Correction, 2026-10-02: the previous version ranked the apps on judgements we have not measured: Milanote as "the designer default" that "wins the presentation", with boards that "look composed" and share links that "present well to a client"; Figma and FigJam as winning colour and type fidelity because they share the "same rendering engine" as the design work (Figma's help center says FigJam boards are rendered in sRGB, while Figma Design files can use sRGB or Display P3); FigJam boards as "less warm in front of a client"; Excalidraw as "the wrong register" for image-led boards; Pinterest as what designers "actually use", with "little room for annotation" and a client view "full of other people's content"; 8frame as lacking "Milanote's calm"; and a board that generates as "a materially stronger presentation". Each app is now described by what its own pages say, and the numbering is not a ranking. The page also described 8frame's free offer outside our standard sentence ("unlimited free canvases", "no expiry", "canvas free, generation paid"); only that sentence remains, and the claim that boards never expire is gone because we cannot source it. It gave 8frame image prices as "6 to 21 credits an image"; it now gives the price at the setting each image tool opens on. It did not say that an 8frame board has no public share link, that each collaborator needs an 8frame account, that Starter cannot invite anyone, or that credits are per user; all four are now stated. Every competitor fact was re-checked on the vendor's own page on 2026-10-02.
Correction, 2026-10-01: the first version of this page listed real-time multiplayer as part of 8frame's free canvas. The canvas is free and unlimited, but inviting collaborators needs the Creator plan (up to 3 members) or Agency (up to 30). It also said Pinterest gives no control over adjacency; Pinterest lets you reorder Pins on a board and group them into sections, though not lay them out freely. Milanote's paid price, given as "$9.99 per person annually", is $9.99 per person a month billed annually ($12.50 billed monthly). Competitor facts were re-checked on 2026-10-01.
Designers ask three things of a moodboard app: colour that stays true from the board to the specification, typography shown at a size you can judge, and a view the client can open without seeing your working. Which app fits depends on which of those jobs comes first, and on a fourth that AI canvases have added: whether the board can produce the work as well as collect it. This is not a quality ranking. We have not run the same project through every app, so each one is described by what its own pages say, checked on 2026-10-02. Disclosure: 8frame is our product, and it is not a notes tool or a link-sharing tool (an 8frame board has no public share link).
TL;DR
- The client should open the board without an account: Milanote's read-only link, which people can view without a Milanote account, with an optional password. The free plan has no time limit and is capped at 100 notes, images or links plus 10 file uploads; paid is $9.99 a month per person billed annually ($12.50 monthly)
- You will specify colour from the board: Figma. Figma Design files can be set to sRGB or Display P3, and exports use the file's colour profile by default; FigJam boards are rendered in sRGB. A FigJam Collab seat is $3 a month on Professional or $5 on Organization, billed annually, and the free Starter plan allows 3 FigJam files
- The board has to generate images and video: 8frame (our product). The canvas is free and unlimited; generation is paid from $19/month. Inviting collaborators needs Creator ($49/month, up to 3 members) or Agency ($499/month, up to 30), and a board has no public share link
- Free, with no board count: Excalidraw, open source under the MIT licence, with read-only share links on excalidraw.com
- Saving references you find on the web: Pinterest, with board sections and Pins you can reorder, though not lay out freely
- The check before you commit to any of them: upload a colour swatch you know and compare it with the original
What designers need from a moodboard app
Colour fidelity. A board is a colour decision as much as an image decision. If an app recompresses uploads or changes their colour profile, the palette you approve is not the palette you specify. Check once, before committing to an app: upload a known swatch and compare it with the original file. If your palette is specified in Display P3, judge it in a Figma Design file rather than on a FigJam board, because FigJam boards are rendered in sRGB.
Typography at real size. A typeface specimen shown at thumbnail scale tells you nothing. Boards need room to show a headline at headline size.
A clean client view. The board you work in has rejected options, notes to self, and three versions of the same crop. The board the client sees should not. Check what a share link shows before you send one: Milanote's read-only link shows the full board, so the client version should be its own board.
Getting out again. Boards feed specification. If exporting means screenshotting, the board is a dead end. Before you build in an app, check what it exports and in which colour profile.
The apps
The numbering below is not a ranking.
1. Milanote
For: boards a client opens from a link.
Milanote describes itself as "an easy-to-use tool for organizing creative projects": notes, images, videos, sketches and links on visual boards, saving content from the web in a single click, and invites that let others edit, comment on or just view a board. A read-only link lets people view a board without a Milanote account, and Milanote's help center calls it "a fast way to share with clients or teammates". You can require a password, set a welcome message, generate embed code, and turn comments, reactions and drawing on or off. The viewer sees the full board, so the client version should be its own board.
The free plan has no time limit and is capped at 100 notes, images or links plus 10 file uploads, with unlimited shared boards; paid is $9.99 a month per person billed annually, or $12.50 billed monthly.
Limits: neither Milanote's plans page nor its home page lists an AI feature, so every image on a Milanote board was made somewhere else. The help articles on read-only links and passwords do not say whether either needs a paid plan, so try it on your plan before you promise a client a link.
2. Figma and FigJam
For: designers who will specify from the board.
FigJam is Figma's online whiteboard for real-time collaboration, with audio, live chat, stamps and emotes. A Collab seat costs $3 a month on Figma's Professional plan and $5 on Organization, billed annually, each with 500 AI credits a month. The free Starter plan allows 3 FigJam files plus unlimited drafts, but on Starter anyone you invite to a draft gets view access only. Per Figma's help center, FigJam AI generates boards and diagrams, sorts and summarizes stickies, and makes and edits images; it lists no video generation.
On colour, the two differ. FigJam boards are rendered in sRGB. Figma Design files are set to sRGB by default and can be switched to Display P3 on all plans, and Figma exports assets in the file's colour profile by default. If the palette on the board is the palette you will specify, keep it in a Figma Design file; for teams already in Figma, the design files are one tab away.
3. 8frame
For: boards that end in produced images and video.
The catch: no sticky notes, votes or timers; comments on the canvas, but no notes tool; generation is paid; and a board has no public share link (only invited collaborators with an 8frame account see it). For a client who will not create an account, a read-only link in another app is the simpler route.
8frame is our product: an infinite canvas where you upload your own images and video, arrange references and annotate them with comments. The canvas is free and unlimited; generation is paid from $19/month. Real-time collaboration (live cursors, collaborator roles) starts when the board owner invites collaborators, and that needs the Creator plan ($49/month, up to 3 members) or Agency ($499/month, up to 30). Starter cannot invite anyone, and each collaborator needs their own 8frame account. Credits are per user, not a team pool: each generation is charged to the person who runs it, on their own plan.
The reason to look: the same canvas runs image and video models, and images from the board go into them as inputs (a start frame or reference images, depending on the model), so an approved direction can become a generated style frame with the client's product photo among the references. Image prices at the setting each tool opens on: the Nano Banana tool opens on Nano Banana 2 at 1K, 11 credits an image; the Seedream tool opens on Seedream 5 Pro at 1K, 7 credits (Seedream 5 Lite is 6); the GPT Image tool opens on GPT Image 2 at high quality, 29 credits for a square image and 20 for other ratios. Nano Banana Pro is 21 credits (42 at 4K).
On files: PNG uploads are kept as uploaded, while HEIC, HEIF, BMP, TIFF and RAW uploads are converted to JPEG, so upload colour swatches as PNG. The download menu offers the original file as well as smaller WebP copies.
4. Excalidraw
For: free boards with no board count.
Excalidraw is free and open source under the MIT licence: an infinite whiteboard with a hand-drawn style, image support, and, on excalidraw.com, real-time collaboration and read-only share links. It autosaves to the browser and saves drawings as open .excalidraw files, so there is no board count to run into, and the repository includes the app's source and a Dockerfile, so you can run your own copy. Its AI is a text-to-diagram assistant, limited on the free plan; image or video generation is not among the features it lists. Weigh the hand-drawn look before you put a client board in it.
5. Pinterest
For: saving references you find on the web.
Pinterest describes itself as "a visual discovery engine". You save Pins (images, videos or products) to boards, group them into board sections, and drag and drop Pins or sections to reorder them, so a board is an ordered collection rather than a canvas you lay out freely. Group boards let other people collaborate, and boards can be private. Pinterest sets no limit on the Pins you create; it does limit the number of boards per account, without publishing the number.
A workflow that keeps the jobs apart
Find references where you discover them (Pinterest, for example), keep the working board wherever your collaborators and your colour checks are, and build a separate board for the client. That is three surfaces and it is fine, as long as the client-facing one is built on purpose rather than being the working board with the embarrassing parts deleted.
If the board also generates, the client version can show the direction applied to the client's own product, generated with their product photo as a reference, rather than only a grid of found references. On 8frame that client sees the board as an invited collaborator with an 8frame account, on the Creator or Agency plan, because a board has no public share link.
FAQ
What is the best free moodboard app? It depends on which limit you will hit, so here are the free terms side by side. Milanote's free plan has no time limit and is capped at 100 notes, images or links plus 10 file uploads. Excalidraw is free and open source, with no board count. FigJam's free Starter plan allows 3 FigJam files. For 8frame, our product, the terms fit in one line. The canvas is free and unlimited; generation is paid from $19/month. Inviting collaborators to an 8frame board needs the Creator or Agency plan.
Is Figma good for moodboards? It depends on the job. For specifying, Figma Design files can be set to sRGB or Display P3, and exports use the file's colour profile by default. FigJam, Figma's whiteboard, renders boards in sRGB; a Collab seat is $3 a month on Professional (billed annually), and the free Starter plan allows 3 FigJam files.
Should the client see the working board? No. Build a separate presentation board. The working board contains rejected directions, and a client can take a rejected direction for an option. Check what a share link shows before you send it: Milanote's read-only link, for example, shows the full board.
Can a client see an 8frame board? Only as an invited collaborator. There is no public share link for an ordinary board; each collaborator needs an 8frame account, and inviting needs the Creator plan (up to 3 members) or Agency (up to 30). Milanote, by contrast, has a read-only link that people can open without a Milanote account.
Sources
- Milanote free plan ("with no time limit", "100 notes, images or links", "10 file uploads", "Unlimited shared boards"), paid plan $9.99 per person a month billed annually or $12.50 monthly, no AI feature listed: Milanote plans and pricing, checked 2026-10-02; "an easy-to-use tool for organizing creative projects", notes, images, videos, sketches and links, saving web content in a single click, invites to edit, comment or view, no AI feature listed: Milanote home page, checked 2026-10-02
- Milanote read-only links (viewing "without needing a Milanote account", "a fast way to share with clients or teammates", password, welcome message, embed code, comments, reactions and drawing toggle; no plan restriction stated): Milanote help, Sharing a board, checked 2026-10-02; the viewer sees "the full board": Milanote help, What do others see when I share a board?, checked 2026-10-02
- FigJam Collab seat $3/mo on Professional and $5/mo on Organization, each with 500 AI credits a month: Figma pricing, checked 2026-10-02; Starter plan limited to 3 FigJam files, unlimited drafts, people invited to a draft get view access only: Figma help, Starter plan overview, checked 2026-10-02; real-time collaboration, audio, live chat, stamps and emotes: FigJam, checked 2026-10-02; FigJam AI (generate boards and diagrams, sort and summarize stickies, make and edit images; no video generation listed): Figma help, Use AI tools in FigJam, checked 2026-10-02
- Figma colour profiles (sRGB and Display P3 in Figma Design, sRGB default for new design files, "FigJam boards are rendered in sRGB", exports in the file's colour profile by default, available on all plans): Figma help, Manage color profiles in design files, checked 2026-10-02
- Excalidraw: "Free & open-source", MIT licence, infinite canvas, hand-drawn style, image support, real-time collaboration and read-only share links on excalidraw.com, autosave to the browser, open
.excalidrawformat, app source and Dockerfile in the repository: Excalidraw on GitHub, checked 2026-10-02; text-to-diagram assistant, labelled "AI Assistant": Excalidraw source, TTDDialog, checked 2026-10-02; the free-plan AI limit message ("You've hit your AI limit on the free plan..."): Excalidraw source, English interface strings, checked 2026-10-02 - Pinterest: "a visual discovery engine", Pins saved to boards, board sections, group boards, private boards: Pinterest help, All about Pinterest, checked 2026-10-02; reordering Pins and sections by drag and drop: Pinterest help, Reorder Pins and sections, checked 2026-10-02; no limit on Pins you create, a limit on boards: Pinterest help, Limits for Pins, boards and follows, checked 2026-10-02
- 8frame plans (Starter $19 for 1,000 credits; Creator $49 with "Collaboration up to 3 members"; Agency $499 with "Collaboration up to 30 members"): 8frame pricing, checked 2026-10-02; Starter cannot invite collaborators, each collaborator needs an 8frame account, credits charged to the user who runs each generation, no public share link, comments on the canvas, no sticky notes, votes or timers, PNG uploads kept as uploaded and HEIC, HEIF, BMP, TIFF and RAW uploads converted to JPEG, original file and WebP copies in the download menu: 8frame content fact sheet, checked 2026-10-02; image prices at each tool's opening setting (Nano Banana 2 at 1K 11, Seedream 5 Pro at 1K 7, Seedream 5 Lite 6, GPT Image 2 at high quality 29 square and 20 for other ratios, Nano Banana Pro 21 and 42 at 4K): 8frame tool registry, origin/main, checked 2026-10-02
Collect wherever you like, but build the board that gets approved where the work can be made. See also what is a moodboard.
Try it without signing up: the 8frame canvas opens on a real board. The canvas is free and unlimited; generation is paid from $19/month.