Pastel is for approving a few pieces; Ruttl for covering many sites and an app. Both start free and capture no console, network or replay. Pastel counts active canvases, one on Free and three on Pro at $29 billed annually, over its own proxy. Ruttl counts users at $18 a month each with unlimited projects.
A review and approval tool for creative work, layering comments over a live site through its own proxy as well as over PDFs, emails and uploaded images.
A feedback tool spread across surfaces rather than depth: live websites, mobile apps, images and PDFs in one place, sold per user with a free tier.
Pastel is a review and approval tool for creative work. It layers comments over a live website through its own proxy, with no snippet and no extension, and takes the same comments on PDFs, emails, uploaded images and uploaded video. What it counts is active canvases: one on Free Forever, three on Pro, unlimited from Team at $119 a month or $99 billed annually, where the trackers also arrive. Guest reviewers are unlimited on every plan, and its MCP server describes an agent that makes the change and resolves the comment.
Ruttl is a feedback tool spread across surfaces: live websites, mobile apps through an NPM package, images and PDFs at the pixel, under one login. Basic is free with one project and five pages, though its plan card and its comparison table disagree on the user count. Pro is $18 a month per user for an admin and up to 50 users, with unlimited projects and pages and an annual figure that a script paints in rather than the page serving. Its MCP server marks a thread resolved once you tell it the fix is live.
Pastel RuttlEvery claim about Pastel and Ruttl comes from each vendor's own public materials, read on 13 September 2026. Products change; check each vendor's site before deciding. Pending cells are unresearched, not zero.
The third option
Notarus is the tool to look at when a review round on either has turned into a bug queue. It takes feedback on a live web page and attaches what neither of these captures: session replay, console logs, network requests and the environment, on the free plan, with unlimited seats and 5 projects. Every panel action is also an MCP tool, so an agent can work the board and not only close a thread.
It reviews no files. There is no canvas for a PDF, an email, an image or an uploaded video, no mobile app support and no proxy, so the widget has to be on the page. There is no Intercom or Zendesk integration either. A team approving creative work has no reason to leave Pastel or Ruttl for it.
Its prices are printed on the pricing page in full, annual figures included.
Reach and counting. Pastel reviews live sites through a proxy plus PDFs, emails, images and video, and counts active canvases, one free and three on Pro. Ruttl reviews live sites, mobile apps, images and PDFs and counts users at $18 a month each with unlimited projects. Neither captures console logs, network requests or session replay.
Yes. Pastel's Free Forever is one user, one active canvas and 2 GB of video storage with unlimited guest reviewers. Ruttl's Basic is one project and five pages, though its pricing page gives two different user counts for it, five on the plan card and one in the comparison table, so we quote neither.
Ruttl. Its free Basic plan lists Trello, Slack, Asana and Jira already connected, with ClickUp from Pro. On Pastel, Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp and Monday arrive with Team at $119 a month or $99 billed annually, and neither tool lists GitHub on any plan.
By each vendor's own description, Pastel's. It reads a new comment, makes the change in the codebase, replies with what it did and resolves the comment, and names Cursor, Claude and ChatGPT. Ruttl's reads tickets and marks a thread resolved once you tell it the fix is live, and its page does not answer in the served HTML whether a Pro plan is required.
Pastel includes 2 GB of video storage on Free Forever and 100 GB on Pro. Ruttl includes 1 GB on Basic, 50 GB on Pro and 100 GB on Business. The free plans are close, with Pastel's twice Ruttl's, and Pastel's Pro at $29 a month billed annually carries the amount Ruttl reserves for Business. Pastel states its figure as video storage for the uploaded video it reviews on the canvas; Ruttl's pricing page gives a plain storage figure per plan.
Pastel alternatives
Notarus vs Ruttl Ruttl alternatives
BugHerd vs Pastel BugHerd vs Ruttl
Feedbucket vs Pastel Feedbucket vs Ruttl
Gleap vs Pastel Gleap vs Ruttl
Jam vs Pastel Jam vs Ruttl
Marker.io vs Pastel Marker.io vs Ruttl 
Pastel vs Userback 
Pastel vs Usersnap 
Pastel vs Ybug Ruttl vs Userback Ruttl vs Usersnap Ruttl vs Ybug
Markup.io vs Pastel Markup.io vs Ruttl5 projects and unlimited seats, session replay included. No card.
