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Endearist vs Covve
A fair, specific comparison — written so you'd be comfortable if a Covve engineer read it.
Fairness pledge
Covve is the best business-card scanner in the personal-CRM space — its OCR is fast, the news-alerts feature for tracked contacts is well-executed, and the digital business card you can send via NFC is a clever twist on networking. At €4.99/month, it's also priced fairly. If you're a frequent networker (conferences, trade shows, sales calls) and you collect physical business cards, Covve is a strong choice and we say so. It is, however, a mobile-only product — there's no desktop client — and the underlying contact model is shallower than a personal CRM's: it's optimized for capture, not for relationship depth over years.
Where your data lives
Covve: cloud-hosted, with the company headquartered in Cyprus (EU). Contact data syncs to Covve's servers so the news-alert engine can run. Endearist: your device first — sync optional via your own cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, WebDAV) or Endearist Cloud (EU-hosted).
How AI is accessed
Covve uses AI for OCR (business-card scanning) and for the news-monitoring signal that flags relevant articles about your contacts — both run on Covve's servers. Endearist's Magic Buttons run client-side with no AI by default. If you bring your own AI key (OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini), it stays on your device. If you'd rather not manage a key, Endearist Pro Cloud Light bundles ~250 EU-routed actions/month for €4.99/month, and Pro Cloud upgrades to ~600 actions/month plus voice-note transcription for €9.99/month.
3-year total cost
Covve Pro: €4.99/month over 3 years = ~€180. Endearist Pro Cloud Light: €4.99/month = ~€180 over 3 years (identical price). Endearist Pro Lifetime: €69 once — a one-time payment that beats Covve's TCO after about 14 months.
What we don't do
We don't have native business-card OCR in v1, and we don't run a news-monitoring service that watches the web for mentions of your contacts. Covve's capture-and-alert loop is its strength. Endearist is built for the people you already know well enough not to need a card for — partners, family, close friends — and for the journal layer around them.
Feature matrix
Side-by-side.
| Feature | Endearist | Covve |
|---|---|---|
| Local-first data storage | Yes — your data lives on your device first, not on our servers. | No — cloud-synced to Covve's servers (EU). |
| End-to-end encrypted sync | Yes — AES-256-GCM end to end; only you hold the key. | Transport TLS only; server holds plaintext. |
| Mobile native apps (iOS / Android) | Native on iOS and Android too (Flutter). | iOS, Android (native) — the primary surface. |
| Desktop native apps | Yes — native apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux. | No — mobile-only product. |
| AI features | Nothing runs server-side unless you opt in: your own key on-device, Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo), or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice). | Server-side: OCR for card scanning + news-monitoring signal for tracked contacts. |
| Self-host option | No self-hosting for now — the desktop app itself is the local store. | No. |
| Pricing | Up to 25 contacts free. Then: Pro Lifetime €69 once, Pro Cloud Light €4.99/mo, or Pro Cloud €9.99/mo. | Free tier (limited scans). Pro €4.99/month. |
| Open source code | Pledged source release if we ever shut down or get acquired. | No — proprietary. |
| Plain-Markdown export | Plain Markdown included — readable in any editor, no app needed. | CSV / vCard export; no Markdown. |
| Voice-note transcription | Included with Pro Cloud (60 min/mo), or via your own key. | No. |
| Family / multi-vault share | Pro Cloud includes family share (2 seats); multi-vault is on the roadmap. | No — single-user design. |
| Journal / reflection | A real journal surface: built in, with weekly ritual and appreciation prompts. | No — note field per contact, no journal surface. |
| Relationship depth (how-we-met, pets) | Deep fields: how-we-met, pets, custom pronouns, life events, debts, attachments. | Shallow — name, company, role, tags, free-text notes. No pets / debts / life-events. |
| Calendar / messenger integrations | Read-only calendar sync (Google/Apple/Outlook); messenger context captured manually via the share sheet. | Limited — phone-book sync, no calendar integration. |
When to pick Covve
When Covve is the better fit.
If you collect physical business cards regularly — at conferences, trade shows, or in-person sales — and your phone is your primary contact device, Covve's OCR is the best in the category. The news-alerts feature for tracked contacts is genuinely useful for the "stay top-of-mind with 200 acquaintances" use case. Pick Covve when card-scanning + alerts is your primary need. We're a different shape — local-first, cross-platform, journal-deep — and we don't have native card-scanning in v1.
Switching
Coming from Covve?
If you're on Covve and want to switch: export your contacts from Covve via Settings → Export (vCard format). Import the vCard into Endearist via Settings → Import → vCard — names, emails, phone numbers, and any tags carry over. Covve's news-alert history doesn't have a Endearist equivalent and won't migrate. If you'd like to keep the card-scanning workflow, you can continue using Covve for capture and periodically export new contacts into Endearist as a deeper journal layer.
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Prices and positioning verified 2026-05-20.
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