Best Wishes Alternatives
Wishes is a well-made mobile wishlist app with a clean one-link sharing model. It is a good answer to one specific question — a single, neatly presented mobile wishlist — 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 everything included, with no paid tier waiting at the point it gets useful. It compares Wishes 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 single, neatly presented mobile wishlist, Wishes is probably still the right tool.
What Wishes does well
- polished iOS and Android apps with a 4.7 App Store rating
- guests open your list from a link without an account
- simple, visual, easy to explain to a family member
- add wishes with Siri, find lists in Spotlight, pin one as a widget
Why people look for an alternative to Wishes
The free tier is three wishlists. After that it is $9.99 a year, or $1.99 per extra list.
That limit lands exactly when you need it. A birthday list, a Christmas list and a private list of things you are saving for is three.
A wishlist is used a few times a year. A subscription for that is hard to justify, and the recipient ends up paying while the gift givers do not.
Wishes 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 |
| Wishes | Yes | Yes | Partly — 3 lists free, $9.99/yr | Yes | Yes | Yes | — | — |
“—” 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 |
| Giftwhale | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly — no Android app | — | — |
| Giftful | Partly — mixed reports about accounts | Yes | Yes | Partly | Yes | Yes | No — no filters | — |
| Wishupon | Partly | Yes | Partly — Wishupon Plus | Partly | Yes | Yes | Partly | — |
| GoWish | Partly | Yes | Yes | No — ad-supported | 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, Wishes falls short on 1 of them. The two apps are level on 5 others.
- Free, no paywall
- Wishes: partly — 3 lists free, $9.99/yr. Things To Have: yes — everything free.
2 columns are left blank above — Sort & filter and Export your data. Wishes's own documentation does not answer them, and a guess in a comparison table is worse than a blank.
Giving up: Wishes'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 Wishes is best at (a single, neatly presented mobile wishlist): stay with Wishes.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to Wishes?
Yes — Things To Have has no paywall and no list limits. Wishes is only partly free (3 lists free, $9.99/yr).
Do my friends need an account to open the list?
Not on Things To Have — viewing never requires a signup. Wishes also lets people view a list without one. This is the criterion that decides how many people actually see your list.
Can I move my list out of Wishes?
Wishes 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