Checked on 30 July 2026 against each product's own site. Every line about another product below was read on that date from the address in the page source, and nothing here comes from a review site or a directory. Where a vendor does not state something, this page says we did not find it stated — which is a claim about our reading, not about their product.
No competitor price numbers appear on this page, on purpose. A price we print here changes when the vendor decides, and we are the last to hear about it, so a number copied today becomes a false statement about somebody else's product tomorrow. The payment model — one-time or subscription — changes rarely and is stated on the vendors' own front pages, so that is what the table carries, with a link to the vendor's page for the number.
The table
| Product | Platforms | Payment model | Runs locally | Video | Board to a client |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ReelPile | macOS, Apple Silicon | One-time, $30, lifetime updates | Yes — own disk, no account, no cloud | Plays on the canvas | Yes — publish a board, the client hearts cards |
| Atlas | Mac; an iOS companion is announced as coming in fall 2026 | One-time — price on their site | Yes — states local-first storage, your own folders | States support for images and video; playback not found described | Not found stated on their site |
| refern | Windows, macOS, Linux | One-time, no subscription — price on their site | Yes — states everything stays on your machine | States playback — hover a clip in the grid to scrub it, step it frame by frame | Not found stated on their site |
| Eagle | Windows 10+, macOS 10.15+, plus a browser extension | One-time, no subscription — their site (see the note below) | Not found stated either way; their page mentions working with Dropbox and Google Drive | States playback — a video player and video controls | Not found stated on their site |
| Milanote | Desktop, iPad, mobile | Subscription, with a free tier — plans on their site | Not found stated; boards are shared between people, which implies a server, but that is our inference and not their words | States video among the kinds of content a board holds; playback not found described | Yes — shared boards; others can be invited to edit, comment or view |
“Not found stated” means we read the vendor's page on 30 July 2026 and did not find the claim there. It does not mean the product cannot do it — a feature can exist without being advertised, and a page can move. The video column keeps two different claims apart on purpose: a vendor saying video is a kind of content their tool holds, and a vendor describing video playing or scrubbing inside the app. Those are not the same promise, and this is the column a buyer coming to us weighs hardest, so we are not going to collapse the two into one word.
If you want this, take that
refern — the closest neighbour to ReelPile
Of the four, refern sits nearest. Their site states a one-time payment with no subscription, free updates, use on up to three devices, Windows, macOS and Linux, everything stored on your own machine, and video living in the same library as images — hover a clip in the grid to scrub it and step it frame by frame. It also states a free 30-day trial with no card, so you can settle the question on your own machine before paying anybody, us included. If you work on Windows or Linux, refern covers ground ReelPile does not, and you should look at it before you look at us. Their pricing page is also the only honest place to read their price: on 30 July 2026 it carried both the current number and a dated change still to come. Whatever it says the day you read this, that page is the authority and this one is not.
Atlas — a local Mac library for images and video
Atlas states one-time pricing, a native Mac app, local-first storage in your own folders on the disk of your choosing — internal, external, Dropbox or iCloud — and support for images and video. An iOS companion is announced on their page as coming in fall 2026. If what you want is a tidy local library on a Mac and the phone app matters to you, Atlas is answering that question directly. Positioning-wise this is the tool ReelPile overlaps most on — local, one-time, Mac — so the difference between us is not there, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.
Eagle — a cross-platform library with a browser clipper
Eagle's front page states no subscription, a one-time purchase with lifetime access, and a 30-day full-feature trial; it lists Windows 10 and above, macOS 10.15 and above, and a browser extension, and it describes a video player with video controls. Two things we could not establish from their own pages: the price, because four pricing addresses returned 404 on the day we checked, and whether storage is local, because the page does not say either way — it mentions working alongside Dropbox and Google Drive, which is not the same statement. If you need one library on both Windows and macOS with a clipper in the browser, Eagle's site states all three of those things; get the price from them. On the platform half of that question refern's site states Windows and macOS as well, plus Linux, so the two of them overlap there; a browser extension is stated by Eagle, and we did not find one stated on refern's page.
Milanote — take this one if you need a team
Milanote is the only one of the four on a subscription, and the only one whose site states real collaboration: invite others to edit, comment or just view your boards, with unlimited shared boards stated even on their free tier, which is capped in other ways their plans page spells out. Desktop, iPad and mobile. If several people need to be moving things around the same board, with comments and edits, that is Milanote's job and not ReelPile's — ReelPile publishes a finished board one way, to one client. Buying ReelPile for teamwork would be a mistake, and we would rather say so here than read it in a refund request.
Where ReelPile actually differs
One thing, and it is worth being exact about it. ReelPile publishes a board as a page,
hands you a single link, and the person you send it to opens it in any browser with nothing
to sign up for and taps a heart on the cards that land; you read the picks back by opening
the same link with ?liked=1. We did not find per-card approval like that stated
on any of the four sites. Milanote does share boards and invites people to edit, comment or
just view them, which covers the same need in a different shape; what their site does not
answer, and what we are therefore not going to assert either way, is whether the person at
the other end of a shared board needs an account.
Sending a board to a client sets out how
ours works, including what it will not do.
Everything else about ReelPile is shared with at least one tool in the table. Local storage: refern and Atlas state it too. One-time payment: three of the four state it. Video: all four state it as a kind of content their tool holds, and two of them — refern and Eagle — also describe it playing or scrubbing inside the app, which is the narrower claim and the one worth comparing. Being on the Mac: Atlas names Mac, refern and Eagle name macOS among other systems, and Milanote names desktop without saying which. ReelPile is on macOS and only there — no Windows, no Linux, no phone. If the row that matters to you is one of those, the honest answer is that several of these tools will do.
What this page does not tell you
We read the vendors' own sites, once, on 30 July 2026. We did not install these products, did not test them, and did not measure anything about them. A vendor's page can be out of date, can change the day after we read it, and can leave out something the product does — so treat every row above as “what their site said on that date”, and treat their site as the authority over this one. Nothing here counts reviews, ratings or users, ours or theirs. If you find a line on this page that is wrong about a product, tell us and it gets corrected.
ReelPile, in one line and one price
$30, paid once, lifetime updates, no subscription and no account. Runs on macOS, Apple Silicon. Saved clips play offline; clips kept as YouTube links play in YouTube's own player.
Something here not true of the app you installed? Tell us — this page is corrected against the app, not the other way round.