Datacolor Spyder vs Little Argyll GUI

Datacolor Spyder is a paid display-calibration product for professional photographers and advanced photo editing. Its hardware sensor connects through USB-C, with a USB-A adapter included, while software calibrates LCD, mini-LED, OLED and QD-OLED monitors, including Apple XDR and Liquid Retina displays. Room Light Monitoring measures the room’s light and can warn when recalibration is needed or adjust profiles automatically according to the light level. DevicePreview shows how photos may appear on mobile devices while they remain on the calibrated monitor. A full-screen comparison shows the display before and after calibration, with 11 brightness settings. The comparison table lists unlimited supported displays, subject to computer capability. Spyder supports Windows 10 or 11 and macOS 10.14 through macOS 26, and requires internet access for downloading and activating the software. It calibrates monitors only, not phones or tablets. The listed price is $169 as a one-time purchase.

Little Argyll GUI is an open-source graphical front end for the ArgyllCMS color-management system. Its controls help create and use ArgyllCMS commands for display and printer calibration and profiling, as well as camera and scanner profiling. Saved parameter sets support repeated work. The program can create daylight-series spectrum files with selectable ultraviolet filtering and custom patch sets for grays, near-grays, or tones such as sepia; printer patch sets can include those additions. Documentation links appear throughout the interface. Version 1.0.1 is a Python 3 script with a GTK 3 interface built using PyGObject, and updates Argyll 3.0.0; some parameters are absent in older Argyll versions. Linux, macOS, and Windows instructions are provided. Windows setup uses MSYS2, while macOS setup uses Homebrew. On the maker’s Windows 10 MinGW-w64 system, the background selector does not work. Use requires a color measurement device, such as an i1 Pro 3 or ColorChecker Studio. The listed price is $5 as a one-time purchase payment.