This comparison was put together by doing the obvious thing: actually using each app. We created a list on each platform, added items from a range of UK shops, and shared the list with someone playing the role of a gifter. No sponsored placements, no affiliate relationships with any of the apps reviewed, and no ranking based on who emailed us nicely.
What follows is what we found.
Best for: people who buy everything from Amazon anyway.
Amazon's wishlist feature is free, widely understood, and dead simple to share. You add items, send the link, and your gifters can see exactly what you want. For anything sold on Amazon — which, admittedly, covers a lot of ground — it works well.
The limitation is obvious: it only works for Amazon. If you want a candle from a small independent, a book from Waterstones, or anything from a brand that doesn't sell through Amazon, it simply won't appear on your list. You're left with a partial picture, and gifters are back to guessing for everything else.
There's also a privacy quirk worth knowing. Amazon's wishlist settings can be confusing, and some users have found that recipients can see purchase activity depending on how notifications are configured. It's not a universal problem, but it's worth checking your settings before you share.
Verdict: great if you only shop on Amazon. For anyone with wider tastes, it covers maybe half the bases.
Best for: organised families who do group gifting.
Giftster has been around long enough to earn genuine trust from the families who use it. The free tier lets you create lists, add items, and share within a family group. The paid tier unlocks price-drop alerts and a few other features, but most casual users won't miss them.
It's a US product, and that shows in a few places. The interface assumes certain gifting norms — Secret Santa exchanges, family group structures — that translate reasonably well to UK use, but the product hasn't been designed with UK shopping in mind. Adding items from UK retailers involves a bit more manual work than it should. Some shops paste in cleanly; others require you to fill in the details yourself.
The biggest friction point for casual use: gifters need to create a Giftster account before they can see who's buying what. For a close family already invested in the platform, that's fine. For a loose group of friends trying to coordinate a birthday, asking everyone to sign up can be a stumbling block.
Verdict: solid for organised families already in the Giftster ecosystem. A bit of a lift to get started for everyone else.
Best for: Secret Santa draws.
Elfster's headline feature is its random draw generator — you add everyone to a group, it assigns each person someone to buy for, and nobody knows who got who until the reveal. For Secret Santa, it's genuinely useful and removes the awkwardness of drawing names from a hat.
As an individual wishlist tool, it's less well-suited. The product is built around the Secret Santa use case, and individual lists feel like an afterthought. You can create one and share it, but the experience is rougher around the edges than a dedicated wishlist app.
Like Giftster, gifters need accounts to participate fully. And also like Giftster, the product has a US-first sensibility — it works in the UK, but it wasn't designed here.
Verdict: the best free tool for running a Secret Santa. Not the right choice if you want a persistent wishlist you'll update and share year-round.
Best for: wedding and baby shower registries.
MyRegistry is a universal registry platform — the idea being that you can add items from any retailer and have a single list to share with guests. For weddings and baby showers, where the range of items spans department stores, independent shops, and specialist retailers, that flexibility makes sense.
For an everyday wishlist, it can feel over-engineered. The interface is built for events — you set up a registry, pick a date, manage guest lists — and while that's fine if you're getting married, it adds unnecessary ceremony to “here are some things I'd like for my birthday”.
A free tier is available, though some features are paywalled. The platform is US-based, and UK users occasionally hit issues with retailer compatibility or currency display.
Verdict: worth considering for a registry event. More than most people need for a simple wishlist.
The app that's right for you depends almost entirely on where you shop and who's buying.
Best for: UK shoppers who want items from any shop.
gift it was built with UK shopping in mind, and it shows. You can add items by pasting a URL from any retailer — ASOS, John Lewis, a small Etsy shop, your local independent's website — or by scanning a barcode on the product in front of you. The list pulls in the product image, name, and price automatically in most cases.
The free tier covers everything you'd reasonably want. There's no paid tier gate on the core features.
Gifters don't need accounts just to browse your list. Anyone with the link can see what's on it. If they want to mark something as taken care of — so other gifters know not to buy the same thing — they create a free account, which takes about thirty seconds. That's a meaningfully lower barrier than platforms that require an account before showing anything at all.
The platform is funded by disclosed affiliate commissions — when a gifter clicks through and buys something, gift it may earn a small commission from the retailer. This is stated clearly in the banner at the top of every page. It doesn't affect what appears on anyone's list.
When you set up your list, you add an occasion date — a birthday, Christmas, whatever the event is. Until that date passes, you see nothing about who's buying what. No notifications, no activity feed, no spoilers. Gifters can mark items and coordinate among themselves without you knowing.
After the occasion date, the full picture becomes visible: who bought what, what was taken care of, what wasn't. It's a simple mechanic, but it's the detail that makes the platform usable for real gifting rather than just list-keeping.
Amazon Wishlist: Amazon items only, no account needed to view, easy to share — but limited to one retailer. Giftster: good for organised family groups, gifters need accounts to participate. Elfster: the right tool for Secret Santa draws, less suited for individual wishlists. MyRegistry: built for wedding and baby registries, can feel over-engineered for everyday use. gift it: any UK shop, barcode scanning and URL paste, gifters can browse without an account, surprise preserved until occasion date.
If you buy almost everything from Amazon and your gifters do too, Amazon Wishlist is the path of least resistance. You're already on the platform, it costs nothing extra, and most people know how it works.
If your main use case is running a Secret Santa — particularly for a large group where you need the random draw — Elfster handles that better than any of the other options here.
If you're getting married or expecting a baby and want a registry that spans multiple retailers, MyRegistry is worth a look, though it's worth reading the pricing carefully.
If you shop across multiple UK retailers and want a list you can share with anyone — family, friends, a partner — without asking everyone to sign up for something, gift it is the option that fits the most naturally. The occasion-date mechanic means it works for actual gifting occasions rather than just as a bookmarking tool.
The honest decision guide: think about where you shop first, then think about who's buying for you and how much friction you're willing to put in their path. The right answer usually becomes obvious from there.
All five of these apps are genuinely free for basic use. None of them require a credit card to get started, and none of them will cost your gifters anything to view or use. If you're not sure which fits your situation, the best approach is simply to try the one that sounds most relevant and see whether it works for the people buying for you.
A wishlist that your gifters actually use is worth more than a technically superior one they find too complicated to bother with. Start there.
Add items from any shop, share one link, and keep the surprise intact until the day.
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