Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

PureRef VS Spatius

Compare PureRef VS Spatius and see what are their differences

PureRef logo PureRef

The simple way to view and organize your multiple reference images.

Spatius logo Spatius

Next-generation real-time digital avatar infrastructure | Affordable, Accessible, Alive
Visit Website
  • PureRef Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-23
  • Spatius Spaitus.ai Home Page
    Spaitus.ai Home Page //
    2026-08-03

Spatius is next-generation real-time digital human infrastructure that enables AI to communicate through natural, expressive digital characters rather than text and voice alone. Companies can use Spatius across AI education, recruiting interviews, customer service, smart terminals, and companion products to create more engaging and lifelike user experiences.

Powered by its self-developed cloud-edge 3DGS technology, Spatius addresses visual quality, deployability, and cost at the same time. The product runs across web, mobile, and intelligent hardware, remains stable on constrained networks and a wide range of devices, and supports long-duration, high-concurrency interactions at predictable costs.

Spatius currently serves TAL Education and other leading customers in the education, recruiting, smart devices , and AI companion sectors. These products have reached millions of end users and supported tens of millions of digital human conversations, helping customers take real-time digital humans from demos into long-term, large-scale production.

Spatius

Website
spatius.ai
$ Details
freemium
Release Date
2026 August
Startup details
Country
Singapore
Employees
20 - 49

PureRef features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    PureRef offers a simple and intuitive interface that makes it easy to organize and manage reference images. The minimalistic design allows users to focus on their work without unnecessary distractions.
  • Lightweight and Portable
    The software is lightweight and does not require installation, making it highly portable. Users can run PureRef from a USB drive or any location on their computer.
  • Flexible Canvas
    PureRef provides a flexible canvas that can be easily resized and adjusted to fit usersโ€™ needs. This allows for seamless scaling of images without quality loss and the ability to organize the workspace freely.
  • Cross-Platform Compatibility
    PureRef is available on Windows, macOS, and Linux, allowing users to maintain a consistent workflow across different operating systems.
  • Customizable Shortcuts
    Users can customize keyboard shortcuts to fit their workflow, which increases efficiency and speeds up navigation within the software.
  • Multiple Image Formats
    PureRef supports a wide range of image formats, ensuring compatibility with most reference images beyond basic formats like JPG and PNG.

Possible disadvantages of PureRef

  • Limited Editing Tools
    While PureRef excels in organizing and displaying reference images, it lacks advanced editing tools, which means users need to rely on other software for image adjustments or annotations.
  • No Cloud Integration
    PureRef does not offer built-in cloud storage or syncing options, which could be inconvenient for users who work across multiple devices and want seamless access to their reference boards.
  • Learning Curve for Advanced Features
    While basic functionalities are easy to grasp, some advanced features and keyboard shortcuts may require time to learn and master, particularly for users new to PureRef.
  • Not Free for All Users
    Although PureRef offers a pay-what-you-want pricing model, users may face ethical dilemmas or budget constraints when deciding what to pay, especially if they plan to use it for professional purposes.
  • Occasional Performance Issues
    Some users report occasional lag or performance issues when handling extremely large collections of high-resolution images, which can disrupt workflow.

Spatius features and specs

  • Photorealistic Real-Time Digital Humans
    Bring AI conversations to life with natural lip synchronization, facial expressions, and lifelike 3D characters. Spatius turns generated speech into responsive digital human animation in real time.
  • Cloud-Edge 3DGS Architecture
    Spatius combines lightweight cloud-based motion generation with on-device 3D Gaussian Splatting rendering. This architecture delivers high visual quality without continuously streaming rendered video from cloud GPUs.
  • Stable on Low-Bandwidth Networks
    Instead of transmitting a heavy video stream, Spatius sends lightweight motion data to the client device. This enables stable interactions on constrained, shared, or variable networks and helps prevent frozen or degraded avatar video.
  • Cross-Platform SDKs
    Deploy digital humans across web, iOS, Android, smart terminals, and intelligent hardware. Spatius supports modern browser and native rendering technologies, including WebGL/WebGPU, Metal, and Vulkan.
  • Built for Long-Running, High-Concurrency Use
    Spatius is designed for extended conversations and large-scale production deployments. Its edge-rendering architecture reduces dependence on cloud GPU capacity, enabling predictable costs as usage and concurrency grow.
  • Flexible AI Integration and Custom Avatars
    Connect Spatius to your preferred ASR, LLM, TTS, and real-time communication stack through standard audio-streaming interfaces. Teams can choose ready-made characters or deploy custom-branded 3DGS avatars for their own products.

Analysis of Spatius

Overall verdict

  • I don't have verified, up-to-date information about Spatius (spatius.ai) to make a reliable assessment of its quality, features, or performance. I cannot confirm specific details about this product/service.

Why this product is good

  • Insufficient verified data available about this specific product
  • Cannot confirm claims about features, pricing, or performance without reliable sources
  • Recommend checking recent user reviews, independent tech publications, or the company's official documentation directly

Recommended for

  • Users should research current reviews on independent platforms
  • Consider requesting a demo or trial directly from the company
  • Check recent user testimonials and case studies
  • Verify claims through third-party tech review sites

PureRef videos

The Best Free Tool for Artists - PureRef

More videos:

  • Tutorial - PureRef tutorial: a free, cross-platform virtual board for artists!
  • Review - PureRef Review

Spatius videos

Teaser Homo Spatius Designers de lโ€™espace

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to PureRef and Spatius)
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
AI Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Digital Asset Management
100 100%
0% 0
Avatar Generator
0 0%
100% 100

Questions & Answers

As answered by people managing PureRef and Spatius.

What makes your product unique?

Spatius's answer:

Spatius combines photorealistic 3D Gaussian Splatting avatars with a cloud-edge rendering architecture built specifically for real-time AI interaction. Instead of rendering every frame on cloud GPUs and streaming it as video, Spatius sends lightweight motion data to the userโ€™s device, where the avatar is rendered locally.

This approach addresses visual quality, network reliability, device coverage, and operating cost at the same time. It allows digital humans to remain responsive during long conversations, work across web, mobile, and intelligent hardware, and scale to high-concurrency production environments.

Why should a person choose your product over its competitors?

Spatius's answer:

Spatius combines photorealistic 3D Gaussian Splatting avatars with a cloud-edge rendering architecture built specifically for real-time AI interaction. Instead of rendering every frame on cloud GPUs and streaming it as video, Spatius sends lightweight motion data to the userโ€™s device, where the avatar is rendered locally.

This approach addresses visual quality, network reliability, device coverage, and operating cost at the same time. It allows digital humans to remain responsive during long conversations, work across web, mobile, and intelligent hardware, and scale to high-concurrency production environments.

How would you describe the primary audience of your product?

Spatius's answer:

Spatius is built for companies and developers creating AI products that benefit from natural, face-to-face interaction. Its primary users include teams working in AI education, recruiting and interviews, customer service, smart terminals, digital assistants, intelligent devices, and AI companion products.

It is especially well suited to organizations that require long-duration conversations, high concurrency, cross-platform deployment, custom-branded characters, or reliable operation on constrained networks and hardware.

What's the story behind your product?

Spatius's answer:

Spatius was created to close the gap between digital human demonstrations and real-world deployment. Many avatar technologies can produce an impressive short demo, but become difficult or expensive to operate when conversations last longer, user numbers grow, or products must run across diverse devices and network environments.

The Spatius team developed its own cloud-edge 3DGS technology to solve these production challenges together. Today, Spatius helps companies turn AI into a more natural and expressive presence, bringing real-time digital humans into education, recruiting, smart devices, customer-facing terminals, and companion applications.

Which are the primary technologies used for building your product?

Spatius's answer:

Spatius is primarily built on proprietary 3D Gaussian Splatting technology and a cloud-edge rendering architecture.

Its cloud-based Motion Server converts generated speech into lightweight facial and motion data, while the AvatarKit SDK renders and animates the 3DGS character locally on the client device. Platform technologies include WebGL and WebGPU for web applications, Metal for iOS, and Vulkan for Android. Spatius can receive real-time audio through technologies such as WebSocket, WebRTC, LiveKit, and Agora, and can integrate with third-party ASR, LLM, and TTS providers.

Who are some of the biggest customers of your product?

Spatius's answer:

TAL Education is one of Spatiusโ€™s leading customers. Spatius also works with established companies across education, recruiting, smart devices, and AI companion products.

Products powered by Spatius have reached millions of end users and supported tens of millions of digital human conversations, demonstrating the platformโ€™s ability to operate in long-term, large-scale production environments.

User comments

Share your experience with using PureRef and Spatius. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, PureRef seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 4 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

PureRef mentions (4)

  • how do u guys organize your visual inspiration/refs digitally?
    I mainly use offline means: organising all my files in a hierarchy of folders and using pureref (which I highly recommend) to make moodboards, and ofc an external hard drive to save backups. The only online means I use is google drive for online backups. Source: about 4 years ago
  • HELP! So I want to trace this Image(704x702) into a Pixel art (32 x 32 or 40 x 40) but when I resize it, it gets like this (2nd picture) and if I don't, then the pixels are too small, What do i do?
    If you just want the image to be a transparent overlay while you draw 'through the image'(with it being unchanged) you can use something like Pureref(pureref.com) to set the image as always on top + turn opacity down a bit. Source: about 4 years ago
  • Hide user name in menu bar.
    If you canโ€™t get it to work inside of max, I thought of a free easy workaround you could try. I use the software pureref to manage and quickly access reference images. You could just resize an empty pureref window to cover your username. Change the color and opacity to whatever you want, lock the window and switch turn on the transparent to mouse option and you should be good to go! Source: over 4 years ago
  • Hello Reddit! this is my 1st time posting and i'm excited to share some of my sketches with you guys. I like drawing dynamic poses, it's a really fun exercise!. These 4 girls are from reference pics out of Pinterest. Suggestions are welcome :D. Have a great day!
    The high kicking girl on the right is in a PureRef board I keep to practice gesture. Source: about 5 years ago

Spatius mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Spatius yet. Tracking of Spatius recommendations started around May 2026.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing PureRef and Spatius, you can also consider the following products

Eagle App - Unify your creative inspiration in one place. Store anything โ€“ inspiring images, design mockups, illustrations, screenshots and more.

Anam - The Face of AI

BeeRef - A Simple Reference Image Viewer

LiveAvatar by HeyGen - Realtime lifelike interactive avatars for conversational AI

Milanote - Milanote is a note taking app for creative work.

Synthesia.io - Create AI videos by simply typing in text. Make engaging videos for e-learning, customer onboarding, etc. No need for actors, cameras or audio equipment.