Gestic vs Delver Lens
Both scan Magic cards. One is an app you install on a phone; the other runs in the browser and also drives a document scanner. Here is what is different, with our numbers stated plainly and dated.
What we can prove about ourselves
Every figure below is served live from our own statistics endpoint, so it is the same number our home page shows and it moves as the data does. Measured 2026-07-06, sample of 100,089 scans:
| Scan accuracy, card identified | 99.7% |
|---|---|
| Scan accuracy, exact printing identified | 98.4% |
| Scans run through it | 335,921 since 2025-02-06 |
| Cards tracked | 2,108,016 |
| Cost to scan | Free, no cap |
| Export formats | 9 — Arena, Cardmarket, ManaBox, ManaPool, Moxfield, SpellWeave, TCGplayer, TCGTracking, custom fields |
We publish the printing-level number as well as the card-level one because they are not the same problem. Reading “Lightning Bolt” off a card is easy; deciding which of its forty-four printings you are holding is the hard part, and it is the one that decides whether your collection is worth what your spreadsheet says. We are less accurate at that — 98.4% against 99.7% — and we would rather say so than quote one number.
Will my collection come with me?
Delver Lens exports a card identifier for every row, which is the precise way to name a printing — better than a set code and a number, and much better than a name alone. Those rows import directly, landing on the exact printing the file names.
We are being careful about how far we push that. The Delver Lens export we tested had three rows in it. Three rows prove the path works; they do not measure a whole collection, and we are not going to describe them as if they did. Our ManaBox claim rests on 10,913 real rows and our EchoMTG claim on 360 — when we have a Delver Lens export of that size, this paragraph will say so and carry the number.
One thing that test did find and fix: the export carries two set codes per row, the paper one and the MTGO one, and we were reading the wrong one. Cards now resolve to their paper printings. That was a real defect on our side, found because we asked for a real file.
Condition and language are not in the export we saw, so there is nothing to bring across for those — cards arrive as Near Mint in the printing's own language, and you set them afterwards.
Where we are genuinely different
Nothing to install. Gestic scans in the browser, on a phone or a desktop. No app store, no updates, no device that stops being supported. If you like having an app, this is not an advantage — it is just a different trade.
A document scanner, not just a phone. This is the one a phone app cannot match. Gestic drives sheet-fed ADF scanners, so a long box is a stack you feed rather than a thousand photographs you take one at a time.
Sorting by where the card physically is. Scan a card into a location and the app remembers the location, so “which box is my second Ragavan in” has an answer.
Your decks get public pages. A list you mark visible gets its own indexable page, and a play-tester anyone can open without an account.
Every privacy control is free. Publishing or unpublishing a page, hiding a section, keeping a list private — free on every plan, forever. Privacy is never a paid feature here.
What we are not claiming
No feature-by-feature table. Their feature set is theirs to change, and a comparison table written once and left to rot misleads the reader and embarrasses us. If you want to know what Delver Lens does today, read their own pages.
And we are not claiming a measured Delver Lens migration yet. Three rows is a working path, not a proven collection. Everything else on this page is measured and dated; that one is not, and it says so where it appears.
Questions people ask before adding a second tool
Can I import a Delver Lens export?
Yes. It carries a card identifier per row, which is the precise way to
name a printing. Tested on a small file — three rows — so
treat it as a working path rather than a measured migration.
Do I have to install anything?
No. It runs in the browser, on a phone or a desktop.
Can I use a document scanner?
Yes, and that is the thing a phone app cannot do.
Can it tell me which box a card is in?
Yes. That is one of the main reasons people use it.
Does scanning cost anything?
No, and there is no cap.
Can I get my collection back out?
Yes, in eight formats.
Compare with something else
If you are weighing Gestic against a different tool, these are the others we have written up — same rules, same measured numbers:
- Gestic vs ManaBox — a phone scanner with a big user base
- Gestic vs Moxfield — the deck builder
- Gestic vs EchoMTG — collection value tracking
Try it on one box
Scanning is free and uncapped, so the honest way to compare is to scan a single box and see which one identified the printings correctly. That is the test that matters, and it costs you nothing here.