Compare/Covve
Handshake vs Covve
Updated
Covve is a mobile-first personal CRM for iOS and Android – it syncs your phone contacts and layers on reminders, news alerts about your contacts, and a business-card scanner, with a Pro plan at $12.99/month (July 2026). Handshake is the desktop mirror image: free, open source, offline, and file-based.
Covve lives where your contacts already are: your phone. Scan a business card at an event, get nudged to follow up, see news mentioning your contacts. For a pocket workflow, it's well made.
Handshake starts from a different question – not 'how do I capture contacts faster?' but 'what does my network actually look like?' That question wants a big screen, a spatial board, and real notes, which is why it's a desktop app with plain files rather than a phone app with a cloud account.
At a glance
| Covve | Handshake | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free plan; Pro $12.99/mo (July 2026) | Free, open source (MIT) |
| Where your data lives | Their cloud + your phone | Plain markdown files on your device |
| Platforms | iOS & Android only | macOS, Windows & Linux desktop |
| Works offline | Partially (mobile app) | Fully offline – no account |
| Data format | Proprietary; CSV/Excel export | Already plain text; nothing to export |
| Seeing your network | Contact list with reminders | A spatial board of your whole network |
| Auto-sync / enrichment | Phone contacts sync, news alerts, card scanner | None – you decide who's on the map |
| Open source | No | Yes (MIT) |
Competitor details checked July 2026 – check their site for current pricing.
Where Covve wins
It's on your phone
Capture in the hallway after the meeting. Handshake is desktop-only during the beta – an honest gap if mobile capture is your core loop.
Business-card scanner
Event-heavy networkers get cards into contacts in seconds.
News alerts
Covve surfaces news about your contacts – an easy reason to reach out.
Where Handshake wins
A map, not a list
Covve is a smarter contact list; Handshake is a spatial board of your whole network – ties, warmth, introductions, backlinks between notes.
Real notes
Full markdown documents per person – highlights, links, structure – versus phone-sized note fields.
Ownership
Plain files, no account, no subscription, MIT-licensed. Your network isn't hostage to an app store subscription.
The honest verdict
Choose Covve if…
- Your workflow is phone-first: events, cards, on-the-go capture
- News alerts about contacts would genuinely prompt you to reach out
Choose Handshake if…
- You want to sit down and think with your network, not just capture it
- Plain files, desktop screen real estate, and $0 forever matter
Questions
- Does Handshake have a mobile app?
- Not during the beta – it's a desktop app for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Because a network is plain files, you can sync the folder (iCloud, Syncthing, etc.) and read your notes anywhere, but the board itself is desktop.
- Is Covve free?
- Covve has a free plan; Pro is $12.99/month (July 2026). Handshake is entirely free and open source.
Try the local-first way
Handshake is free, open source, and takes about two minutes to meet your network. If it's not for you, your notes are plain markdown – nothing lost.