The two apps solve different halves of the problem
Elfster starts with the group. You set up an exchange, everyone adds a wish list, names get drawn, and the app keeps the pairings secret. Its store listings put that first, and it is the part people recommend it for.
GiftTracker starts with you. It is a private list of what you are buying, for the people you are buying for, and it never asks anybody else to sign up. Nobody else sees your list, because nobody else is on it.
That difference decides most of the rest. An exchange is something several people edit together. A shopping plan is yours alone, and it has to work in a shop where your signal has gone.
Where Elfster is strong
Running a draw by hand is fiddly, and Elfster removes the whole job. Its exclusions are the part worth paying for if you have ever had to redraw because two people in a couple picked each other, and its listings say groups can run from three people to several hundred.
It also solves the awkward half of gift-giving that GiftTracker deliberately leaves alone: telling other people what you would like. If your family already shares wish lists, that habit is worth more than any feature list.
Where GiftTracker is different
GiftTracker is built for the person doing the buying, so the things it tracks are the things a buyer worries about. Gifts sit under To Buy, Bought and Wrapped, and you can add your own statuses if those do not match how you shop. Ordered and Delivered are the common ones. There is a running budget for each Event, shared out between the people on your list.
It also keeps working when the shop you are standing in has no signal. Once you are set up, everything works offline and syncs when you are back. Neither Elfster listing mentions offline use, which matters more than it sounds for an app you open in a queue.
And it is on both stores without ads. Elfster’s Google Play listing carries the Contains ads label; GiftTracker’s does not, and there is no subscription behind it either.
Which one fits you
If the job is who is buying for whom, Elfster is the better tool and you should use it. If the job is what have I bought, what is left, and am I over budget, that is what GiftTracker was written for.
They are not mutually exclusive. Plenty of people run the family draw in one app and keep their own shopping straight in another, and the second job is the one that lasts into January.
If you want to think about that choice before installing anything, how to choose a Christmas gift list app walks through it without naming apps, and tracking gifts through To Buy, Bought and Wrapped explains how the statuses work here.
