Pastel lets teams leave comments on live websites and designs through a shareable link, keeping feedback in one collaborative place. It's a smooth review experience, but it's a hosted account-based product. When your goal is simply to mark up a page and hand off the feedback, a free browser extension removes the setup entirely.
What is Pastel?
Pastel turns any live website into a collaborative canvas where reviewers leave pinned comments via a shared link, with threads and resolution states. It's aimed at marketing, design, and agency teams running feedback rounds.
Highlite vs Pastel at a glance
| Highlite | Pastel | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free to annotate — optional Premium at $4.99/month | Paid tiers |
| Free plan | Yes — permanent free plan, no trial clock | Limited free option, paid for real use |
| Account required | No account needed | Account to create and share review canvases |
| Setup | Install the browser extension, annotate any page in seconds | Create a canvas from a URL, share the link, collect comments |
| Where it works | Any public webpage, directly in your browser | Websites you load into a Pastel canvas |
| Privacy | Annotations stay in your browser by default | Comments hosted in Pastel's cloud |
| Issue tracking & integrations | No dashboard or ticketing — export or share an annotated screenshot/link | Yes — threaded comments with resolve states |
| Best for | Fast, personal visual annotation and sharing | Teams running collaborative website review rounds |
Competitor details are general and may change — check Pastel’s site for current pricing and features.
Why choose Highlite
- Free with no review-volume limits
- Annotate the real page in your browser — no canvas to create
- No account or link management
- Private by default — feedback stays local
When Pastel is the better choice
- Centralizes multi-reviewer comments and threads
- Resolve/track states for managing a review round
- A shared link anyone can comment on without installing anything
- Better when feedback must be discussed and reconciled as a team
The bottom line
Pastel is great when a group needs to discuss and resolve feedback together in one shared space. For quick, private, one-person markup that you send off, Highlite is the simpler, free option.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free alternative to Pastel?
Yes. Highlite is a free, no-account browser extension for annotating live web pages and sharing a screenshot. It doesn't host collaborative comment threads like Pastel, but it covers fast personal markup for free.
How does Highlite compare to Pastel?
Pastel creates a hosted, shareable canvas where a team leaves and resolves comments. Highlite annotates the real page locally with no account and nothing hosted. Pastel is for collaborative review; Highlite is for fast individual markup.
Can reviewers comment without signing up?
Pastel reviewers comment via a shared link tied to your account. With Highlite, each person installs the free extension once and sends back an annotated screenshot — no account.
Does Highlite keep a record of feedback?
Not as a managed thread. Highlite produces annotated screenshots and shareable links; it doesn't track resolution states. If you need a persistent, resolvable feedback log, Pastel is built for that.
Guides from the blog
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Design Review on Live Websites: Why Figma Comments Aren't Enough
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