✦ Comparison ✦
DeckForge vs ManaBox
ManaBox is a good app with years of polish behind it, and this page is written by the people who make DeckForge. So here are the plain differences, with the parts where ManaBox wins left in.
Facts checked against ManaBox's App Store listing and scanner guide, September 2026.
| DeckForge | ManaBox | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, no ads. Plus is $3.99 a month or $29.99 a year, 7 days free first. | Free with ads. Removing ads is $1.99. ManaBox PRO is $2.49 a month or $22.99 a year, so PRO is cheaper than Plus. |
| Scanning | Built for stacks. Cards go straight into a queue, doubtful ones get an orange mark and are answered once at the end. Never a popup mid-scan. Recognition runs on the phone. | Recognises by artwork. Its own guide recommends “a plain colored background with good contrast like a white sheet of paper” and notes sleeve glare can stop border detection. |
| Printings | Set symbol and collector number are checked; when two printings share art, it asks instead of guessing. A one-set switch for sorting a box. | Picks a printing after the scan; you change it in the list. |
| Prices | TCGplayer, Cardmarket and Card Kingdom. 30 days of history free, 3 months with Plus. | Four sources: TCGplayer, Card Kingdom, Star City Games and Cardmarket. One more shop than DeckForge. |
| Deck building | Builds the deck for you. Give the website a commander, a combo or just colours and it completes a legal list, informed by EDHREC data and Commander Spellbook combos, bracket-aware. Then it tells you which binder each copy is in and what's missing. | A deck editor with mana curve and production stats, a goldfish simulator and deck sharing. You pick every card yourself. |
| Collection limits | Scanning is never limited. Free accounts get a couple of collections and a few thousand cards; Plus makes them unlimited. | Binders and lists; PRO lifts limits and adds features. |
| Privacy | No advertising, analytics or tracking. Photographs never leave the phone. The policy is a page long. | Ad-supported unless you pay to remove ads. |
| Platforms | iPhone, iPad, Android and the website, one collection across all of them. | iPhone, Android and a web app. |
| Track record | Launched September 2026. New, and updated several times a week. | 4.6 stars from 1,700 App Store ratings and years of updates. |
Which one should you pick?
Pick ManaBox if
You want Star City Games alongside the other shops, a goldfish simulator, and an app thousands of people have already rated. It is the safe, mature choice.
Pick DeckForge if
You have a shoebox to get through, you'd rather not see ads, and you want a builder that knows what you own and finishes the deck for you.
Trying DeckForge without leaving ManaBox
- Nothing about DeckForge asks you to delete anything. Install it, scan a pile, see how it feels.
- Your ManaBox deck lists come across as they are: export a deck as CSV and paste it into the deck builder's importer, which accounts for every line.
- Both apps are free to start, so the comparison costs you nothing but an afternoon.
A note on fairness
We make DeckForge, so read this the way you'd read any maker's comparison. Every ManaBox fact above is taken from ManaBox's own listing and guides, and if one of them has gone stale, tell us and it will be corrected.
✦ Free on both stores ✦