
Mural
LucidChart
Excalidraw
Whimsical
Milanote
Trello
Notion
Join Millions of users that collaborate from all over the planet using Miro. Experience the power of the #1 visual workspace for innovation. More than 100M users and 250,000 companies are collaborating on the canvas.

PureRef
Milanote
Eagle App
Pinterest
Allusion
digiKam
weheartit.com
A visual reference manager for creatives. Organize your reference library and build moodboards on an infinite canvas, all in one desktop app.

Which is more popular?
Based on our record, Miro seems to be more popular. It has been mentioned 243 times since March 2021.
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
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| Website | miro.com | refern.app |
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| Platforms | — | |
| Company | Startup from the United States | Startup from Canada · 1 - 9 employees · 2026 |
| Listed in |
In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.


Miro AI is the artificial intelligence layer built directly into the Miro collaborative workspace. It helps teams think, create, and execute faster by embedding AI into the same visual environment where collaboration already happens. Rather than being a separate tool, Miro AI works contextually...
refern is a local-first desktop app for collecting, organizing, and working with visual references. The library side gives you folders, hierarchical tags, smart folders, ratings, color labels, color search by hex, image-to-image visual similarity, and more than 14 typed search operators, all...
What each product offers, as listed by its team.


Possible disadvantages
An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.


Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
Overall verdict
Why this product is good
Recommended for
Walkthroughs and reviews on video.
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How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.


As answered by people managing Miro and refern..
refern.'s answer:
I'm an artist, and too often I was frustrated: I couldn't find the right pictures, I struggled to organize and keep track of my reference images, and I was juggling too many apps when all I wanted to do was draw. I wanted one tool that could do it all, with every component well integrated. So I made refern.
refern.'s answer:
The flow of collecting references for art usually goes like this:
find references and inspiration online -> save and organize those images -> use them on their own or in a moodboard -> reuse them for the next project or share them with others
Normally that means a different app for each step. refern does all of it in one place, with every part built to work together.
refern.'s answer:
Most tools solve only one part of the reference workflow, so artists end up juggling several. refern combines them in one app: Eagle-style organization and search, a PureRef-style infinite canvas, and an Obsidian-style graph of how your references connect. It never copies your files, so it doesn't double your disk usage. It runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, works fully offline, and is a $30 one-time purchase with no subscription. Built in Rust, it stays fast even on libraries with hundreds of thousands of images.
refern.'s answer:
Individual artists and creative professionals: illustrators, concept artists, digital painters, designers, and photographers. They collect and organize large libraries of visual references, build moodboards, and study from reference. refern is built for solo creators rather than teams, spanning hobbyists and students through working professionals.
refern.'s answer:
refern is a Tauri v2 desktop app with a Rust backend and a React 19 (with React Compiler) plus TypeScript frontend. Data is stored locally in SQLite (rusqlite) with FTS5 full-text search. The interface uses Tailwind CSS, Zustand, and TanStack Query, with motion/react for animation. The infinite canvas and graph view are built on react-three-fiber and three.js. Thumbnailing, perceptual hashing, and color and visual similarity run in Rust with rayon and SIMD.
Share your experience with using Miro and refern.. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.


Miro is the ultimate visual collaboration platform for early-stage brainstorming and workshops. It provides total freedom for "messy" discovery—affinity mapping, user journey sketching, and service blueprints—helping...
Team collaboration is non-negotiable for modern development. Tools like Lucidchart, Miro, and DrawSQL are purpose-built for real-time teamwork, complete with live cursors, comments, and sharing links. If your team...
Teams can discuss ideas, plan, and interact graphically in real time using Miro, an online collaborative whiteboard platform. Users can create and arrange many kinds of content, such as sticky notes, diagrams,...
We have no reviews of refern. yet. Be the first one to post
Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.


Lucidchart is better when polished collaboration matters enough to justify the cost. Mermaid is better when the team wants diagrams in code. Miro is better for workshops than for long-term architecture documentation. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
Miro is a popular online whiteboard platform where users can create mind maps, diagrams, and visual workflows together. It also supports collaboration between multiple users. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
Create user story mapping diagrams using Miro,. - Source: dev.to / over 5 years ago
Tracking refern. since Mar 2024.
When comparing Miro and refern., you can also consider the following products.


The simple way to view and organize your multiple reference images.
Compare PureRef to Miro or refern.:

LucidChart is the missing link in online productivity suites. LucidChart allows users to create, collaborate on, and publish attractive flowcharts and other diagrams from a web browser.
Compare LucidChart to Miro or refern.:


Excalidraw is a whiteboard tool that lets you easily sketch diagrams that have a hand-drawn feel to them.
Compare Excalidraw to Miro or refern.:

Unify your creative inspiration in one place. Store anything – inspiring images, design mockups, illustrations, screenshots and more.
Compare Eagle App to Miro or refern.: