Where Distill is stronger
- A free plan, which is handy if you only need to watch a few pages.
- The browser extension can check pages very often while your computer is on, and can watch pages you're logged in to, because it uses your own browser.
- Lots of fine control for technical users: picking elements, conditions and custom filters.
- It has been around for years and has a large user base and community.
Where ChangeGist is different
- Alerts written for people: a short “What happened” summary like “Price went up from £24 to £28”, followed by the exact before-and-after wording.
- Noise filtering out of the box. Dates, view counters and rotating banners are ignored without you writing any rules.
- Nothing to install. Every check runs on our servers, so your laptop can be closed and you still hear about changes.
- Slack, Discord and webhook alerts on Pro, not just email.
- A clear privacy promise: we never sell or share your data or use it to train AI.
Who each one suits
Distill suits people who like to tinker, want a free option, or need to watch pages behind a login. ChangeGist suits people who want to add a page, forget about it, and get a short, readable email only when something real changes. Plenty of people would be happy with either, which is why trying both is the best test.
A note on data
If you watch competitors or suppliers, it's worth reading how any monitoring tool treats what you watch. As of November 2026, Distill's terms (section 4.2) say it may use service data for product development and product training. ChangeGist doesn't sell or share customer data and doesn't train AI on it.
Moving pages across
- Make a list of the pages you watch in Distill and how often each is checked.
- Start a free ChangeGist trial and paste in the addresses.
- If you only watched part of a page, pick the same part under More options.
- Run both for a week and compare the alerts before you cancel anything.
Try it side by side
The easiest way to decide is to watch the same few pages in both tools for a week and see which alerts you actually read. ChangeGist is free for 3 days, no card needed.