Head-to-head · cool-desk.com

CoolDeskToby

Toby turned the new tab into a visual home for your tabs: drag them into collections, reopen them anytime, share them with your team. It's simple, it's polished, and people love it.

CoolDesk replaces the same new tab with a bigger idea of a project: not just tabs, but desktop apps, files, links and notes — grouped per project, searchable from one spotlight, and restored together when you switch. Everything stays local: no account, no cloud, free.

Both tools want to own your new tab, so you'll end up picking one. The honest comparison below should make that choice quick.

01 · The short answer

Skip the reading — which one is for you?

Pick Toby if…

You want the simplest possible way to file tabs into visual collections
Your team shares curated link libraries and that workflow matters to you
You need your saved tabs synced across several computers

Pick CoolDesk if…

Switching projects means more than tabs — apps, files and notes should come back too
You want to find things you never saved — history, running apps, any open tab — from one search bar
You'd rather keep your work map on your own device, free, with no account

02 · The difference

Where CoolDesk pulls ahead

Projects, not just link collections

Toby organizes tabs. CoolDesk workspaces hold tabs plus desktop apps, files and notes — the full working context of a client or project, not just its browser half.

Search that reaches your whole machine

CoolDesk's spotlight searches open tabs, history, bookmarks, notes and running desktop apps — including things you never saved. Toby finds what you've filed into collections.

Local-first, no sign-in

Toby syncs your collections through its cloud with an account. CoolDesk keeps everything on your device — nothing to create, nothing uploaded.

Tab management before you save anything

Auto-group tabs by domain, sort them by activity, switch on focus mode — CoolDesk organizes the chaos you have now, not only the links you remember to file.

03 · The scoreboard

Side by side

	Toby	CoolDesk
Core idea	Visual collections of saved tabs	Project workspaces across tabs, apps, notes & files
New tab dashboard	Yes	Yes — workspaces, notes & search
Desktop apps & files	—	Searchable & launchable via desktop app
Spotlight launcher	—	Built in
Account required	Yes (for sync)	Never
Where your data lives	Toby cloud	100% local, on your device
Team sharing	Team collections	—
Price	Free personal · paid team plans	Free

04 · Credit where it's due

What Toby does brilliantly

Dead-simple visual collections — drag a tab in, done

Saving a whole session of open tabs into a collection in one click

Team libraries: shared, curated collections of links for your whole team

Years of maturity and a large community of daily users

No point pretending otherwise — if these are what you need, Toby is excellent at them.

05 · Common questions

Still deciding?

Is CoolDesk a good Toby alternative?

If you use Toby to keep client or project tabs organized, CoolDesk covers that and adds desktop apps, files, notes and spotlight search — free, with no account. If your main use is sharing curated collections with a team, Toby still does that better.

Can I use Toby and CoolDesk together?

Not really — both replace your new tab, so in practice you choose one home base. You can keep Toby installed while you try CoolDesk, but only one of them can own the new tab page.

Does CoolDesk need an account like Toby?

No. CoolDesk works without any sign-in and stores everything locally on your device. Optional AI features run locally or with your own API key.

Round over

Try it in two minutes

CoolDesk is free, needs no sign-in, and runs alongside Toby — nothing to migrate, nothing to lose.

Get CoolDesk Free