ReviewDeck vs Frame.io
One runs on your drive. One runs on theirs. That's most of the decision, so this page starts there - and it plays fair. Frame.io is a polished, deeply integrated cloud platform, and for a lot of teams it's the right call. This is a factual comparison so you can tell which tool fits the work in front of you.
Facts on this page were checked on 18 August 2026 against Frame.io's published pricing and documentation. Spotted something out of date? Email [email protected] and it'll be corrected.
Why are you uploading your work to a third party just to put comments on it?
That's the question ReviewDeck exists to ask. A review is notes, drawings and a decision - none of which requires your master to live on someone else's server. Frame.io answers the same question differently: centralise everything in their cloud and build superb collaboration on top. Both answers are coherent. Here's how they compare in practice.
| ReviewDeck | Frame.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Where your media lives | On drives you own - a folder, a NAS, or a cloud folder you already pay for | Frame.io's cloud. Enterprise Prime accounts can connect their own AWS S3 bucket; proxies and metadata still sit in Frame.io's cloud |
| Server required | None. Nothing is hosted, nothing is uploaded | Yes - it's a cloud platform |
| Reviewers need an account | No - they open one file in any browser | No - Share links accept comments with a name and email |
| Sending a cut out | One .rdeck file, over email, chat or a drive. Optional AES-256 password. The review portal blocks all network access once loaded | Hosted Share links, with passphrase and expiry options |
| Notes into your edit | Timeline markers for DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro and Final Cut | Premiere Pro panel syncs comments as timeline markers |
| 3D assets | Meshes and Gaussian splat captures in a viewport, notes pinned to camera views | Review pages are built around video, images, audio and PDFs |
| Pricing model | Free today (Indie). Team: £100 once, up to 10 people, coming soon. No subscription | Free tier (2 members, 2 GB). Pro $15 and Team $25 per member per month. Enterprise is custom |
| Platforms | Windows 10+ today (Mac by demand). Reviewers: any browser, including phones | Web, desktop apps, iPhone and iPad |
Two footnotes worth knowing. Frame.io's Premiere panel is genuinely good - comments land in the timeline in real time - though as of August 2026 drawn annotations don't come through the panel, only text comments. And Storage Connect is real, but it's an Enterprise Prime feature: your originals can live in your own S3 bucket, while proxies and metadata still live on Frame.io's cloud. If "our footage cannot touch a third-party server" is a hard rule where you work, neither is the same thing as a folder on your NAS.
Where Frame.io is the better choice
Honestly: a lot of the time. If your clients live on links, Frame.io's hosted shares are frictionless in a way a file can never be - you can text one to a producer at an airport. Camera to Cloud gets dailies off set faster than anything else. The Premiere panel keeps editors inside their timeline. There are iPhone and iPad apps, an enterprise security stack with forensic watermarking and DRM, and an ecosystem of integrations built over a decade. If your work isn't under embargo and per-seat pricing isn't a problem, Frame.io is excellent at being Frame.io.
Where ReviewDeck is the better choice
When the footage isn't allowed to leave. Unannounced titles, publisher embargoes, platform-holder builds - work where uploading to any third-party cloud is a conversation you'd rather not have with legal. When the team reviews off a NAS in the building and uploading multi-gigabyte masters to a browser is a step that shouldn't exist. When you review more than video - key art, music stems, a hero prop, a splat capture - in one library. And when you'd rather own a tool than rent seats: £100 once for a whole team is not a pricing strategy Frame.io can follow.
Questions
Is ReviewDeck a self-hosted alternative to Frame.io?
It's the step past self-hosted: there's no server to host. The library is files in a folder, so "deployment" is pointing the app at a drive. If you can create a folder, you can run it. See how the self-hosted library works.
Do my clients need an account to review?
No - and in fairness, Frame.io's Share links don't require one either. The difference isn't the sign-up form. It's that a ReviewDeck send is a file you hand over on your own channel, reviewed in a portal that's blocked from the network, and the footage was never uploaded anywhere in the first place.
Can I use ReviewDeck for work under NDA or embargo?
That's the point of it. Media, notes and drawings stay on storage you control. Nothing is uploaded to any ReviewDeck server, and a sent review is locked so it cannot make a network request.
How does feedback get back into Premiere or Resolve?
Notes export as timeline markers for DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro and Final Cut, carrying the exact frame - so feedback lands where you actually cut, without a plugin or an account.
What does ReviewDeck cost?
The full Indie tool is free today. Team - up to 10 people on one library - will be £100, once. There is no subscription and there won't be one.
What does Frame.io do that ReviewDeck doesn't?
Hosted links, Camera to Cloud, a live Premiere panel, mobile apps, and enterprise features like forensic watermarking. ReviewDeck is async, file-based and review-only - by design. See What it isn't.
Also compare: ReviewDeck vs SyncSketch →