Best Giftful Alternatives
Giftful is a universal wishlist with anonymous claiming. It is a good answer to one specific question — a simple list where friends claim gifts without you knowing — and if that is your situation, it may be all you need.
This page is for the people it does not fit: those who want a list that is still navigable once it runs to a few hundred things. It compares Giftful with Things To Have on the eight things that decide whether a wishlist actually gets used, and lists the alternatives worth considering alongside it.
Short version: if you want a free, calm wishlist app for you and your friends — no ads, no account needed to view, and reservations your family can use without spoiling the surprise — Things To Have is the closest fit. If you need a simple list where friends claim gifts without you knowing, Giftful is probably still the right tool.
What Giftful does well
- universal — add gifts from any website
- friends claim wishes anonymously, so the surprise survives
- iOS and Android apps plus a Chrome plugin
- free
Why people look for an alternative to Giftful
Reports conflict about guests. Some users say claiming works without an account; others found that "people have to make an account to view it" — worth testing with one recipient before you commit a family to it.
No filtering or sorting. Long lists become a scroll, which is a complaint users make directly.
Less published on privacy and export.
Giftful vs Things To Have
| App | View without an account | Reservations keep the surprise | Free, no paywall | No ads | Any store + autofill | Works on any device | Sort & filter | Export your data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Things To Have | Yes | Yes — anonymous even to the owner | Yes — everything free | Yes | Yes — autofill without an extension | Yes — web/PWA, nothing to install | Yes | Yes — JSON |
| Giftful | Partly — mixed reports about accounts | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | No — no filters | — |
“—” means we could not confirm it from the app’s own documentation.
The best alternatives, compared
| App | View without an account | Reservations keep the surprise | Free, no paywall | No ads | Any store + autofill | Works on any device | Sort & filter | Export your data |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Things To Have | Yes | Yes — anonymous even to the owner | Yes — everything free | Yes | Yes — autofill without an extension | Yes — web/PWA, nothing to install | Yes | Yes — JSON |
| GiftList | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | Partly | — |
| WishApp | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | — | — |
| Giftwhale | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly — no Android app | — | — |
| Wishlist (wishlistapp.io) | Partly | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes — iOS, Android and web | Partly | — |
“—” means we could not confirm it from the app’s own documentation.
How the two compare, criterion by criterion
Against the eight criteria, Giftful falls short on 3 of them. The two apps are level on 4 others.
- View without an account
- Giftful: partly — mixed reports about accounts. Things To Have: yes.
- No ads
- Giftful: partly. Things To Have: yes.
- Sort & filter
- Giftful: no — no filters. Things To Have: yes.
One column is left blank above — Export your data. Giftful's own documentation does not answer it, and a guess in a comparison table is worse than a blank.
Giving up: Giftful's specific strengths, listed above. If those matter more than the criteria in the table — and for some people they genuinely do — staying is the right call.
Which should you choose?
- You want a free list to send to family who will not sign up: Things To Have.
- You want what Giftful is best at (a simple list where friends claim gifts without you knowing): stay with Giftful.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to Giftful?
Yes — Things To Have has no paywall and no list limits. Giftful is free too, so cost is not the reason to switch — the rest of the table is.
Do my friends need an account to open the list?
Not on Things To Have — viewing never requires a signup. Giftful lets them some of the time, depending on how the list is shared (mixed reports about accounts). This is the criterion that decides how many people actually see your list.
Can I move my list out of Giftful?
Giftful publishes no export we could confirm, so copy what matters before you stop using it. Either way, a pasted list of links is enough to rebuild it here — importing shows a preview before anything is written, and the way back out is an export in JSON.
Keep comparing
- Best wishlist apps — all of them, ranked against the same eight criteria
- Every comparison — one page per app