Hypothesis vs Pastel
Hypothesis
web.hypothes.is
Pastel
usepastel.comSide by side
| Figure | Hypothesis | Pastel |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $25/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 5 | 8 |
| Spec score · Web Annotation Tools | 8.5 (#6) | 9.0 (#2) |
| Spec score · Markup Software | 8.6 (#10) | 9.0 (#3) |
| Company | The site footer identifies the company as Annotation Unlimited, PBC, and the About page says the project was founded as an open-source project in 2011. | The company identifies itself as Pastel Labs Inc. and says it was created by freelance designers and developers to make website feedback easier. |
| Founded | 2011 | 2017 |
| Purpose | Hypothesis adds collaborative annotations to digital course materials so learners can highlight passages, ask questions, and respond to peers in context. | Pastel collects visual feedback and approvals on websites and other creative work, including PDFs, images, and videos. |
| Rating on Chrome Web Store | 3.9 out of 5 from 225 ratings. | 5.0 out of 5 from 3 ratings |
| Rating on G2 | 4.4 out of 5 from 5 reviews. | 4.5 out of 5 from 14 reviews |
| Security | Hypothesis says its security program includes static code analysis, dependency vulnerability monitoring, security assessments, and third-party penetration testing. | Pastel's privacy policy describes protections including user IDs, passwords, encryption, firewalls, restricted employee access, and security requirements for service providers. |
| Support | The pricing page lists self-service support for Free and Bronze, standard email support for Bronze, and premium support with a dedicated customer success manager for Gold. | GetApp lists chat and email/help-desk support options for Pastel. |
| What it does | Hypothesis adds a collaborative annotation layer to webpages, PDFs, videos, images and electronic texts so users can highlight, comment and discuss content in context. | Pastel is a cloud SaaS service for collecting and organizing visual feedback on live websites and other digital assets. |
Plans
Hypothesis
- FreeFree
- BronzePrice not published
- Custom solutionPriced on request
- GoldPrice not published
- SilverPrice not published
Pastel
- FreeFree
- Free ForeverFree
- Pro$25 a month
- Pro$29 a month
- Team$84 a month
- Team$99 a month
- Enterprise$383 a month
- Enterprise$450 a month
In their own words
Hypothesis
Hypothesis adds shared annotations to digital course materials, letting learners mark passages, ask questions, and reply to peers alongside the content. Users can create private highlights and page notes, add tags, and hold threaded discussions. Supported material includes web pages, PDFs, EPUB files, YouTube videos, and content from VitalSource and JSTOR. For institutional use, Hypothesis lists LTI 1.3 integrations with Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, D2L Brightspace, and Sakai; annotations can also sync with LMS gradebooks, including Canvas SpeedGrader. A free account is available for personal use and collaboration. The web app works with a Chrome extension on Chrome and other Chromium browsers, or a bookmarklet in Firefox and Safari. Hypothesis also offers API access, exports in JSON, plain text, CSV, and HTML, and JSON import. The Free plan costs nothing, billed per student/yearly, and includes core annotation, private groups, and self-service support. The project was founded as an open-source project in 2011.
Pastel
Pastel is a visual feedback and approval tool for websites and creative files, including PDFs, images, and videos. Users create a canvas from a website to place comments directly on the page in a browser, or share live sites and upload files for review. Updates are real time, and teams can keep comments private while inviting guest reviewers who do not need accounts. Review workflows support assignments, labels, deadlines, approvals, pausing comments, responsive testing, and CSV export. Listed connections include Trello, Asana, Jira, ClickUp, Monday.com, Zapier, custom webhooks, and API-based integrations. Pastel also says Cursor, Claude, and ChatGPT can act on feedback through its MCP. The Free plan allows one active canvas at a time, though users can archive one canvas and restore it later. The 14-day trial gives access to any paid plan without requiring a credit card. Pro is $29 a month, billed at $350/year; Team is $99 a month, billed at $1,190/year.