Pastel alternatives: 8 tools compared for 2026
Pastel describes itself as “Get client approval on your websites 4.7x faster”: comments layered on a live website, an image or a PDF through a shared link, made for getting a client's sign-off. Broken Here, which we make, is a bug-reporting widget for websites whose tickets carry what actually broke. Below are the 8 alternatives, then the two side by side, from what each said on its own pages on 7 November 2026.
The 8 alternatives
- Broken Here: for teams whose bugs are found by clients, colleagues and customers, with the console errors and failed requests in every ticket and a free plan for one site.
- BugHerd: agencies whose clients want to work the feedback with them, on a kanban board of notes pinned to the page.
- Marker.io: teams that want session replay beside each report, and can put the developers who need it on its higher plans.
- Usersnap: product teams that want NPS and CSAT surveys, a feature-request board and bug reports in one tool.
- Userback: product teams that want surveys, NPS, a feature portal and session replay beside bug reports, in one product.
- Ybug: small teams that want a feedback widget with annotation and video, and can pay for the plan that records the console.
- Ruttl: studios reviewing live sites, mobile apps, images and PDFs in one workspace.
- Jam: software teams filing their own bugs, as a recording with the logs attached, from an extension.
Pastel and Broken Here, row by row
| Pastel | Broken Here | |
|---|---|---|
| Priced by | Seats and canvases, per tier; guests unlimited | By sites. The whole team is in, reporters are never counted |
| Free plan | Yes: one user and one active canvas, and a 14-day trial of the paid plans | Yes: one site, 50 reports a month, no card |
| Reporter needs an account | No: “No login needed” | No account, ever: a button on the site and one sentence |
| Captured with each report | Comments pinned on the page; technical details not stated | Page, browser, device, window size, the element, a screenshot with passwords blurred |
| Console errors and failed requests | Not stated on their pages | Console errors and failed requests in every ticket, on every plan, including Free |
| Install | Nothing on the site: a shared link, through their proxy | One script tag, or a WordPress plugin |
| Trackers | Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Monday and Zapier, on the Team plan | Yours. If it is not connected yet, we add it; GitHub for the coding agent's pull requests |
Pastel’s column is what its own pages said on 7 November 2026: usepastel.com, usepastel.com/plans. We left prices out because they change; see theirs, and Broken Here pricing. If a cell is wrong, write in and we fix it.
When your own API fails
Tell the project which API is yours. When a request to it fails in front of a visitor, the widget can offer them a report with the failure already filled in. With no API named it never appears, and a wrong password or a form error never interrupts anyone.
Where Broken Here is different
The ticket carries what broke
Pastel gathers what people think of a page. Broken Here adds what a developer opens developer tools for: the console errors and the failed requests around the moment of the report.
A button on the real site
A Pastel canvas reaches the people you send the link to. A Broken Here button is on the site itself, so a customer who hits a bug on the live site can report it too.
Priced by sites, not seats and canvases
The whole team is in, and a site you look after for years stays one site.
When to pick Pastel instead
Pick Pastel if what you need is a client's sign-off on a page, an image or a PDF before launch, with nothing installed on the site. Pick Broken Here if what you need is bug reports with the evidence attached, before launch and after it.
See it on one report
The live demo is a page built to break, carrying the real widget. Break it, report it, and read the ticket. The comparison table puts Broken Here, Marker.io and BugHerd side by side.