Diffy vs Ghost Inspector: Visual Testing Without Recording Tests
Ghost Inspector is a codeless browser testing tool. You record what a user does, such as filling in a form, adding to cart or logging in, and it replays those steps in the cloud on a schedule or from CI, checking assertions along the way. At the end of each run it takes a screenshot and compares it with the last passing one. Diffy is a dedicated visual regression testing tool: you give it a list of URLs, and it screenshots every page at every breakpoint you choose and compares them across environments or before and after a change.
Both run in the cloud, both need no code to start, and both can tell you a page looks different. They’re built for different jobs, so whether Diffy is the right Ghost Inspector alternative depends on what you need to test.
What each tool needs from you
Ghost Inspector records tests. You install its Chrome extension, click record, and use your site. The recorder turns your clicks and typing into test steps, which you can edit in a codeless editor: assertions on text and elements, conditional steps, JavaScript, waits, variables and data-driven runs. Each test has a start URL, and you can reuse tests against other environments. Tests run in Chrome or Firefox, at the screen sizes and from the geographic regions you choose.
Diffy needs URLs. You create a project in a browser tab, paste the addresses of the pages you care about, pick breakpoints and press a button. Logins, elements to hide, content to mock, cookies, headers and a schedule are settings on the project page. There’s nothing to record or maintain when the site’s markup changes; a page in the list is a page that gets tested.
How the visual comparison works
Ghost Inspector takes a final screenshot at the end of every test run and compares it pixel by pixel with the last passing screenshot. You set a tolerance from 0% to 90% of the pixels; if more than that changes, the run fails, you’re notified, and a second image highlights the differences in red. If the change was intended, you click “Accept New Screenshot as Baseline”. Baselines are tracked separately for each combination of browser, browser version, screen size and region. You can limit the screenshot to one element and hide dynamic elements such as ads and carousels with a list of CSS selectors (their space in the layout is kept). Comparisons cover up to 1920 x 20,000 pixels.
Because the comparison is on the final screenshot of a test, checking 40 pages visually usually means 40 tests, one ending on each page.
Diffy compares every page at every breakpoint, and it isn’t limited to “this run against the last one”. You can compare staging with production, a preview environment with production, or a set taken before an update with a set taken after. Its own comparison algorithm recognises content that moved down, so a taller header is highlighted as one change instead of the whole page below it turning red. You can switch to pixel-perfect comparison when you want it.
Pricing
Ghost Inspector
| Plan | Test runs per month | Team members | Result history | Price (billed annually) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | 10,000 | 5 | 6 months | $109/mo |
| Growth | 30,000 | 15 | 6 months | $225/mo |
| Large/Scale | 100,000 | 40 | 6 months | $449/mo |
| Enterprise | Custom | Custom | Custom | Custom |
A test run is one execution of one test, and every combination of browser, screen size and region you select runs separately: a test set to 2 browsers and 2 screen sizes is 4 runs. If you reach your monthly limit, tests pause until the next billing period. Email testing starts at Growth, single sign-on at Large/Scale. Every plan starts with a 14-day free trial; there’s no free plan.
Diffy
| Screenshots per month | Billed annually | Month-to-month |
|---|---|---|
| 500 (Free) | $0 | $0 |
| 2,000 | $67/mo | $80/mo |
| 8,000 | $125/mo | $150/mo |
| 30,000 | $250/mo | $300/mo |
One screenshot is one page at one breakpoint. Team members are included on every plan, and paid plans add CI automation, development and custom environments, and 6 months of history. The API is included in every plan, the free one too.
What that means in practice. Take a 40-page site checked at three widths. In Ghost Inspector that’s 40 tests at 3 screen sizes, 120 runs per check. Daily, that’s about 3,600 runs a month: Ghost Inspector’s $109 Starter plan, or Diffy’s $125 plan. Checked weekly, it’s about 480 a month, which fits Diffy’s free plan. Where Ghost Inspector pulls ahead on value is when those runs also test forms, logins and checkouts, which Diffy doesn’t do.
Ghost Inspector prices as published on ghostinspector.com/pricing in October 2026. Check both pricing pages before you commit, everyone changes prices eventually.Handling real-world pages
In Ghost Inspector, anything that has to happen before the screenshot is a test step: log in, dismiss the cookie banner, wait for a slider. Exclusions hide elements by CSS selector. It works, and the recorder makes it quick, but every page needs its steps, and they need updating when the site changes.
In Diffy those are project settings that apply to every page:
- Log in before the screenshot, with presets for Drupal, WordPress and Netlify, plus a custom option.
- Mock dynamic content by giving Diffy selectors whose contents get replaced with placeholder text.
- Remove or mask elements. Embedded videos and maps are masked by default.
- Inject CSS or JavaScript, set HTTP headers, cookies and a custom User-Agent.
- Any breakpoint from 240px to 2000px. Retina and night mode are checkboxes.
Reviewing changes
Ghost Inspector reviews one test result at a time: pass or fail, the screenshot, the red-highlighted difference, and the button to accept a new baseline. That suits a functional test suite, where a visual failure is one signal among many.
Diffy’s review is built for a whole site at once:
- Thumbnail view, with approval directly from the thumbnails
- The same change grouped across every screenshot it appears in, so a header change on 200 pages is one decision, not 200
- Approve a single change, a screenshot, or a page across all breakpoints, or mark it as a bug
- A before/after slider and keyboard shortcuts
- Shareable links that work for people without a Diffy account
- An AI summary of what changed in the comparison, which can also be posted to Slack
Where Ghost Inspector is the better fit
- Functional testing. Forms, logins, checkouts, search and multi-step flows, with assertions at every step. Diffy checks how pages look, not whether they work.
- Email testing. Ghost Inspector can check emails your site sends, from the Growth plan.
- Firefox and regions. Tests run in Chrome or Firefox, from multiple geographic regions. Diffy captures in Chrome and WebKit.
- CI coverage. Written integrations for GitHub Actions, GitLab, Bitbucket Pipelines, CircleCI, Jenkins, Azure DevOps and more, plus Slack, Microsoft Teams, Jira and PagerDuty.
- Enterprise controls. SSO, SCIM provisioning and audit logs, and SOC 2 compliance on every plan.
If your team needs both functional and visual coverage, the two work well together: Ghost Inspector for the user journeys, Diffy for every page at every breakpoint.
Coming from Screenster?
If you landed here from our old Screenster comparison: Screenster’s team stopped running its online servers after 1 August 2023 and no longer develops it, though it can still be run locally. Like Ghost Inspector, it recorded tests in the browser. If what you used it for was visual comparison of pages, Diffy does that without recording anything; if you relied on recorded user flows, Ghost Inspector is the closer replacement.
Try it
Create an account, paste your URLs, and compare your staging site with production. Most teams have real results within 10 minutes, and there’s nothing to uninstall if it isn’t for you.
Start free: 500 screenshots a month
Comparing other tools too? See the visual regression testing tools round-up, Diffy vs Playwright and Diffy vs Sauce Labs Visual.