Free is a reasonable requirement. Plenty of designers are students, between roles, or simply unwilling to pay for another subscription until a tool has earned it. This is what the free tiers of the main reference managers actually give you, as of late 2026, and where each one stops.
What to check on any free plan
- A cap on saves, and how high it is.
- Whether search reads inside images, or only matches titles and tags you typed.
- Whether automatic tagging is included, or reserved for paid plans.
- Whether the library is private, and whether you can export it.
GetRef
Free forever, no card. The free plan includes the full saving flow (paste, drag, link), automatic tagging by colour, content and screen type, text recognition inside screenshots and search by description, up to a cap on the number of references. The Chrome extension and unlimited references are on Pro, which is $1.99 a month billed yearly. The free plan is a complete small library rather than a demo. Private by default.
Eagle
A 30-day trial, then a one-time licence. No permanent free tier. If you want a large, local, folder-based library on one machine, the one-time price is fair and there is no subscription. But free it is not.
mymind
A free trial, then a monthly or yearly subscription at the higher end of personal tools. There is no permanent free plan. Its strength is the quality of the private, search-everything experience, which is the thing it charges for.
Raindrop
A generous free plan: unlimited bookmarks, collections, tags and a browser extension. Full-text search of page content, duplicate finding and permanent copies of pages are on the paid plan. For links, free Raindrop is excellent. It saves pages rather than screenshots, so it is a bookmark manager first.
Are.na
Free with a cap on the number of blocks, then a paid plan for unlimited blocks and private channels. Public by default on the free tier, which suits its research-and-sharing purpose and does not suit a private UI library.
Free and unlimited. Also public by default, searched across the whole site rather than your saves, and pointing at pages that disappear. Free in money, expensive in retrieval. Pinterest alternatives for designers goes deeper.
Which free plan can you build on?
- You keep screenshots and want to find them by describing them: GetRef's free plan, and upgrade only when you hit the cap.
- You keep mostly links: Raindrop's free plan.
- You want a public, connected archive: Are.na.
- You want local files on one machine and do not mind paying once: Eagle after the trial.
For a comparison that includes the paid tiers, see the best reference saving tool and the best design reference manager.
Common questions
- Is GetRef free?
- Yes. The free plan is free forever with no card required, and includes capture, automatic tagging and search up to a reference cap. Pro removes the cap and adds the Chrome extension, from $1.99 a month billed yearly.
- Does Eagle have a free plan?
- Eagle offers a 30-day trial and is then a one-time purchase per licence, with no ongoing free tier. For a one-machine library the one-time price is good value, but it is not free.
- What is the catch with free reference tools?
- Usually one of three things: a cap on saves, search and automatic tagging held back for paid plans, or your library being public by default. Check which before you commit a year of saving to one.
