SimpleCommenter vs MarkLayer: a free SimpleCommenter alternative

By Dean Rusin · Last updated: October 2026

At a glance#

About SimpleCommenter#

SimpleCommenter is a paid, hosted website commenting widget for agencies and freelancers, installed on each client site and managed from a dashboard.

About MarkLayer#

MarkLayer is a free, open-source web app for annotating any live webpage. Paste a URL atmarklayer.app and draw, comment, arrow, or highlight directly on the page in your browser — no install, no account, no sign-up. Share a single link and anyone can open the annotations in any browser. A free Chrome extension is available for the sites the web app cannot embed, such as pages behind a login, but it is optional and never required to view a share link. There is no paywall and no trial period.

Where SimpleCommenter charges and MarkLayer doesn't#

SimpleCommenter has no free plan. Pro is $34.99 a month and buys three team members, ten projects and 50GB. The fourth person costs $9.99 a month, and the eleventh client project moves you to Agency at $79. Both figures are the monthly rate; the annual toggle promises two months free without printing the number. The trial is 14 days with no card, and it does not roll into a subscription on its own.

MarkLayer has no seat count, project count or storage tier. A share link is the whole unit and you can mint as many as you want. What you give up is the structure: a dashboard listing every client project, per-client login settings, and the routing rules that send a high-priority comment to one board and a low one to another.

The widget on the client's site#

This is the practical difference most people hit first. SimpleCommenter works by putting its widget on the page. That is a script tag, a WordPress plugin, a Shopify theme embed or its own Chrome extension. Once the widget is there, a client clicks an element and the screenshot, browser, viewport and URL are captured with the comment. The widget can be themed to the site, which is the right call for an agency that wants it to look like part of the deliverable.

MarkLayer fetches the page from its own server and overlays the canvas, so a public URL needs nothing at all. A page behind a password or a login needs the free browser extension, which annotates in the tab where you are already signed in. Neither route touches the site's code. The trade is permanence: SimpleCommenter's button stays on the site for the life of the project, while a MarkLayer room is a link you send.

The agent on the other end#

Both tools now talk to Claude Code, Cursor and other MCP clients. SimpleCommenter's server is hosted with OAuth, and you pick projects and allowed actions at sign-in, so read access is the default and writes are a deliberate grant. There is also a local stdio package whose tokens are account-wide. MCP is on the trial and paid plans, not after a trial lapses.

MarkLayer's is free and needs no key. Every share link is itself an MCP server, so claude mcp add --transport http marklayer https://marklayer.app/s/<id>/mcp is the whole setup. The agent watches the room live, acknowledges a thread so the reviewer sees it is in progress, resolves or dismisses it with a reason, and replies. It can leave its own comment pins and propose exact text replacements the reviewer accepts as a diff. SimpleCommenter does not advertise agent-authored comments or suggested edits, and MarkLayer does not have SimpleCommenter's per-project scoping of what an agent may touch. If you want other picks, see SimpleCommenter alternatives, or the Huddlekit and SureFeedback pages for two other widget-based tools.

Sources#

Prices and features come from the vendor's own pages, read on 11 October 2026:

• SimpleCommenter homepage
• SimpleCommenter pricing
• SimpleCommenter integrations
• SimpleCommenter AI agent and MCP
• SimpleCommenter Jira integration

SimpleCommenter's Pro plan is $34.99 a month for three team members and ten projects, with extra seats at $9.99 each (checked October 2026). Agency is $79 a month with no caps. MarkLayer costs nothing, and the page you review needs no script before its closing body tag.

When to choose MarkLayer#

• You want visual feedback that costs nothing, with no seat or project count to outgrow.
• You don't control the site you're reviewing, or you don't want to install a widget on it just to collect comments.
• You review together: live cursors and a voice call in the same room, instead of comments read later.
• You want an AI coding agent on the link itself, free, with no OAuth step and no plan requirement.
• You want open source you can read, audit or self-host on your own Cloudflare account.

When to choose SimpleCommenter#

• You want the feedback button to live on the client's site permanently, in the client's colours.
• Comments must sort themselves into Asana, ClickUp, Jira or Linear by rule, with Jira status flowing back.
• Your agency needs SAML SSO, which SimpleCommenter sells as an Agency add-on.
• You sell on Shopify or WordPress and want a plugin that installs the widget without touching theme code.

Frequently asked questions#

Is MarkLayer a free SimpleCommenter alternative?

For annotating a live page and sharing a link, yes, and nobody on either side makes an account. It does not replace SimpleCommenter's on-site widget, its branded theme, its routing rules or its Jira status sync. I build MarkLayer, so read the rows above for what it lacks.

How much does SimpleCommenter cost?

Per its pricing page on 11 October 2026. Pro is $34.99 a month for three team members, ten projects, 50GB of storage and unlimited clients, with extra seats at $9.99 a month. Agency is $79 a month with unlimited members, projects and 500GB, plus optional SAML SSO at an extra 150 euros a month. Enterprise is custom. Annual billing gives two months free, but the annual figures are not printed. There is no free plan, only a 14-day trial with no card.

Does the site I'm reviewing need anything installed?

On SimpleCommenter, yes. The widget goes in with a script tag, the WordPress plugin, the Shopify app or its Chrome extension, so someone with access to the site adds it. On MarkLayer, no: paste the URL and the page is fetched and overlaid. For a page behind a login, the free MarkLayer browser extension annotates it in your own signed-in tab, still with nothing added to the site.

How do the two MCP servers differ?

SimpleCommenter's is hosted at simplecommenter.com/api/mcp with OAuth sign-in, or runs locally from the @simple-commenter/mcp-server npm package. Agents read open comments by default and can reply or change status, priority and tags only if you grant write access. It is included in the trial and paid plans. MarkLayer's is free with no key: every share link answers MCP at /s/<id>/mcp. An agent can watch a room live, acknowledge, resolve, dismiss or reply, leave its own comment pins and propose exact text edits the reviewer accepts as a diff.

Do integrations sync both ways?

On MarkLayer, no. It posts new comments to Slack, Teams, Discord or a webhook and files one thread as a Jira, Linear or GitHub issue, and that is the end of it. SimpleCommenter's integrations page describes pushing comments into Asana, Trello, Monday.com, ClickUp, Jira, GitHub and Linear. Its Jira page says a status change in Jira syncs back to the comment. The other tool pages do not state a direction.

What happens to a MarkLayer link if nobody claims it?

It is deleted 90 days after its last view, comment or edit, and any of those resets the clock. Claiming it with the free magic-link account removes the idle clock. SimpleCommenter keeps feedback as long as your subscription does.

Related comparisons#

Try MarkLayer

Paste any URL at marklayer.app and annotate the live page in your browser. No install, no account, no sign-up. Recipients of your share links don't need to install anything either.

Or add the free Chrome extension for sites the web app cannot embed, such as pages behind a login.