7 Best Pastel Alternatives in 2024

Best if: You are building web projects for clients and want to organize the feedback.

If you're in the business of creating websites or web apps for clients, Feedbucket is tailored just for you.

One key difference from Pastel is Feedbucket's installation process, which involves adding a script tag to your site. This is quick and easy, taking just a few minutes. For WordPress users, there's even a plugin for no-code installation.

Feedbucket aims to simplify the feedback loop between clients and agencies. It's designed to be straightforward for clients to use, addressing the common issue where clients might default to email if a tool is complicated, requires downloads, or account creation.

Once Feedbucket is added to a site, you can send feedback through annotated screenshots or video recordings.

A big benefit is that clients can discuss and collaborate with you on feedback directly from the guest portal on the site. Having everything directly on the site makes the communication a lot smoother.

Feedbucket stands out for its strong integration with popular project management tools. It's not meant to be yet another system for your team to manage and log in to but instead integrate into your existing tools and workflows.

Feedback is directly sent to your project management tool as a task, allowing your team to manage it all from one spot. Resolving a task in your project management tool also resolves it in Feedbucket, and your client is notified.

For follow-up questions on feedback, simply mention @feedbucket in a comment in your project management tool, and the comment syncs back to Feedbucket, notifying your client.

So, if your team builds websites or web applications for clients and uses a project management tool like ClickUp, Asana, Trello, etc., Feedbucket is worth trying out.

You can try it with a 14-day free trial without credit card.

Best if: You want same features as Pastel but a cheaper tool.

If you're after a tool like Pastel, offering pretty much the same features but at a lower cost, MarkUp.io could be right up your alley.

It lets you gather feedback on websites easily, no installations needed, thanks to proxy technology just like Pastel's. You can also collect feedback on images and PDFs.

Given its similar range of features, MarkUp.io shares some of Pastel's downsides. It's another platform your team would need to sign into to manage feedback.

Even though it offers some integrations, I found myself having to click on each piece of feedback I wanted to export to my project management tool. This process felt awkward and took up too much time.

BugHerd is another tool often used for website feedback. It supports feedback collection on images and PDFs as well, similar to Pastel.

Unlike Pastel, you install BugHerd by adding a script tag to the website or by using a browser extension.

I prefer adding the script code directly to websites. It's straightforward and ensures the feedback widget operates within your site's environment. This method avoids the issues that can arise with proxy solutions like Pastel, such as difficulties with Basic Auth or accessing specific site areas.

BugHerd ticks all the boxes for collecting clear feedback right from the website, and also enables your clients to collaborate directly on the page.

However, a significant downside for me is BugHerd's limited integrations, which lack two-way functionality. Since we're already using a project management tool, introducing another tool into our workflow isn't ideal, both from a cost perspective and to avoid context switching.

Additionally, due to its feature restrictions, BugHerd ends up being three times costlier than Feedbucket and twice as expensive as Marker.io, despite offering a very similar set of features.

Ruttl is a tool that allows you to provide feedback on a variety of digital assets, including websites, mobile apps, and videos.

Having the option to collect feedback on all these platforms might seem advantageous, but from what I've seen, Ruttl seems to spread its focus too thin, and I encountered some glitches with the website feedback feature. It's wise to test it thoroughly first.

For collecting website feedback, the process is similar to Pastel's. You input a URL and receive a shareable link for your team and clients to offer feedback and collaborate.

However, for certain areas of my site, like those protected by Basic Auth or in web applications, I had to use their Chrome extension and manually add each page. This process was quite cumbersome.

One unique feature of Ruttl not found in other alternatives on our list is the ability to directly edit elements like CSS and submit that as feedback. This is especially useful for internal feedback.

The major limitation I've noticed is how Ruttl's integrations only create a task in your project management tool, providing a link back to Ruttl. This setup implies that your entire team and other stakeholders will likely need an account.

Your clients might manage with just a guest account, but the distinctions aren't always clear. It's important to understand who needs an account because Ruttl's per-user charging model can quickly become costly.

Best if: Reviewing websites and web apps internally at your company.

Marker.io is great for client projects, but it truly excels as an internal QA tool. If you're part of a software company where team members need to provide feedback to the product and development teams, Marker.io is worth exploring.

Its strengths as a bug tracking tool really come to the fore in such environments. Features like session replay are particularly impressive, offering a playback of user actions before they submitted a bug report.

While it also works for client projects, I find it lacking in certain areas. For instance, clients have to sign up on a guest portal to access and collaborate on feedback, which introduces more steps than if the portal were directly accessible on the website.

Another missing piece is video feedback, which is often crucial for explaining issues with forms or animations where text alone isn't enough.

The two-way integrations are really helpful. This means if you resolve an issue in your project management tool, it also gets resolved in Marker.io. But, if you need to ask a follow-up question about the feedback, you have to sign into Marker.io. So, the integration doesn't completely remove the need for your team to sign in to Marker.io.

Punchlist is a tool that is common in the Webflow community. You can submit feedback on multiple different assets but for websites you add a URL and get a shareable link similar to Pastel.

This link allows you to drop a marker for feedback. However, it lacks the ability to annotate, like drawing arrows to clarify your points.

I wasn't a fan of how the screenshot just captured a small area around where the feedback pin was placed. There were times the screenshot didn't clearly show what the feedback referred to. A screenshot of the entire viewport would be much better and seems like an obvious choice.

Adding Punchlist means another tool for your team to check, especially if you're already using a project management system. Although Punchlist can integrate with a few project management tools, it only adds a link back to Punchlist within those tasks.

While Punchlist is a polished tool with features similar to Pastel, if price were my main concern, I'd say MarkUp.io offers similar capabilities at a lower cost.

Superflow is pretty new, but it's already getting noticed. It's built for agencies, just like Feedbucket, and has some special features that make it stand out.

To get Superflow working on a website, you just add a script tag. Then your team and clients can give feedback and work together right on the website. Having everything on the website is super handy.

One of the coolest parts of Superflow is its real-time feature. If you're on a site with someone else, you'll see each other's mouse movements, similar to collaboration in Figma. It's not essential, but definitely a neat touch for teamwork.

However, a big downside for me is Superflow doesn't take a screenshot of the feedback. It just puts a pin where the feedback is on the site. These pins can quickly disappear when the website is updated.

Another issue is Superflow doesn't have many integrations, and the ones it does have only work one way. For those of us who like to manage feedback and other tasks in the same place, this could be a reason to look elsewhere.