Home › Compare
Wishful Thinking vs Amazon wish lists, Giftster and Elfster
Wishful Thinking is a free family wish list app that is not tied to one store. If you are choosing between it and an Amazon wish list, Giftster or Elfster, this page sets out exactly what Wishful Thinking does and does not do, so you can check the others against it.
A note on fairness. We only state facts about other products that we could read on their own public pages. On November 10, 2026 the Amazon, Giftster and Elfster sites did not let us read their product pages automatically, so this page makes no claims about their prices or features beyond what is noted below. Please check their sites for current details.
What Wishful Thinking does, feature by feature
| Question to ask of any wish list app | Wishful Thinking’s answer |
|---|---|
| What does it cost? | Free. No paid plans, no subscription, no ads. |
| Which stores can items come from? | Any store with a product page: paste the link. One list can mix stores. |
| Does it fill in the title, picture and price? | Where the store’s page can be read. Several large stores block automated reading; for those you type the price yourself. |
| Does it track prices? | Yes: a daily check, a price history, and price drop alerts above an amount or percentage you set. |
| Can family mark gifts as bought? | Yes, on the shared link, after signing in to a free account. |
| Can the list’s owner see what was bought? | No. Bought marks are always hidden from the owner. |
| How is a list shared? | By link. You can make a new link or stop sharing at any time. |
| Does it draw names for Secret Santa? | No. |
| Is there a phone app? | It installs on Android from Chrome and works in a desktop browser. There is no iPhone app and no browser extension. |
| Can children use it? | Accounts are for people 13 or older. A parent can keep a list for a younger child. |
Wishful Thinking vs an Amazon wish list
A wish list kept inside a store is the easiest choice when everything you want is sold by that store and everyone buying for you shops there. Its strength is that the list, the price and the checkout are all in one place.
Wishful Thinking is the other approach: the list lives outside any store. A child’s Christmas list can hold a book from one shop, trainers from another and a toy from a third, and whoever buys can choose where to buy it. The trade-off is real, though. When we tested Amazon product pages, Wishful Thinking could read the title and picture but not the price, so Amazon items need the price typed in, and you buy on the store’s own site as usual.
Wishful Thinking vs Giftster
We could not read Giftster’s site on the day this page was written, so we will not describe its features or price here. If you are comparing the two, the table above is the checklist to take with you: which stores, whether bought items are hidden from the owner, price tracking, cost, and phone apps.
One difference we can state from our side: Wishful Thinking is deliberately small. It has wishlists, sharing by link, hidden bought marks, price tracking and a gift calendar, and nothing else.
Wishful Thinking vs Elfster
Elfster’s help centre, read on November 10, 2026, has sections on organizing a gift exchange and on wishlists, including articles about sharing a wishlist, marking an item as bought on someone else’s wishlist, and a “Wish It!” browser button. So Elfster covers gift exchanges, which Wishful Thinking does not do at all. If your family draws names each year, that matters more than anything on this page.
Wishful Thinking’s side of the comparison is price tracking: it checks saved items daily where the store allows it, keeps the history, and alerts you to a drop.
Which should you choose?
- Everything you want is at one store: that store’s own wish list is simplest.
- You run a Secret Santa or gift exchange: pick a tool that draws names. Wishful Thinking does not.
- You need an iPhone app: Wishful Thinking does not have one.
- You want one free list across many stores, with hidden bought marks and price drop alerts: that is what Wishful Thinking is for.
Questions and answers
Is Wishful Thinking a Giftster or Elfster alternative?
For shared family wish lists, yes: Wishful Thinking lets you save items from any store, share a list by link and have family mark gifts as bought without the owner seeing. It does not draw names for a Secret Santa or gift exchange, so a family that needs that should look for a gift exchange tool.
Can I use Wishful Thinking instead of an Amazon wish list?
Yes, if you want one list that covers many stores. You can paste Amazon product links into Wishful Thinking alongside links from other shops. In our own test, Amazon’s page did not give Wishful Thinking the price, so for Amazon items expect to enter the price by hand.
Does Wishful Thinking have a phone app?
Wishful Thinking is a web app that you can install on an Android phone from Chrome, which adds it to the Share menu and enables price drop alerts. It also works in a browser on a computer. There is no iPhone app.