Gestic vs ManaBox
Two free scanners for the same job. Here is what is different, with our numbers stated plainly and dated, and what you should check for yourself before moving anything.
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 | 8 — Arena, Cardmarket, ManaBox, ManaPool, Moxfield, SpellWeave, TCGplayer, 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?
Yes, both ways.
Gestic exports to ManaBox format, so nothing you put in here is trapped — you can take it back out in a file ManaBox reads. That direction works now.
Coming the other way, we have tested it against a real export. A 10,913-row ManaBox collection file imported in full — every row, 19,282 cards once quantities are counted, nothing rejected, in about six seconds. Set codes, collector numbers, foil and etched finishes, quantities, names containing commas and accented names all came through intact.
Conditions, languages and finishes come across with the cards, so a collection arrives graded rather than as a flat pile of names. That part we checked one row at a time rather than trusting the total: a file can report nothing rejected and still quietly downgrade what it did accept. Testing this export found two such cases, both since fixed — played grades written with underscores were landing as Near Mint, and Simplified Chinese was not recognised in the locale form ManaBox writes. Every grade in the file now lands as the grade in the file.
What we would still check yourself. An export is only as good as what is in it. One row of this file names a card in Simplified Chinese while its own card identifier points at the Spanish printing; we follow the identifier, because it is exact and the language column is not. If your collection has been edited by hand over the years, expect a handful of rows like that, and expect any tool to resolve them the same way.
Where we are genuinely different
A document scanner, not just a phone. Gestic drives sheet-fed ADF scanners, so a few thousand cards is a stack you feed rather than a thousand photographs you take. If your collection is small, this does not matter. If it is a long box, it is the whole difference.
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
This page deliberately does not carry a feature-by-feature table against ManaBox. Their pricing and their feature set are theirs to change, and a comparison table written once and left to rot is worse than no table: it misleads the reader and embarrasses us. If you want to know what ManaBox does today, read their own pages.
What we will stand behind are the numbers at the top, because they come from our own measurements and carry the date and sample size to check them by.
Questions people ask before they switch
Can I import my ManaBox collection?
Yes, and it has been tested on a real one rather than on a file we wrote
ourselves: 10,913 rows, 19,282 cards, nothing rejected, about six seconds.
Do my conditions and languages survive the move?
Yes. They are checked row by row, not by reading the imported total —
that total is exactly what hides a card being silently downgraded.
Can I get my collection back out?
Yes, in eight formats including ManaBox's own. Nothing you put in here is
trapped here. We think an export button is the minimum honest thing a
collection tracker can offer, not a feature.
Does scanning cost anything?
No, and there is no cap — not per card, not per month. The privacy
controls are free too: publishing, unpublishing, hiding a section and
keeping a list private are on every plan.
Do I need a document scanner?
No. A phone works. But if you own a sheet-fed one, Gestic drives it, and a
long box becomes a stack you feed instead of a thousand photographs.
What if I only want to try it?
Scan one box. That is the comparison that decides it, and it costs nothing.
Try it on one box
Scanning is free and uncapped, so the honest way to compare is to scan a single box in both and see which one identified the printings correctly. That is the test that matters, and it costs you nothing here.