The Best Milanote Alternatives for Designers: 6 Tools for Boards and Reference Libraries

Milanote is one of the best tools for thinking visually. You drop images, notes, links and colours onto a board, move them around until a direction appears, and share it with a client. That is exactly what a moodboard should be.

People look for Milanote alternatives for two different reasons, and the right answer depends on which one is yours.

• You want a different board tool, because of the price, the free plan limits, or because your team already lives in Figma.
• Your boards have become your library, and you cannot find anything any more. That is not a board problem. It is a missing library.

This guide covers both. We build GetRef, one of the tools below, so bear that in mind.

If you want another board tool

1. Figma and FigJam. Most product designers already have Figma open all day. A FigJam board or a Figma page of references is easy to build, easy to share and sits next to the work. The downside is file weight: a board of hundreds of screenshots gets slow. See how to organise Figma inspiration files.

2. Miro. A mature whiteboard with templates, sticky notes and strong collaboration. Better for workshops and planning than for pure visual moodboards, but it handles both. Free plan available.

3. PureRef. A free, lightweight desktop app that pins reference images on a floating, always-on-top board while you work in another app. Loved by illustrators and 3D artists. No cloud, no collaboration, very fast.

If your real problem is finding old references

When a board tool is used as long-term storage, the boards multiply. Six months later you remember a reference but not which board it is on, and you scroll through every one of them. The fix is not a better board. It is a searchable library under your boards.

4. GetRef. A design reference manager. Every reference is captured with its link in one click, read (text inside images becomes searchable), tagged automatically, and found later by description. You build Milanote or Figma boards from it when a project starts, and the library keeps everything after the project ends. Free for 50 references.

5. Eagle. A desktop asset manager with folders, tags and colour filters for very large local libraries. One-time purchase. Best when your references are mostly local files.

6. Are.na. Channels of connected blocks, public by default, great for research that you want to share or build with others.

How the pieces fit together

The setup that works for most design teams has two layers:

1. Library: one searchable place where every reference lives permanently, such as GetRef or Eagle.
2. Boards: Milanote, FigJam or PureRef for one project at a time, built from the library and archived when the project ends.

If you only have boards, you will lose things. If you only have a library, you will struggle to present. You need both, and you need the library to be the one that remembers.

Quick picks

• Your team lives in Figma: FigJam.
• You run workshops and planning sessions: Miro.
• You want a floating board while you draw or model: PureRef.
• You cannot find old references across your boards: GetRef under your boards.
• You manage a large local file library: Eagle.
• You want to collect in public: Are.na.

For the moodboard side in more depth, read the best moodboard tools for designers and how to make a UI moodboard.