Compare
Endearist vs Wave Connect
A fair, specific comparison — written so you'd be comfortable if a Wave Connect engineer read it.
Fairness pledge
Wave Connect (wavecnct.com) is one of the best digital business card platforms around — QR codes, NFC cards, Apple/Google Wallet passes, a paper-card scanner, and lead capture that works even when the other person has no app installed. Its free plan is unusually generous: unlimited sharing, wallet passes, basic analytics, and CSV export without paying a cent. For sales teams, the CRM sync to HubSpot, Salesforce, and Pipedrive turns event handshakes into pipeline rows automatically. The honest framing: Wave is a contact-exchange and lead-capture tool with a light CRM attached, not a place where relationships live long-term. It's brilliant at the first thirty seconds of a relationship; Endearist is built for the next thirty years. The two barely compete — and several of our users run both.
Where your data lives
Wave Connect: cloud-hosted — your profile, captured leads, notes, and tags live on Wave's servers, since the whole point is a card the other person loads from the web. Endearist: your device first — sync optional via your own cloud (Google Drive, iCloud, WebDAV) or Endearist Cloud (EU-hosted).
How AI is accessed
Wave Connect has no LLM features — its smart parts are the paper-card scanner, lead-capture forms, and analytics, all processed on Wave's cloud. Endearist's AI is opt-in: bring your own key (on-device), or Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo, €4.99) or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice, €9.99). The app fully works offline without AI.
3-year total cost
Wave Connect Free: €0 — genuinely covers individual card sharing and CSV export. Wave Pro: $7/month → ~$252 / ~€230 over 3 years; Teams ~$60/user/year. Physical NFC cards are a separate one-time purchase. Endearist Pro Lifetime: €69 once. Endearist Pro Cloud Light: €4.99/month → ~€180 over 3 years.
What we don't do
We don't do contact exchange at all — no QR profile, no NFC tap, no wallet pass, no lead-capture form, and no CRM sync to HubSpot/Salesforce/Pipedrive. Wave solves how a stranger gets your details and how their details reach your pipeline. Endearist starts after that handshake. If you work events or trade shows, you genuinely need a tool like Wave in front of us.
Feature matrix
Side-by-side.
| Feature | Endearist | Wave Connect |
|---|---|---|
| Local-first data storage | Yes — your device is the primary store. | No — profiles and captured leads live on Wave's cloud by design. |
| End-to-end encrypted sync | Yes — AES-256-GCM, you hold the key. | Transport TLS + server-side storage; Wave holds the data. |
| Mobile native apps (iOS / Android) | iOS, Android (native Flutter). | iOS app; Android app (web wrapper) — and sharing works with no app at all via QR, NFC, or wallet pass. |
| Desktop native apps | macOS, Windows, Linux (native). | Web dashboard only. |
| AI features | Opt-in: bring your own key (on-device) or Pro Cloud Light (~250 EU-routed actions/mo) or Pro Cloud (~600 actions/mo + voice). | No LLM features — paper-card scanner and analytics are the smart layer. |
| Pricing | Free up to 25 contacts. Pro Lifetime €69 once, Pro Cloud Light €4.99/mo, or Pro Cloud €9.99/mo. | Generous free tier (unlimited sharing, wallet, CSV export). Pro $7/mo, Teams ~$60/user/yr; NFC cards sold separately. |
| Open source code | Source-release pledge on shutdown/acquisition. | No — proprietary. |
| Plain-Markdown export | Yes — readable without any app. | CSV export of captured contacts — even on the free plan. No Markdown. |
| Voice-note transcription | Yes — on Pro Cloud (60 min/mo) or your own key. | No. |
| Family / multi-vault share | Family share on Pro Cloud (2 seats). Multi-vault on the roadmap. | Teams plan with bulk edits, templates, and permissions — built for sales orgs, not households. |
| Journal / reflection | Built-in journal + weekly ritual + appreciation prompts. | No — notes and tags on captured leads, nothing reflective. |
| Relationship depth (how-we-met, pets) | How-we-met, pets, custom pronouns, life events, debts, attachments. | Lead-capture fields: name, company, email, notes, tags. Where-we-met is implicit in the capture; no personal-life depth. |
| Reach-out reminders | Per-person cadence reminders — gentle, no streaks — plus weekly reach-out suggestions on Pro Cloud. | No stay-in-touch engine — follow-up is expected to happen in the CRM you sync leads into. |
| Calendar / messenger integrations | Read-only calendar (Google/Apple/Outlook); manual share-sheet capture for messenger context. | CRM sync (HubSpot, Salesforce, Pipedrive) on Pro; sharing via QR, NFC, wallet, email signature, and messaging apps. |
When to pick Wave Connect
When Wave Connect is the better fit.
If your problem is the first moment of a relationship — exchanging details at a conference, a trade-show booth, or a sales meeting — Wave Connect is one of the best tools for the job, and its free plan means there's no reason not to try it. Pick Wave when you meet many new people and need their details to land somewhere reliably (including your company CRM). It isn't where you'll remember a friend's daughter's name in five years — that's the job we built Endearist for. The honest answer for heavy networkers is: Wave for capture, Endearist for keeping.
Switching
Coming from Wave Connect?
Less a switch than a hand-off: in Wave's dashboard, open your Contacts (captured leads) and use the CSV export — available even on the free plan. Import into Endearist via Settings → Import → CSV: names, emails, companies, notes, and tags carry over; put the event where you met someone into Endearist's how-we-met field so the context survives. Endearist's contact dedup catches people you captured twice across events. There's no reason to delete your Wave account afterwards — keep it as your card for the next conference and import the new batch when you get home.
More comparisons
Comparing against another tool?
Prices and positioning verified 2026-06-10.
Ready to try Endearist?
Start free with 25 contacts. No credit card. Migrate from Wave Connect anytime.
Start free