Distill is the power user's page monitor — precise, configurable, and local-capable. Watchbird keeps the local-first idea and throws away the configuration.
Distill asks you to identify the element — CSS, XPath, sometimes a bit of trial and error. Watchbird asks you to point at it. You hover, the element highlights, you click, and you choose what counts as a change: any change, a price move, or a keyword appearing.
Distill tells you something changed. That's precise — and it's also how you end up muting alerts, because pages change constantly for reasons you don't care about: timestamps, view counters, rotating ads. Watchbird runs Chrome's built-in AI locally to judge whether a change is worth your attention, and to summarize it in a sentence. Unimportant changes are still recorded; they just don't interrupt you.
When you create a watch, you can add a line like "only if the price drops below $130" or "when a React Native role appears." That instruction is passed to the on-device model at check time. It never leaves your machine, and it never costs you an API credit.
| Watchbird | Distill.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Setup | Click the element | CSS / XPath selectors |
| AI change filtering | On-device, built in | None |
| Plain-English conditions | Yes | No |
| Monitoring behind a login | No | Yes |
| Cloud checks while offline | No | On paid plans |
| Pricing | Free / one-time Pro | Free tier, paid from ~$15/month |
Choose Distill if you want XPath-level control, condition scripting, monitoring behind a login, or its paid cloud checks. If you enjoy configuring monitors, you'll find far more knobs there — and that's a legitimate preference, not a flaw.
No. You click the part of the page you care about and Watchbird works out the selector for you.
No — checks run in your browser. If you need that, Distill's paid cloud monitors are the better fit.
No. Pro is a one-time license key. The free tier stays free forever.
Background checks fetch pages without your session, so login-only pages won't work unattended. Watch a public page instead, or use the Check button while you're signed in.
10 watches, forever. No account, no card. Pro is a one-time $14 — never a subscription.
Get Watchbird100% on-device · nothing you watch is ever uploaded