BeeRef vs PureRef vs refern: 2026 Comparison

By refern. Last updated: June 2026.

TL;DR: BeeRef and PureRef both do one thing well, which is putting reference images on screen while you paint. Neither has tags, search, or a library. Once your collection grows past a few boards, both tools hit the same wall. refern keeps the floating canvas, adds a full searchable library, and connects everything with a relationship graph.

What is refern?

refern is a desktop reference manager for artists that combines Eagle-style organization with a PureRef-style infinite canvas and an Obsidian-style relationship graph. It costs $30 one time, runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux, and does not copy your files.

refern indexes a normal folder on disk. Your originals stay where they are. The app builds a searchable SQLite library alongside them, so a collection of 27,000 images (a real alpha-user data point) stays fast and findable. The canvas mode gives you the same floating overlay workflow you may already use in BeeRef or PureRef. And a relationship graph shows you how images, canvases, folders, and groups connect to each other across your whole library.

What is BeeRef?

BeeRef is a free, open-source reference image viewer created by Rebecca Breu, a Krita contributor. It was first released in July 2021 and is hosted entirely on GitHub under the GPL-3.0 license. [libr earts.org, 2021] It lets you arrange, scale, rotate, and view images on a floating canvas while working in another application. The Flatpak package makes it especially convenient on Linux desktops.

BeeRef does its job well. It is lightweight (the Flatpak is 19 MiB [flathub.org]), starts fast, and is stable for the core overlay workflow. Enhancement requests outnumber bug reports roughly 7 to 3 on GitHub, which is the shape of a tool that works. [github.com/rbreu/beeref]

What BeeRef does not do is organize. There are no tags, no search, no metadata fields, and no library view. Each .bee file is a single self-contained scene. When your collection grows to hundreds of boards, there is no in-app way to find a specific image short of opening every file manually and scanning visually. [alternativeto.net/software/beeref/about/]

What is PureRef?

PureRef is made by Idyllic Pixel AB, a two-person studio in Stockholm. It has been around since 2013 and is widely used in game development, concept art, and 3D modeling pipelines. Version 2.1 shipped in January 2026. For personal non-commercial use it is free (pay-what-you-want, suggested $7 or $15). Small Business commercial use is $49 one-time for up to 3 seats. [pureref.com/download.php]

PureRef's canvas and overlay are excellent. The "always on top of a specific application" feature and transparent-to-mouse click-through are genuinely best-in-class for the per-session overlay workflow. Many 3D artists consider it table-stakes tooling alongside Photoshop and ZBrush.

PureRef also has no tags, no search, and no cross-project library. Every .pur file is its own self-contained board. The developers have confirmed that images load entirely into RAM, which can degrade performance on large boards. [pureref.com/forum] Like BeeRef, PureRef hits a hard ceiling once your reference collection outlives a single project.

Organization and search

BeeRef: Spatial arrangement only. You move images around the canvas. There is no way to label, rate, describe, or search an image. The only way to "find" something is to open the .bee file you think it is in and look. [alternativeto.net]

PureRef: Groups on canvas and a hierarchy window for reordering. These are layout constructs, not categorical metadata. There is no search of any kind. PureRef's official handbook confirms the absence explicitly. [pureref.com/handbook/features/]

refern: Full-text FTS5 search across filename, path, description, notes, source URL, creator, and tags. Fourteen-plus inline operators: tag:, color:, rating:>=3, type:, is:duplicate, derived:, linked:, and more. Color search by hex value. Image-to-image visual similarity search using a local 512-byte descriptor, no external API required. Hierarchical tags with tag groups, linked tags, and macros. Smart folders let you save a search query as a persistent folder that always shows matching results.

Verdict: If organization and search matter to your workflow, neither BeeRef nor PureRef can help. This is not a close comparison; it is a categorical difference. refern was built for the artist who has been collecting references for years and needs to find them again.

Canvas and overlay

BeeRef: Move, scale, rotate, flip, and crop images. Mass-scale to the same width, height, or size. Arrange vertically, horizontally, or optimally. Text notes. Grayscale filter and opacity adjustment added in v0.3.2. Color sampler copies a pixel hex value to clipboard. Always-on-top mode. No window transparency adjustment and no mouse click-through. [beeref.org]

PureRef: All of the above, plus transparent-to-mouse (click-through so you can color-pick from references directly into your painting app), "always on top of a specific application" mode, freehand drawing, shapes, rich-text notes with formatting, GIF playback with frame controls, and the ability to export scenes. [pureref.com]

refern: Infinite canvas with proper layers (nestable, named, optionally backgrounded), nine shape primitives, freehand pen with pressure sensitivity, image filters (brightness, contrast, saturation, hue), non-destructive crop, and text elements. Pin any window on top with adjustable opacity and full mouse click-through, so you can see your references as a ghost overlay while painting in another app without switching windows. "Find similar" on canvas images pulls up visually related images from your library. Canvas files are saved as a normal .refern-canvas file in your workspace folder; the images they contain are linked, not embedded, so your library stays in one place.

Verdict: PureRef has the deepest canvas feature set and the best-in-class transparent-to-mouse workflow for per-session use. BeeRef covers the basics at zero cost but lacks click-through and drawing tools. refern matches or exceeds PureRef on canvas features while adding layers, filters, and library integration. For the overlay use case specifically, all three tools work, and the right choice depends on how much you need beyond the canvas.

File model and data safety

BeeRef: Images are embedded as full PNG or JPG data inside the .bee SQLite container. A board with many high-resolution references becomes a large single file. One user found a .bee file containing one PNG was already 16 KB larger than the source image. A feature request to store images as URIs instead was closed without implementation. [github.com/rbreu/beeref/issues/40] There is also no confirmation dialog when you press Ctrl+N, which creates a new scene and silently discards unsaved work. [alternativeto.net]

PureRef: Images are embedded in a .pur binary. If a save is interrupted (power loss, full disk), the .pur file can become corrupt. Users have reported losing months of references this way. A .pur.old backup exists but is not prominently documented. [pureref.com/forum]

refern: Your files stay exactly where they are on disk. refern stores an index (SQLite) and thumbnails in your workspace folder alongside your originals. It never copies, moves, or embeds them. A crash cannot destroy your references. If you delete the refern index and thumbnails, your original images are untouched. There is no proprietary container to become corrupt.

Verdict: refern's file model is safer and more transparent. For artists building a long-term collection, keeping originals on disk in normal folders is meaningfully more durable than embedding them in a single binary that can bloat or corrupt.

Pricing

BeeRef is free and will remain free. That is a genuine, durable advantage for students, hobbyists, or anyone who only needs the basic overlay workflow. GPL-3.0 also means the format is auditable and forkable.

PureRef's commercial licensing changed with version 2.0. Where version 1.x allowed free commercial use, version 2.x requires a paid commercial license for any professional work. Solo freelancers on forums compared the $96/year per-seat cost unfavorably to one-time alternatives. [pureref.com/forum] The $49 Small Business license was added in response and is a reasonable option for small teams.

refern's $30 one-time price includes commercial use with no per-seat or per-tier distinction. One license, up to three devices, lifetime updates. The trial is 30 days with no account required and no data locked on expiry.

Full feature comparison

Who should choose refern

refern is the right pick if:

• Your reference collection has grown beyond a handful of boards and you need to find images later without scanning visually.
• You want tags, search, or color search across your entire collection.
• You want your originals to stay in a normal folder on disk rather than embedded in a proprietary file.
• You have been using Eagle for organization alongside BeeRef or PureRef as a canvas, and want to replace both apps with one.
• You regularly collect images from websites and want a browser extension to handle it in one click.
• You are interested in seeing how your images, canvases, folders, and groups relate to each other across your whole library.
• You are using BeeRef on Linux and have outgrown what it can do.

One alpha user put it simply: "organization and search like eagle cool, canvas from pureref."

Who should choose BeeRef

BeeRef is the honest choice if:

• You genuinely only need the basic overlay: float a few images over Krita or another painting app, and you will clear them when the project is done.
• You need free software and zero-cost is a hard requirement.
• You prefer GPL-3.0 open-source software and will not use proprietary tools regardless of price.
• You are a Linux artist and the Flatpak distribution fits your setup.

BeeRef is stable and well-regarded within its intentional scope. The community concern about its development pace [github.com/rbreu/beeref/discussions] is real but the tool works for what it does. Do not switch away from it if BeeRef covers everything you need.

Who should choose PureRef

PureRef is the honest choice if:

• You use references in a focused, per-project way and clear your board when the project ships. The one-file-per-project model fits that workflow.
• You are a student or early-career artist who needs the $0 personal-use tier during school.
• The transparent-to-mouse color picker workflow is central to how you work, for example picking colors from references directly into Photoshop or Clip Studio.
• You are a 3D artist already deeply habituated to PureRef's canvas feel and keybindings, and the switching cost is higher than the problems you are trying to solve.
• You need a commercial license for a small team and the $49 Small Business flat rate fits your budget.

Switching from BeeRef to refern

BeeRef stores images inside .bee files. To move to refern:

1. Export your BeeRef images. In BeeRef, right-click on an image and choose "Save original" to save it back to disk, or use File > Extract all images. Do this for each board you want to bring over.
2. Create a refern workspace pointing at a folder on your disk (or the folder where you saved those images).
3. refern indexes the images in place without copying them. Your originals stay where you put them.
4. Add tags, ratings, and descriptions in refern to rebuild any organization you had in BeeRef.

There is no automated BeeRef importer in refern today. If you were using Eagle alongside BeeRef, refern's Eagle importer preserves folders, tags, ratings, source URLs, and notes from that library in a single step.

For more on what transfers and how, see the refern vs Eagle comparison and the best PureRef alternatives guide.