MarkLayer and Userback look similar at a glance, both put comments and drawings on a page, but they're built for opposite directions of feedback. Userback's core product is a widget: your team installs a script tag on your own site, and it lets your end users, the people using your product, report bugs and leave feedback that lands in your dashboard with browser and OS metadata attached automatically.
MarkLayer runs the other way. There's no widget to install anywhere, because the "product" being annotated isn't yours to embed a script on in the first place. Your team opens marklayer.app, pastes a URL, whether that's your own staging site, a client's production page, or a competitor's product, and annotates it directly in the browser, live cursors and all, then shares a link.
The confusion is understandable, since Userback's dashboard can also be used internally by a team reviewing its own product, which looks a lot like what MarkLayer does. The real dividing line is where the feedback originates: from your customers (Userback's job) or from your own team looking at any page at all (MarkLayer's job). Teams that need both often run them side by side rather than picking one.
Choose MarkLayer when your team needs to give feedback on any webpage, anywhere on the internet. Choose Userback when you need to collect annotated feedback FROM your end users on your own product via an embedded widget.
| Feature | MarkLayer | Userback |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Paid (subscription per user/month) |
| Sign-up required | No | Yes |
| Primary use case | Your team annotating any page | End users giving feedback on your own product |
| Embedded widget on your site | No | Yes. JS snippet you install |
| Works on third-party / competitor pages | Yes. Annotate any page | No. Widget only on your installed sites |
| Browser/OS metadata capture | No | Yes |
| Integrations | None native | Jira, Slack, Trello, Asana, GitHub |
| Real-time live cursors | Yes | No |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Best for | Internal team review on any page | Customer feedback widget on your own product |
Userback is a paid feedback platform whose primary use case is collecting feedback FROM your end users via an embedded widget on your own product.
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.
Userback and MarkLayer get conflated because both have annotation. Userback is the widget customers use to give you feedback on your product. MarkLayer is the tool your team uses to give feedback on any page. Different sides of the table.
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.
Annotate a page