FrameThrower vs shot.cafe
shot.cafe is tag-driven over a smaller catalogue. FrameThrower is 5,489 films with per-frame metadata you can combine in plain language, plus image and colour search, and a machine interface. Tags are quick when you know the tag; description is quicker when you only know the picture in your head.
What shot.cafe is good at
Free, fast and tag-based, with detailed shot tags — genuinely pleasant for browsing, and there is no signup wall in the way.
“The searchable movie stills database for research, decks and inspiration.”— shot.cafe, in their own words. shot.cafe · read 2026-08-12
Which to pick
Pick shot.cafe if
you want something free and immediate, and tag browsing suits how you think.
Pick FrameThrower if
you want to describe a shot rather than pick tags, or you need the catalogue depth.
What FrameThrower does
- —5,489 films, indexed per frame. Lighting key and quality, lens character, shot size, camera angle, colour palette in hex, mood, era and time of day — on every frame, not per film.
- —Three ways to ask. Plain language, a reference image, or a colour.
- —Callable by machine. A REST API with 11 endpoints and no rate limits, an MCP server with four tools, and an npm SDK.
- —Moodboards, shot boards and lookbooks. Reference to deliverable without leaving the app or re-importing anything.
- —Free to start. $2 of credits on signup, no card. Then $1 = 500 searches, and credits never expire.
See it before you decide
$2 of credits free on signup, no card. Search 5,489 films by lighting, lens, colour and mood.
Sign up for freeOther comparisons: Frameset · frmz · ShotBook · MovieStillsDB · all