Best GoWish Alternatives
GoWish is the biggest wishlist app by user count, built for discovering and saving wishes. It is a good answer to one specific question — discovering gift ideas and a large community of users — 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 with no ads in it and nothing being recommended at them. It compares GoWish 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 discovering gift ideas and a large community of users, GoWish is probably still the right tool.
What GoWish does well
- 18M+ registered users and 600M+ wishes saved
- apps for iOS, Android and the web, plus a browser extension
- a gift generator for when you have no idea what to buy
- strong brand presence, including as a Snap partnership story
Why people look for an alternative to GoWish
It is ad-supported. Users describe it as "basically a commercial app. Full of advertisement and cluttered design" — a fair trade for reach, a poor one if you want a calm list.
The discovery layer is the product. Inspiration and trending brands sit between you and your own list.
It reads as a shop window. When a wishlist recommends products to you, it has stopped being your list.
GoWish 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 |
| GoWish | Partly | Yes | Yes | No — ad-supported | Yes | Yes | Partly | — |
“—” 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 |
| Wishfinity | Partly | Partly | Yes | Partly — ad platform | Yes | Yes | Partly | — |
| GiftList | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | Partly | — |
| Wishes | Yes | Yes | Partly — 3 lists free, $9.99/yr | Yes | Yes | Yes | — | — |
| Elfster | No — everyone needs an account | No — owners can see activity | Partly — paid tier | Partly | Yes | Yes | Partly | — |
“—” means we could not confirm it from the app’s own documentation.
How the two compare, criterion by criterion
Against the eight criteria, GoWish falls short on 3 of them. The two apps are level on 4 others.
- View without an account
- GoWish: partly. Things To Have: yes.
- No ads
- GoWish: no — ad-supported. Things To Have: yes.
- Sort & filter
- GoWish: partly. Things To Have: yes.
One column is left blank above — Export your data. GoWish's own documentation does not answer it, and a guess in a comparison table is worse than a blank.
Giving up: GoWish'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 GoWish is best at (discovering gift ideas and a large community of users): stay with GoWish.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to GoWish?
Yes — Things To Have has no paywall and no list limits. GoWish 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. GoWish lets them some of the time, depending on how the list is shared. This is the criterion that decides how many people actually see your list.
Can I move my list out of GoWish?
GoWish 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