An Eagle alternative with a board to think on
Eagle is a good image library. Folders, tags, smart filters and a browser extension make it easy to file thousands of images. What it is not built for is laying references out side by side while you work, which is the part artists do every day.
Eagle and Maki side by side
| Eagle | Maki | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A library manager with a grid view | An endless board plus a library of every board |
| Laying refs out freely | Not the main view | Yes, drag, group, frame and annotate anywhere |
| Search | Names, tags, folders, color | Names, notes, tables, color and the words inside images |
| Browser and Pinterest | Browser extension | Save to Maki extension, whole Pinterest boards, article to board |
| Platforms | Windows and Mac | Windows and Mac |
| Price | $34.95 once on Eagle's store when we checked, 2 devices | 30 days free, then $19 once, 2 computers |
When Eagle is the better pick
Stay with Eagle if what you need is a big, tagged archive of assets for a team or a studio, with lots of file formats and plugins.
When Maki is the better pick
Move to Maki if you want your refs on a board in front of you rather than in a grid, with notes and arrows between them, and still searchable later. Prices change; check Eagle's site before you compare.
Tested with 5,000 images
Eagle is built for libraries of thousands of images, so the fair question is whether a board app keeps up at that size. We filled one Maki board with 5,000 images and timed it.
| The board | 5,000 JPEGs, 900 to 1,600 px wide, 903 MB in total |
|---|---|
| Open from launch | Under 5 seconds; 1.8 seconds when the files were already in the disk cache |
| Search across all 5,000 | 3 to 14 ms to find matches; about 0.7 seconds from typing to results on screen, including a short pause so it doesn't search on every key |
| Panning into parts not yet opened | 95% of frames drawn in 7.4 ms or less (a 60 Hz screen needs 16.7 ms) |
| Zooming out to the whole board | 95% of frames in 28 ms or less |
| All 5,000 on screen at once | 35 to 60 ms per frame, so about 20 frames a second; the first time, the small previews take about 30 seconds to fill in |
What Maki is
Maki is a desktop reference board for Windows and Mac. You drop in paintings, pose refs, screenshots, Pinterest pins and whole folders, arrange them on an endless board, and find any of them later by typing a word. Maki reads file names, notes and the text inside your images, all offline. There is no account, and your boards stay in a folder on your disk. See what it does or read the guide.
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