Pinterest vs Milanote: which should you use?

Pinterest and Milanote come up in the same searches because both involve boards full of images. But they’re built for different stages of creative work — and knowing which stage you’re in makes the choice easy.

What Pinterest is for

Pinterest is a discovery platform. Its strength is the enormous public collection behind the search box and a home feed that learns what you like. Boards are public by default (with secret boards available), and the feed around them includes ads and recommendations.

• Best for: finding ideas you weren’t looking for
• Less suited to: private client work, notes, mixing in video from other apps

What Milanote is for

Milanote is a tool for organizing creative projects on a freeform canvas. You place notes, images, links and to-dos anywhere, draw arrows, and nest boards inside boards. It’s as much a planning tool as a moodboard tool.

• Best for: planning a project visually, where layout carries meaning
• Less suited to: fast collecting from social apps, very large collections

Side by side

• Discovery: Pinterest has it; Milanote doesn’t aim to.
• Layout: Pinterest uses a grid; Milanote a freeform canvas.
• Privacy: Pinterest is public by default; Milanote is private by default.
• Notes and planning: central to Milanote; minimal on Pinterest.
• Price: Pinterest is free with ads; Milanote has a free plan with limits and paid plans (check their sites for current details).

When neither fits

There’s a third job between discovering and planning: collecting. It’s the everyday act of keeping the references you run into — a Reel, a TikTok, a product page, a screenshot — somewhere you’ll find them. If most of your references come from social apps and you want them private and organized without arranging a canvas, that’s the gap embeddd is built for.

Instagram · Saved TikTok · Favorites Pinterest · Board YouTube · Watch later Camera roll · Screenshots Browser · open tabs Telegram · Saved messages Notion · “inspo” Downloads · refs_final_v2

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One board

A combination that works

1. Discover on Pinterest (and everywhere else).
2. Collect what you choose into private boards, organized by project.
3. Plan the project where planning happens — on a canvas, in a doc, or in notes beside the board.