clients leave annotated screenshots and video recordings directly on the staging site, without an account or browser extension. Your team manages that feedback in the project management tool it already uses, such as Asana, ClickUp or Jira. Comments and status sync both ways.

I built Feedbucket after years of frustration with the website review process at my own agency. It's made so clients actually use it, and so your team doesn't have to copy feedback by hand. Today more than 500 web design agencies use it, and it has a 5.0 rating from 37 reviews on Capterra.

Coming from Pastel, two things change. Your client gives feedback on the staging site they already have, without opening a canvas link. Your team stops exporting comments, because every piece of feedback arrives as a task in your project management tool.

Ready to see it on one of your own staging sites? Start a 14-day free trial and put it in front of a client this week.

Clients give feedback and collaborate on the website itself

A lot of clients aren't technical, and sometimes several people review the site on the client side. The marketing lead, the CEO and the copywriter might all look at the same pages. Every extra link, account or extension is a chance for one of them to fall back to email.

That's why we built Feedbucket to sit on the staging site itself. You add the script once, or install it with one of our platform plugins, like the one for WordPress. Your client opens the staging URL they already have, clicks the feedback button and marks up the page. They don't create an account or install an extension.

Once feedback is in, it stays on the page as a pin on the exact spot it's about.

When I ran my agency, a single hero image could come back three times in one review round. The marketing lead reported it on Monday, the CEO on Wednesday and the copywriter again on Friday. None of them could see the others' feedback.

With pins, the next reviewer sees that the hero image is already reported. Clicking the pin opens the thread, so they add a comment there instead of creating a second item. Once an item is resolved, its pin leaves the page.

The conversation about each item happens there too. On the website, the client gets:

• Open and resolved items in one list. They can see what your team has finished and what is still waiting.

• A filter for the current page. They only see the feedback for the page they're on.

• Comments on each item. Questions and answers stay attached to the screenshot or recording.

• Attachments. The client can add the new PDF, logo files or replacement copy to the item it belongs to.

• Mentions. They can bring in a colleague who owns the decision.

• Email notifications. They hear from you when your team replies or resolves an item.

In Pastel, the pins and replies are kept on the canvas, so the conversation happens on a Pastel link and away from the site you're building.

Review on a real phone or tablet

A lot of client feedback is about how the site looks on a phone, and that's where reviews get hard. Emulating a phone on a desktop is tricky for a non-technical client. Even when it works, the client is still looking at a desktop browser.

Real devices behave differently. The iOS Safari address bar changes the viewport as the client scrolls. Sticky headers cover content. Some menus only break on touch.

Pastel's mobile view is a breakpoint toggle inside the canvas, on the reviewer's desktop.

With Feedbucket, the client opens the same staging URL on their phone or tablet and the feedback button is already there. They don't need an app or an extension. Issues that only show up on a real phone get reported from the phone they showed up on.

Annotated screenshots and video recordings, with the technical details attached

Most client feedback is about something they can point at. Some of it is about something that moves, or only goes wrong after a few clicks. Clients get a way to show each:

• Annotated screenshots for anything that sits still. A copy change, spacing that looks off, an image that needs swapping. The client points, draws and highlights on the page, then writes what they mean.

• Video recordings for anything that moves or takes a few steps. An animation, a dropdown menu, a contact form that fails when they submit it. The client records their screen and voice right in the browser.

A recording shows your developer exactly what the client did before something broke. The client installs nothing to record. That matters for non-technical clients, because the usual alternative is a screen-sharing call where you watch the menu break and still can't reproduce it.

In Pastel, that broken menu arrives as a typed comment and a still screenshot. A screenshot can't show the clicks that led up to it, so your developer has to guess them or book the call.

Whether the client sends a screenshot or a recording, the feedback arrives with the technical details your developer needs:

• Browser and operating system
• The exact URL
• Screen dimensions and pixel ratio
• Console logs
• The element the client clicked, and much more

Your developer can reproduce the issue without asking which browser the client used, which page they were on or what they clicked.

Manage client feedback in Asana, ClickUp, Jira or the tool you already use

Your team already runs each client project somewhere, whether that's Asana, ClickUp, Jira or a tool you built yourself. When feedback is kept in a separate system, someone copies it over by hand and items get missed.

Get feedback into your project management tool once, and nobody has to copy, chase or re-explain it. That's why two-way sync sits at the core of Feedbucket.

With Feedbucket, you can:

• Get every piece of feedback as a task. New feedback lands in the project you choose, with the screenshot or recording, the page URL and the technical details attached.

• Reply to the client from the task. Start a comment with @feedbucket and it appears on the feedback item on the website, and the client gets an email. Comments without it stay with your team.

• Close the task to resolve the feedback. The item resolves on the website and the client is notified. When the client replies on the website, the reply shows up as a comment on the task.

• Keep tags in sync. A tag added on one side shows up on the other.

In Pastel, an integration is a one-way export. You pick comments on the canvas and send them over, each with a link back to Pastel. From then on, the task and the comment don't update each other. A client reply on the canvas never reaches the task, and closing the task leaves the comment open in Pastel. Someone on your team has to keep both up to date by hand.

Feedbucket also connects to Notion, Monday.com, Basecamp, Slack and many others. For any other tool, you can connect through Zapier or the REST API.

Read more: how client feedback works in Asana, ClickUp and Jira.

Work through client feedback with your AI assistant (Feedbucket MCP)

More and more agencies build and fix websites in Cursor, Claude Code or Codex. The Feedbucket MCP connects your Feedbucket account to the AI assistant your team already works in.

MCP is an open standard that lets AI assistants use tools from other apps. You connect your assistant once, with OAuth sign-in or a personal access token. From then on, your assistant reads client feedback with the same context your developer gets. That includes the annotated screenshot, the page and device details, the element the client clicked and the console logs.

Agencies use it to:

• Fix feedback from the editor. Ask Cursor or Claude Code to pick up an item. It sees the screenshot, the element and the console errors from that moment, so it can find the right file in your repo and propose a fix.

• Triage a whole review round. Three people report the same broken image, and the urgent bug sits under a pile of copy changes. Your assistant works through the open items, flags the duplicates, tags each one and puts the bugs first.

• Reply to the client and resolve it from the chat. When a fix is ready, your assistant writes the reply, attaches a screenshot of the result and resolves the item. The client sees the reply on the website and gets an email.

Replies and status changes made through the MCP sync to your project management tool, just as they do from the dashboard. Your AI assistant doesn't become a third place your team has to check.

The MCP works with any AI app that supports remote MCP servers, like Cursor, Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex. It's included on every plan and in the free trial. At the time of writing, it has 13 tools for projects, feedback, comments, attachments and console logs.

Your assistant works with your own permissions on your own team, and you can revoke its access from your account at any time. You can read the setup for each AI app on the Feedbucket MCP page.

Feedbucket pricing

• Pro Plan: $49 per month, or $39 per month billed yearly. Unlimited projects and unlimited feedback, with 2 team members. It includes annotated screenshots, video feedback, two-way sync with your project management tool, the MCP server and REST API access.
  
  
• Business Plan: $89 per month, or $72 per month billed yearly. Everything in Pro, with 25 team members. It adds console logs, custom branding with your own colours and logo, the JavaScript API, tag sync and webhooks.

The 14-day free trial includes every feature and doesn't need a credit card. Start your free trial

Pastel vs. Feedbucket: At a Glance

2. MarkUp.io

MarkUp.io works much like Pastel. You paste a URL and share the link it gives you. That works on sites you don't control too. It's a good fit if you like Pastel's share link and want to keep working that way.

It also takes PDFs, images and videos. Every plan includes unlimited users. Each comment shows the reviewer's browser and screen size.

Feedback is managed inside MarkUp.io, as it is in Pastel. Mobile review is a phone-sized preview on your desktop too.

Tools like Asana and ClickUp connect through Zapier or MarkUp.io's API. When I tested it, I had to open each piece of feedback and export it one at a time.

Pro costs $79 a month for 50 MarkUps, $99 for 75 or $129 for 100. Each Pro plan has one workspace.

Pastel vs. MarkUp.io: At a Glance

3. BugHerd

BugHerd is an Australian website feedback tool, launched in 2011. It installs with a script tag on the site. When you can't add code, a browser extension does the same job. It's a good fit for agencies that want clients to see and discuss feedback on the website itself.

Each piece of feedback is pinned to the element it's about, so the next reviewer sees what's already been reported. Screenshots, video feedback and the technical details come with every plan.

The integrations are the biggest difference from Pastel. BugHerd's integrations with tools like Asana and Jira sync comments and status both ways. They need the Premium plan. Premium also adds the client project board and lets you share your team's feedback with clients.

Every plan also includes BugHerd's own Kanban board for managing feedback. If your team already runs projects in another tool, that's a second board to keep up to date.

BugHerd costs $50, $80 or $150 a month. Most agencies need Premium at $150 a month.

Pastel vs. BugHerd: At a Glance

4. Ruttl

Ruttl collects feedback on websites, web apps, mobile apps, images and PDFs. It's a good fit for designers who want clients and developers to see the exact change before it goes into code. In edit mode, you restyle and rewrite the live page and share the result.

Website review works through a share link with device-size previews, as in Pastel.

When I tested Ruttl, I ran into a lot of bugs. Pages behind a password only loaded through the Chrome extension. I had to add each one by hand. Other agency owners have reported the same problems in TheAdminBar, a Facebook group for web agencies.

The integrations only go one way. Ruttl sends feedback to tools like Jira and Asana. Replies and status changes made there stay there.

The free plan covers 1 project and 5 pages. Edit mode only works for the first 2 days. Pro costs $18 per user per month, and clients comment for free as guests.

Pastel vs. Ruttl: At a Glance

5. Marker.io

Marker.io is a bug reporting tool that installs with a code snippet, a WordPress plugin or a browser extension. It also scans your pages for accessibility issues and broken links. It's a good fit for internal QA, where session replay and console logs help developers reproduce a bug.

Your team and your clients get separate feedback forms, so clients only see the fields they need.

Unlike Pastel, Marker.io gets status back from your project management tool. Close an issue there and Marker.io resolves it and emails the reporter. Comments depend on the tool. They sync both ways with Jira but only one way with Monday.com.

There's no built-in screen recording, so clients explain a bug in writing or attach a video file. Replies to clients go through a separate Marker.io feedback page.

Starter costs $59 a month, and issue sync needs Team at $199. Agencies with fewer than 50 employees can apply for the Agency plan at $129 a month. It includes issue sync and session replay.

Pastel vs. Marker.io: At a Glance

6. Simple Commenter

Simple Commenter is a commenting widget you add with a script tag, the WordPress plugin or a Chrome extension. It also reviews PDFs and images, like Pastel does. It's a good fit for freelancers who want to keep reviewing files in one tool, but move website feedback onto the site itself.

Clients click an element, type their comment and a screenshot is taken automatically. Unlike Pastel, the collaboration happens on the website. Clients see earlier comments as pins on the page and reply in threads, on a computer or a phone. Coding agents can read the feedback through its MCP.

Feedback is a typed comment with a screenshot, as in Pastel. There's no screen recording, so a broken dropdown menu has to be explained in writing.

The integrations with tools like Asana, ClickUp and Jira go further than Pastel's export. Replies and status changes made in Simple Commenter update the task after it's created. The sync only goes one way. Comments written in ClickUp stay in ClickUp, and status changes made in Jira stay in Jira, so your team goes back to Simple Commenter to answer a client.

Pro costs $34.99 a month for 3 team members and 10 projects. Agencies with more client sites need Agency at $79 a month, with unlimited projects, team members and white-label branding.

Pastel vs. Simple Commenter: At a Glance

7. Huddlekit

Huddlekit is a new website feedback tool from Sweden. It launched in beta in June 2025 and came out of beta in September 2026. Clients open a share link and comment as guests, as they do in Pastel. It's a good fit for designers and developers who check a responsive build before handing it over.

The canvas view shows the site at mobile, tablet, laptop and desktop sizes side by side. All four frames scroll together, so you compare the same section at every size. Inspect mode shows the fonts and spacing of any element. Both are for your team. Clients on a share link see one breakpoint at a time.

Mobile review happens on a desktop, as in Pastel. A share link opened on a phone or tablet asks the client to switch to a desktop browser.

Huddlekit reviews uploaded files too, like PDFs and videos. There's no screen recording. Feedback on an animation or a form that fails after a few steps arrives as a typed comment with a screenshot.

The integrations go further than Pastel's export. With tools like ClickUp and Asana, status syncs both ways, and closing the task resolves the comment. Replies stay in Huddlekit. Comments your team writes in ClickUp stay in ClickUp.

There's a free plan for 1 project. Pro costs $19 a month for 3 team members and unlimited projects. Integrations need Team at $39 a month with 15 team members. Guests are free on every plan.

Pastel vs. Huddlekit: At a Glance

Next Steps: Choosing the Best Pastel Alternative for Your Company

We've compared 7 Pastel alternatives. Some keep Pastel's share-link approach, and others put the feedback tool on the website itself.

Choosing the right one comes down to how your client reviews run. For a web design agency, that usually means non-technical clients on a staging site, several stakeholders on each project and a team that already works in a project management tool.

If that sounds like your agency, Feedbucket was built for you.

With Feedbucket, you can:

• Let clients give feedback on the staging site itself, with pins that show every stakeholder what's already been reported.

• Collect feedback from real phones and tablets on the same staging URL your client already has.

• Get annotated screenshots and video recordings with the technical details your developer needs to reproduce each issue.

• Manage every piece of feedback in the tool your team already uses, like Asana, ClickUp or Jira. Comments and status sync both ways.

• Work through client feedback in AI apps like Cursor, Claude Code or ChatGPT with the Feedbucket MCP.

Reviewing designs before development starts? See our guide to design feedback tools.

Start your free 14-day trial and run your next client review round with Feedbucket. Setup takes about a minute with a script tag or one of our platform plugins.