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PicMonkey is a feature-rich online photo editor that works right in your browser; no downloads...

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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?
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
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| Website | picmonkey.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.


No description of PicMonkey yet.
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
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Walkthroughs and reviews on video.
PicMonkey Overview 2018 First Look Beta New Features Review
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How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.


As answered by people managing PicMonkey 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.
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External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.


PicMonkey has received a rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars based on user reviews. Users generally mention the intuitive design and ease of use. Check out more PicMonkey reviews here.
Another platform-independent, web-based design and editing tool with a lot to offer is PicMonkey, which was seemingly designed with the neophyte user in mind but also packs a punch for those looking for more...
There are also a bunch of filters and effects that you might find useful. However, PicMonkey isn’t nearly as feature-rich as Photoshop is, and it tends to respond a little slow at times. That said, the biggest problem...
We have no reviews of refern. yet. Be the first one to post
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