Pinterest vs GetRef for Designers: Where Should Your References Live?

Pinterest is where most designers start saving inspiration, and for good reason. It is free, it is huge, and its feed is very good at showing you more of whatever you just liked. GetRef is a design reference manager we built because Pinterest kept failing at one specific job: giving back the exact reference you saved months ago.

So this is not a "Pinterest is bad" post. The two tools do different jobs. The honest answer to "Pinterest vs GetRef" is that most designers should use both, for different things. Here is where each one wins.

We make GetRef, so weigh our opinion accordingly. We have tried to describe Pinterest the way a fair reviewer would.

The short version

• Use Pinterest to find. It is a discovery engine. Browsing, following boards, and the "more like this" feed are its strengths.
• Use GetRef to keep. It is a private library. Capturing with the link, reading the text in screenshots, a note on why you saved it, and search by description are its strengths.
• Do not use either for both jobs. A discovery feed makes a poor archive, and an archive makes a poor discovery feed.

Discovery: Pinterest wins clearly

Pinterest has billions of pins and an algorithm tuned for years to show you the next thing you will like. Search "fintech dashboard" and you get an endless wall of options in seconds. Follow a few good boards and your home feed turns into a daily inspiration stream.

GetRef has no public feed. It only contains what you saved. If you want to find new work you have never seen, Pinterest, Dribbble, Behance, Mobbin and the sites in our list of design inspiration websites are the places to go.

Saving: close, with one important difference

Both save in one click from a browser extension. The difference is what gets saved.

A Pinterest pin is an image plus a link, placed onto a board in a public feed. When you save an image someone else pinned, you get their image, often recompressed, with whatever description they wrote.

A GetRef save is your own screenshot of the page as you saw it, with its source link, and space for one line saying why you kept it. That note is the part that makes a reference useful three months later, and Pinterest has no good place for it.

Finding it again: GetRef wins clearly

This is the reason GetRef exists. Try to find a specific pin you saved eight months ago on Pinterest and you will scroll. Board search covers pin titles and descriptions, and the visual search shows you similar pins from the whole of Pinterest, not the one you saved.

GetRef reads the text inside every screenshot and tags what it shows when you save it. So you can search the way you remember: "dark pricing page with annual toggle", "onboarding with progress dots", "table with inline edit". The words on the screen, the kind of screen and your note all become search terms. We explain how this works in search text inside screenshots and AI image search for designers.

Privacy: GetRef by default, Pinterest by effort

Pinterest boards are public unless you mark them secret, and it is easy to forget. For client work, unreleased projects or competitor research, that matters.

GetRef libraries are private by default. Nothing you save shows up in anyone's feed.

Ads and noise

Pinterest is funded by advertising, so your boards and search results include promoted pins and shopping suggestions. That is a fair trade for a free product, but it adds noise when you only want your own references.

GetRef has no ads. The free plan is limited by size, not by attention.

Pinterest vs GetRef at a glance

• Best for: Pinterest for discovery and browsing. GetRef for keeping and finding your own references.
• Capture: both one click from the browser. GetRef keeps your own screenshot and a note.
• Text inside images searchable: Pinterest no. GetRef yes.
• Search by description: Pinterest searches all of Pinterest. GetRef searches your library.
• Privacy: Pinterest public by default with secret boards. GetRef private by default.
• Ads: Pinterest yes. GetRef no.
• Price: Pinterest free. GetRef free for 50 references, paid above that.

How designers use them together

1. Browse Pinterest, Dribbble or Mobbin when you are exploring a new problem.
2. When something makes you stop, capture it into GetRef with one line on why.
3. Leave the rest on Pinterest. It will still be there if you want to browse again.
4. When a project starts, search GetRef first. Your own shortlist beats a fresh scroll.

If you want to compare more than two tools, we reviewed seven options in the best Pinterest alternatives for designers, and the wider field in the best design reference manager. If you want to try the workflow, GetRef is free for your first 50 references.