Pinterest is a popular website that serves a real purpose for individuals and professionals alike. You can post your photos and pin items that you like, get a glimpse of new trends in the industry, or find inspiration based on your interests.
There are plenty of sites like Pinterest that are equally popular. Designspiration, Mix, and Dudepins to name a few. The best Pinterest alternative is Dribbble which is one of the largest communities of creatives around. Not only that, it also serves as a job and recruitment platform for people in art and designing.
Why explore alternatives to Pinterest?
Pinterest has a few drawbacks. To begin with, the platform attracts a specific audience and it’s time-consuming and tedious to keep adding fresh, new pins every week.
Besides, Pinterest also requires quality images along with each post, meaning without an image, you can’t create a post. The images also need to be unique and of a specific optimal size in pixels.
Pinterest isn’t designed to work for all businesses and doesn’t provide instant gratification. On top of that, ads can be expensive, and user-generated content tends to be uneven in quality.
Search success on Pinterest is also tied closely to using the right words, and it’s hard to ensure your entire audience gets to see your post.
For first-timers, Pinterest can be a little tricky to use and navigate. The app is also constantly updated, meaning there’s always something new to learn almost fortnightly.
Some countries also don’t have the monetization feature yet, and it’s not convenient to claim your website on the platform. Users also tend to add spam links to their pins, which can be very inconvenient.
If all these drawbacks sound like major inconveniences to you, check out our list of the best Pinterest alternatives below.
Best Pinterest Alternatives
1. Mix
Mix is a content discovery and sharing platform built upon the legacy of StumbleUpon and is part of the Expa family. The platform learns what you love to browse and search for so you can curate and share the best of the web and what you’re interested in.
Anyone can use Mix as a research tool or to get to know more about their passions and industry. You can also use it to connect with customers or partners who share their interests or as another way of sharing your content with a specific group of people.
Mix lets you save anything from images to music and videos just as you would on Pinterest, provided it’s on the internet. You can also add your favorite things to the platform.
Unlike Pinterest, which is catered to a specific audience, Mix has a mix of audiences who go to the platform to delve into new topics and explore more of their interests with better comprehension.
Instead of being a news source, Mix takes you deeper into your interests and helps you learn more about them while discovering interesting and new things. You also get a setup like that on Pinterest and personalize it to your hobbies or interests.
Mix will curate a personalized feed of content based on your interests and you can see what other users are mixing too.
If you’re a blogger and tired of having to create fresh new pins every week just for traffic, Mix allows you to add more stuff, share with others and drive more traffic to your blog.
You can keep adding content to your Mix boards and follow other boards too. As you do on Pinterest, you need high-quality content, which you can get from your own site or from other sites.
Mix isn’t a copy of Pinterest though. Images are important, but so are headlines of articles, and Mix uses the traditional horizontal images while displaying article headlines.
Your audience would want to read the headline and view the image to judge whether to click through or Mix the content to their own boards. Plus, you can share strong content from your own sites that don’t have pinnable images just to get better performances.
2. Juxtapost
Juxtapost is a website that offers all your favorite things based on your interests, which can be anything from products and humor to pets, DIY, crafts, arts, apparel, and more.
You can save things as you would on Pinterest based on what you browse on the web or all your ideas in design, interests, fashion, and more with your loved ones.
Its More Like This feature is popular among Juxtapost users as it allows you to find other items that may interest you, tap on them and view even more great things aligned to your interests.
You can order and label your posts in many distinct ways, which makes it easier to find new stuff that will be of interest to you.
Juxtapost comes in handy when you have a large number of similar elements. The site shares many similar features with Pinterest including creating categories and sharing with others.
You can also collaborate with other users on your categories.
However, unlike Pinterest, Juxtapost lets you save bookmarked content and see posts similar to the ones you’ve been viewing.
Whether you’re furnishing a room or planning a wedding, Juxtapost provides a variety of ways to use it for your interests.
Unlike Pinterest, the platform offers easy-to-use tools for bookmarking the photos you find into a collection of posts (categorized postboards) that you can easily curate even if your collection grows bigger.
Juxtapost also has a simple social discovery aspect. Users can browse other users’ streams to see what they’re posting and can share, comment, or repost the items to their own boards.
Besides the rich and functional features in Juxtapost that help you curate your postboards, the platform also ensures you can start your collection right away.
Plus, you can post a new item to share with others or keep it private for yourself, get a special URL to unlock private boards for a specific person or visitor, and revoke it anytime.
You can also collaborate with others on projects and instantly branch off to similar posts without leaving the page you’re viewing.
Juxtapost also has an exportable function that allows you to build a spreadsheet of your finds or export your data to use elsewhere for easier planning and purchasing. A preview zoom feature is included that lets you discover new things and see things in more detail.
3. We Heart It
We Heart It is a community that allows you to find, save, and share things that inspire you with others. Such things can be inspirational quotes, photos, beauty, fashion, music, travel, and more.
The site has a different demographic to Pinterest and gives you a more basic experience compared to that on Pinterest. You can like and discover new users, love different art images, and gather your inspiration in one place by installing a Heart button that helps you submit your finds to your feed.
We Heart It is more of a blend of Tumblr and Pinterest as it lets you be yourself while posting pretty much anything you want including cute outfits, cat photos, and landscapes.
However, the site is mainly used by young women – college girls and teenagers – unlike Pinterest, whose audience is mainly women 25-50 years.
On We Heart It, you can also discover photos you like a lot and share them in the midst of your device. It also works with Pinterest and other photo-sharing platforms.
You can pick marks that you like most and discover all the photos others have transferred that contain the labels or marks you’re looking for.
We Heart It gives you a basic experience in as far as liking and discovering new users. You also get to select and read several articles in the Article section based on emerging themes.
In addition, the photography-based informal community helps you discover vast amounts of content tailored to your tastes, and you can share the pics on other social media platforms.
4. Designspiration
Designspiration is a large, exclusive creativity hub with millions of page views every month. The visually engaging and high-quality content platform delivers great visuals on the site every hour from several creative industries such as art, photography, interior design, architecture, and more.
Unlike Pinterest, whose audience is largely women, Designspiration is tailored to those who want design-related visuals. Its feed covers all design fields based on the users, most of whom work in the creative industry.
You can find new artists, share ideas, and like other users’ work on the web. Plus, it has a dynamic search that helps you find something more niche, and you can save your favorite stuff in collections as you would on Pinterest boards.
The site also comes with a save button to save your favorite posts and other tabs to help you search for what you want in your niche easily and quickly.
5. Dribbble
Dribbble is a web app for design nerds, engineers, originators, and other creatives to display and share their designs, knowledge, and showcase their work.
The platform provides a similar kind of administration in the form of little screenshots of apps and plans displayed or that the professionals and creatives are dealing with.
You can easily share your creativity and communicate with others without any challenges. Plus, you can take different engineers or designers and see what they’re doing while they see your stuff too.
Unlike Pinterest, which requires a sign-up before you can access more of the content or pins on the platform, Dribbble doesn’t need any sign-up or registration.
You can peruse other users’ portfolios through subcategories like mobile, branding, or animation to find the creatives you’d like to work with or get some creative inspiration.
Dribbble allows you to let others know what you’re currently working on, whether that’s designing a website, pixel art, movie poster, company logo, typography, or architecture.
You can also show off what you’ve created in design tools like Canva or Photoshop, explore shots (alternative to Pinterest’s pins), and glance into the minds of other creators.
As a show and tell for designers, the site is free for any creative to showcase their work regardless of the field of design they work in. You can also filter content by colors, projects, and tags, or search for designers by skills or location.
Overall, Dribble transcends Pinterest in terms of design inspiration.
6. Dudepins
Dudepins is a platform similar to Pinterest except that it’s tailored to men. The site allows you to discover, share and buy manly stuff, and you can find cool pics and videos just for men.
The site is easy to use and visually stunning, with a collection of videos, pictures, and articles organized into interest categories and personal montages.
You can save and organize your interests into montages like hardware, good eats, styles or dream destinations, and more.
Unlike Pinterest, which is mainly tailored to women, Dudepins focuses on men’s interests with the option to discover and explore the interests of their favorite brands. They can also focus on interests of other trending topics, online communities, and their friends too.
Dudepins is easy to use and you can join via email, Facebook, or Twitter. Plus, Dudepins is sophisticated and classy, so you won’t be bogged down with memes and stereotypical topics. You’ll also find many like-minded individuals who prefer a manly site compared to Pinterest.
7. Gentlemint
Gentlemint is another site for finding and sharing things. Unlike Pinterest, whose main audience is women, Gentlemint is geared towards men and provides a little bit more variety of choice.
The platform provides mustaches, unlike the pin feature on Pinterest, and a more masculine aesthetic with some good old-fashioned humor to boot. If you’re a guy and want a creative outlet, Gentlemint is worth considering.
You can get content that’s not as sophisticated as that of Dudepins, but it’s still manly with topics like memes, food, cars, entertainment, and more. You can save your favorite images and share them using social media buttons.
Gentlemint also has occasional posts dedicated to survival skills and DIY projects, besides the funny memes and infographics.
8. Depositphotos
Depositphotos is a platform for stock photos, but you can use it the same way you would Pinterest.
Instead of pinning stuff like you would on Pinterest, Depositphotos lets you favorite the pics you like using a star icon and add them to your own folders.
You can scroll through the photo library and add images that inspire you to different folders. It’s a simple and easy way to keep your photos organized and leverage the over 200 million files including those that are similar to those on Pinterest.
You can also share the folders with your friends and buy images for your projects if you want. Tips on image searching on the platform are also included along with dozens of photography and design ideas.
9. FoodGawker
FoodGawker is the ‘Pinterest’ for foodies. Here, you’ll find all types of food items and discover new techniques, recipes, and ingredients to enhance your cookery adventures.
The editors on the platform review the techniques and recipes that food bloggers submit to display the highest quality recipes in its showcase.
If you’re a foodie or budding chef, or you’re a professional chef, FoodGawker is a great place to prove your talent, and showcase radiant food photography.
The platform highlights excellent photography of food dishes with formulas, all sorted under different menus such as starters, breakfast, veggie lover, and supper among others.
You can also view most starred food pics, and find plenty of online cooking guides.
Unlike Pinterest, FoodGawker is curated but you can still submit your own links and photos, and once the editors approve them, your work is showcased on the platform.
10. Fancy
Fancy is another great Pinterest alternative whose primary aim is to help you find and buy new stuff. Unlike Pinterest, Fancy is designed with style aficionados in mind, which is probably why its interface has the demeanor of a magazine.
The site allows you to search through images, discover what you like, and adjust it to your style. You can find new stuff from a wide range of categories including home décor, art, shoes, clothes, and more.
You can also browse through the many unique items on the platform and buy right from the site. If you’re not ready to buy, you can click the popsicle to save or Fancy the item on your profile.
Unlike Pinterest, which is mainly for finding ideas, you can create lists on Fancy and share the products with your friends. The site also provides a curated shopping experience and is geared toward goods that are thoughtfully designed, apparel, and hipster gear.
11. DwellingGawker
DwellingGawker is another curated photo gallery that lets you search and discover visual ideas to inspire your work and living space.
The site publishes photos submitted by architecture and design bloggers across the globe, which are reviewed every day to showcase the best quality and most stunning images.
Unlike Pinterest, DwellingGawker is mostly focused on architecture and interior design instead of a variety of things. You can share and save beautiful photos you find or submit your own.
You can tap on an image to visit the owner’s blog post and find trends, tips, or more beautiful inspiration. The site also has a free app, though it limits you to 48 posts per screen with in-app purchases to access all the posts.
You can also sort images by most favorited or gawked, sync your favorites between the site and app, and even translate foreign language posts to your native language.
12. Inspiration Grid
Inspiration Grid is a web-based magazine launched in 2011 that celebrates creative talent from across the globe. You can find your daily fix of art, illustration, design, photography, typography, fashion, and architecture among other items.
Unlike Pinterest, Inspiration Grid is designed for artists who want good taste that fits their artistic and creative tastes.
You get visual content that will inspire you in your career or hobby, even though it doesn’t provide boards like those on Pinterest.
13. Pearltrees
Pearltrees is a platform that caters to lots of different interests and allows you to create a variety of collections. You can add photos, documents, and links, but you can also add web page snippets to your collection via the browser extension, which you may not do on Pinterest.
The platform also lets you organize your collections into subcollections, add items, and view other similar collections other users have made.
You get 1GB of free storage, but you’ll need to pay up to get more storage and access more features.
14. Flipboard
Flipboard is a popular platform that bloggers and marketers use to share content. The platform helps you drive traffic back to your own site with great results for active members or sharers.
Unlike Pinterest, which targets women 25-50 years, Flipboard doesn’t restrict you to any particular niche or audience. Thus, you can create content around any topic and drive traffic to your site.
15. CraftGawker
CraftGawker is another specialty site, which compared to Pinterest, has multiple categories and is designed for crafts and DIY content only. On CraftGawker, you get a curated collection of handmade arts and crafts to inspire your projects.
You can upload and submit your high-quality photography and once approved, they’ll be showcased to other users of the site. It’s easy to visually search and discover the crafts you like and keep them to inspire your own craft or DIY plans.
Wrapping Up
Inspiration can be found on many different platforms these days, not just Pinterest.
Any of these best 15 alternatives provide fun and new ideas you can try for your own projects or share with others to showcase and promote your work.
Tom loves to write on technology, e-commerce & internet marketing.
Tom has been a full-time internet marketer for two decades now, earning millions of dollars while living life on his own terms. Along the way, he’s also coached thousands of other people to success.