7 Amazon Wish List Alternatives That Work With Any Store
The Amazon Wish List is genuinely good at one thing: keeping track of things you want to buy on Amazon. If everyone who shops for your family buys from Amazon, it does the job. It even has a “Don’t spoil my surprises” setting, on by default, that hides purchased items from you so the surprise holds while other shoppers can still see what’s been taken.
The trouble starts the moment gifting leaves Amazon. The browser button that used to let you add items to your Amazon list from other websites was retired, so in practice the list fills up with Amazon’s own catalog. If your people shop across Etsy, Target, REI, a one-person maker’s shop, and a dozen other places, a single-retailer list quietly leaves most of the good ideas off. That is the gap every app below is built to fill: a wishlist that works with any store.
Below are seven alternatives, with the trade-offs stated plainly.
What to check before you switch
Five things separate a list that helps from a list that just holds links:
- Any-store support
- Can you add a gift from any shop, or only one?
- Reserving
- Can givers call dibs before they buy, or only mark an item bought after the fact?
- Surprise preservation
- Does the recipient stay in the dark?
- Kids’ lists
- Can a parent run a list for a child with no account?
- Price and friction
- Is it free, and can family shop the list without creating an account?
| Any store | Reserving | Hidden from recipient | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Giftory | Yes, paste a link (or clip in the iPhone app) | Yes, tap Reserve to call dibs | Yes, you never see reservations | Free |
| Giftster | Yes, via a “Fetch” step | — | Yes, purchases hidden from the list maker | Free |
| GiftList | Yes, link, browser extension, or in-app browser | Yes, no account needed | — | Free |
| Giftwhale | Yes, paste a link | Yes, no account needed | Not documented | Free, no premium tier |
| Things To Get Me | Yes, online or offline | Yes, no sign-up | Option to hide items once reserved | Free |
| MyRegistry | Yes, any store in the world | — | — | Free registry; small fee on a cash-gift fund |
| Elfster | — | Mark items as bought | — | Free |
Giftory
Giftory is a free gift wishlist built around family coordination. You add gifts from any shop on the web by pasting a link, or clip them as you browse in the iPhone app. When a family member wants to bring something, they tap Reserve to call dibs — everyone else sees it is taken, but you, the person the gifts are for, never see reservations at all. Followers can also suggest gifts that stay hidden from you, and parents can run proxy lists for kids too young for their own account. Sharing is a single link; nobody needs an account just to shop your list.
If your gifting spans many stores and you care about reserve-before-you-buy that the recipient never sees, it is built for exactly that.
Honest trade-off Giftory is newer and smaller than the incumbents, and the native clipper is iPhone-only for now (everything works on the web on any device).
Giftster
Giftster is the closest thing to a full family solution among the older apps, and it is free. You can add items from any store — it uses a “Fetch” step to pull in the details from a link — and any purchases made from a list are hidden from the list maker, so surprises hold. It supports child and pet accounts for lists a parent manages, and it has a built-in Secret Santa name draw for families that run an exchange.
Honest trade-off The interface is more utilitarian than modern, but the coordination features are all there.
giftster.comGiftList
GiftList is a free universal wish list and registry app for iOS, Android, and desktop. You add gifts from any store by pasting a link or using its browser extension and in-app browser, and anyone with your link can reserve items without creating an account. Marking an item as purchased keeps others from buying the same thing.
Honest trade-off It leans toward the broad registry crowd rather than the tight family-coordination niche, but the any-store basics are solid.
giftlist.comGiftwhale
Giftwhale is free with no premium tier, and it makes adding items easy: paste a link and it fills in the name, image, and price, with direct integrations for a long list of shops. Family can view and reserve gifts without an account, and once a gift is reserved everyone else sees it is taken.
Honest trade-off Giftwhale’s own materials describe reservation as a no-duplicates feature but do not spell out whether reservations are hidden from the list’s owner, so if surprise preservation is your top priority, confirm that behavior before you commit.
giftwhale.comThings To Get Me
Things To Get Me is a completely free, store-independent wish list. You can add anything from any store — online or offline — by pasting a link that auto-fills the details, or with a browser extension while you shop. Share your link and whoever opens it can browse and reserve with no sign-up, and there is an option to hide items once they have been reserved. It also states that it does not collect personal information.
Honest trade-off It is lighter on family-group and following features than Giftster or Giftory, but it nails the simple shared list.
thingstogetme.comMyRegistry
MyRegistry is a free universal registry — its own words are that you can “add the gifts you want from any store in the world,” online or brick-and-mortar. It spans occasions from weddings and baby showers to birthdays and housewarmings. There is no charge for a registry, though a cash-gift fund carries a small transaction fee.
Honest trade-off It is framed around events and registries rather than year-round family coordination, and givers are notified when gifts are bought — great for a wedding, less so if the whole point is to keep a birthday a secret.
myregistry.comElfster
Elfster is free and best known for organized Secret Santa exchanges, but it also supports wish lists, and participants can mark items as bought so nobody doubles up. If your family already runs a name-drawing exchange, its tooling is genuinely good at that job.
Honest trade-off If all you want is a shared list everyone adds to year-round, the exchange machinery is more than you need. We wrote a whole piece on that — see Elfster alternatives for families who don’t need Secret Santa.
Moving your list without losing anything
You do not have to migrate everything at once. Most of these apps let you add an item by pasting its link, so the practical move is to start the next list fresh: when you spot a gift anywhere on the web, add it to the new app instead of Amazon, and let the old list wind down on its own. Keep the Amazon items that are genuinely Amazon purchases if you like — the point is not to abandon Amazon, it is to stop letting a single retailer decide what counts as a giftable idea. Within a few weeks the new list becomes the one the family checks, and the switch happens without a big export-import project.
So which one?
Be honest about where your family shops.
For a broader seasonal roundup, see our best Christmas list apps for families.