A free Pastel alternative, no signup for reviewers

Yes, CobaltCapture is a free, browser-based alternative to Pastel for one-shot reviews. No reviewer signup, no per-seat plan, no install. The output is a clean review, a public URL plus one-click markdown, PDF, and Word exports, that any reader can open without an account, and any AI coding agent can ingest natively.

Pastel is built for agencies running clients through rounds of review on live URLs. Pin comments, threaded discussions, approval workflows, paid per seat. That's the right tool for a multi-stakeholder engagement with a fixed roster.

CobaltCapture is the lightweight alternative for the one-shot review where the reviewer should not have to sign up, and where the next reader might be a developer or an AI coding agent, not just a client. No install, no per-seat pricing, free.

What Pastel is good at

Pastel is a polished client-review tool. Paste a URL, get a hosted overlay where clients and stakeholders drop pin annotations directly on the live site. Each pin opens a comment thread, replies stack underneath, and the whole board persists across review rounds. You see the design in context on the actual page, not in a static screenshot pulled out of the frame.

Multiple stakeholders can comment on the same URL without colliding. Each pin is its own thread, with mentions, replies, and resolution status visible to everyone on the project. For an agency running a website build through three or four sign-off rounds, that shared visible trail is the product. Pastel's UI is genuinely clean and clients tend to actually leave comments rather than dropping back into email.

Where the approaches differ

Comment depth tends to require an account. Anyone can leave a quick pin, but threading replies, mentioning teammates, and using the project board reliably pulls reviewers into a signup. Fine on a long engagement with a fixed client roster; friction when the reviewer is a contractor, a freelance designer, or anyone whose name isn't already on the project.

Per-seat pricing is the second. Pastel is priced for ongoing agency-client engagements. A solo designer or an in-house team running one piece of feedback ends up paying for infrastructure they don't use.

The artifact is locked to Pastel's domain. Exports give you HTML or PDF, fine for a human, wrong shape for an AI coding agent. You can't drop a Pastel review into a feedback.md file in your repo, paste it into a Cursor composer, or hand it to a Claude Code session. The format is built for humans reading on the Pastel app.

How CobaltCapture is different

CobaltCapture publishes a clean public review at a URL. No signup to view, no signup to publish. The client opens the link in any browser on any device. A stakeholder URL at /s/<slug> strips the editing chrome, the right link to send a client or executive. The reviewer URL at /r/<slug> is for owners and developers. Two URLs, same review, right format for each audience.

Capture happens in the browser. Hit capture, pick the tab or window, drag a box around the part you want to talk about, hit dictate, narrate the issue. The voice becomes editable text next to the cropped image. Numbered pins on each screenshot get burned into every export so the artifact stays legible outside the browser. No overlay script to install on the site under review.

The output is portable. One-click markdown, PDF, and Word exports. The same review URL drops into Cursor for the developer, lands in a PRD without reformatting, and reads cleanly in a Slack preview. One artifact, many readers, no translation step.

Free.

When to use which

Use Pastel when the reviewer is a client tracked across rounds and you need a comment thread that lives across revisions. If you bill by review round, if stakeholders are leaving feedback over weeks, if you need an audit trail, Pastel is the right tool.

Use CobaltCapture for the more common pattern: a one-shot review with a single shareable URL, no comment-threading needed, and the next reader is a developer, a stakeholder, or an AI coding agent. The review gets read once, acted on, and archived. Free, no install, no signup for the reviewer.

Feature comparison

	Pastel	CobaltCapture
Install required	No (URL paste)	None (browser only)
Reviewer needs an account	For full thread depth	No
Per-seat pricing	Yes	No
Output formats	Hosted pin board, HTML/PDF export	Markdown, PDF, Word, public URL
Numbered pins (in exports)	Pin threads (in app)	Burned into every export
Stakeholder-only URL	No	Yes (/s/<slug>)
Multi-round comment threads	Yes, primary feature	No (single-pass artifact)
AI-agent readable	No	Native markdown
Pricing	Paid tiers	Free

Product details and pricing change frequently. Check each vendor's site for the current state of their offering.

Get started

cobaltcapture.com, publish your first review in about a minute. No install, no signup needed to try.

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Frequently asked questions

Is CobaltCapture really a free Pastel alternative?

Yes, for the one-shot review use case. CobaltCapture is free to use, free to share, and free to export. No per-seat plan, no trial countdown. The tradeoff: CobaltCapture does not include Pastel's multi-round threaded comments or approval workflow. It is the right tool when the review is single-pass, not when you're tracking client feedback across revisions.

Do reviewers have to sign up to read a CobaltCapture review?

No. Public review URLs work for anyone with a link, no signup required. There's also a clean stakeholder URL at /s/<slug> for read-only handoff to clients or executives, the right link when the reader shouldn't see editing chrome.

Does CobaltCapture require a per-seat plan?

No. CobaltCapture is free with no per-seat pricing. Pastel is priced for ongoing agency-client engagements with per-user plans; CobaltCapture is for the user whose volume is 'send one review this afternoon.'

Can a coding agent read a CobaltCapture review?

Yes. CobaltCapture publishes clean markdown with embedded screenshots, the format AI coding agents like Cursor and Claude Code ingest natively. Pastel's HTML and PDF exports are built for humans reading on its domain, not for paste-into-an-agent workflows.

When should I still use Pastel instead of CobaltCapture?

Use Pastel when the reviewer is a client tracked across rounds, you bill by review round, you need a comment thread that lives across revisions, and you want an audit trail. Pastel's pinned-thread model is purpose-built for that workflow.