Every designer has a graveyard of saved references: a screenshots folder, a bookmarks bar, three Pinterest boards and a Figma file called Inspo. The problem is never saving. The problem is finding any of it three weeks later.
This is a comparison of the top platforms for saving references, judged on one question: when you half remember something you kept, how fast can you get it back? Each site below is good at something. Only a few are good at that.
How we judged them
- Capture. How many steps from seeing something to having it saved, and whether it works from any site.
- Context. Whether the screenshot and the link are kept together, with room for a note.
- Retrieval. Whether you can search by what is in the image, not just by a filename or a board name.
- Ownership. Private by default, exportable, and still yours if the service changes its mind.
The best websites for saving design references
GetRef. Built specifically for design references. You paste a screenshot or click the browser extension, and the save is read on arrival: the text inside it, the dominant colours and the kind of screen it is all become searchable, with tags generated for you. Search is by description, so "dark pricing page with annual toggle" finds the thing. Private by default, with collections for projects. Free plan with a cap, Pro from $1.99 a month billed yearly. Best for designers who save a lot and want to stop filing.
mymind. A private, minimal visual bookmarking tool that reads what you save and lets you search it in plain words. Strong for designers who also save articles, quotes and notes alongside UI. The pricing is at the higher end for a personal tool, and there are no folders at all, which some people love and some cannot live with.
Eagle. A desktop application rather than a website, with a browser extension for capture. It is the most capable file organizer on this list: thousands of images, colour filters, folders, tags and fast local search. Nothing is in the cloud unless you put it there. Best for large asset libraries on one machine. Weaker if you move between devices or want search by meaning.
Are.na. Collecting as a connected, slow, public act. Blocks go into channels, channels connect to each other, and you follow other people's. Wonderful for research and for seeing how ideas relate. Not built for private, high-volume UI reference, and there is no image text search.
Raindrop. A polished general bookmark manager with visual previews, tags, nested collections and full-text search of saved pages. If most of what you keep is links rather than screenshots, Raindrop is excellent and fair priced. It saves pages, not pixels, so when a site is redesigned your reference changes with it.
Pinterest. Still the biggest discovery engine for visual ideas. For saving your own references it has three problems: boards are public unless you remember to make them secret, search runs over all of Pinterest rather than your saves, and pins point at pages that rot. Treat it as a feed that occasionally hands you something worth saving elsewhere.
Milanote. Boards you arrange by hand, with images, notes and links side by side. Perfect for a moodboard or a project wall. As a library it does not scale: every new save is a card you must place, and there is no search inside images.
Savee. A clean, image-first community for visual inspiration, with private boards on the paid plan. Beautiful to browse and well curated. Light on organization and retrieval once a board gets large.
Cosmos. A newer discovery and saving tool with a strong aesthetic focus and clusters that group similar images. Good for exploring. Still early as a personal library tool and less suited to UI screenshots with dense text.
Which one should you pick?
- You want to browse and discover: Pinterest, Savee or Cosmos.
- You want to arrange a project wall: Milanote or FigJam.
- You want a connected research archive: Are.na.
- You mostly keep links: Raindrop.
- You keep thousands of files on one machine: Eagle.
- You keep screenshots and want to find them by describing them: GetRef or mymind.
A note on the two-tool setup
Most working designers end up with two: one place to discover and one place to keep. That is fine. The mistake is letting the discovery tool double as the library. Pick one home for everything you save, make the save take one click, and let the tool do the tagging. The rest of this blog covers how, starting with how to save design references properly and how to organize them when folders stop working.
Common questions
- What is the best website for saving design references?
- For a private library you can search by describing what you remember, GetRef. For a broad visual bookmarking tool across many kinds of content, mymind. For a local, file-based library of thousands of assets, Eagle. For public, connected collecting, Are.na. The right one depends on whether you want to browse, file or search.
- Is there a free website to save design references?
- Yes. GetRef, Raindrop, Are.na, Pinterest and Savee all have free plans. Free tiers usually cap the number of saves or hold back search and automatic tagging, so check what is included before you build a large library on one.
- Should I save design references in Pinterest?
- Pinterest is excellent for discovering images and weak for retrieving your own. Boards are public by default, search runs over the whole site rather than your saves, and pins point at pages that often disappear. It works as a feed and struggles as a library.
- What should a design reference saving platform do?
- Capture in one click or one paste from any site, keep the screenshot and its link together, read the text and colours inside the image so you can search by them, and tag automatically so you never have to file anything. Everything else is nice to have.
