Is there a Shade alternative that doesn't upload my footage?

MediaFind indexes and searches your media entirely on your own machine — dialogue, speakers, faces, on-screen text, logos, songs — with no account and no cloud, for a one-time $29.

How much does MediaFind cost compared to Shade?

MediaFind is $29 once. Shade is a per-seat subscription (roughly $20–25 per seat per month on its Growth plan as of mid-2026), so a single seat costs more than MediaFind within a few months.

Can MediaFind search by face, transcript and scene like Shade?

Yes — plus on-screen text (OCR), logos, actions and songs. The difference is where it runs: MediaFind's indexing and search happen on-device, and a built-in audit proves nothing leaves your machine.

A private Shade alternative — no cloud, no per-seat fees

Shade is a slick AI media library for creative teams — shared cloud drives, review, collaboration. But it's cloud storage plus a per-seat subscription. If you're one person who just wants to search your own archive, you're paying rent to search files you already own.

The short version. Shade indexes your media in its cloud and bills per seat, per month. MediaFind does the same class of AI search — dialogue, faces, scenes, plus on-screen text, logos and songs — on your own machine, for a one-time $29. No upload, no account, no monthly bill.

	MediaFind	Shade
Price	$29 one-time	~$20–25 / seat / month (Growth)
Where your media lives	Your disk	Their cloud
Account required	No	Yes
Works fully offline	Yes	No
Search by dialogue / transcript	Yes	Yes
Faces / people	Yes	Yes
Scene / visual description	Yes	Yes
On-screen text (OCR)	Yes	Limited
Logos · actions · songs	Yes	—
Team review & collaboration	—	Yes — its real strength
Provable privacy	Yes — built-in audit, source-available	Cloud processing by design

Shade details from its public pricing/marketing pages as of June 2026; vendors change terms — check Shade's site before buying.

Which one is for you

Pick Shade if you're a team that needs shared cloud storage, review links and multi-user collaboration. That's what it's built for, and MediaFind deliberately doesn't do it.

Pick MediaFind if you're a solo editor, podcaster, journalist, researcher or archivist with a big local library — or if your footage can't leave your machine (client NDAs, source protection, unreleased work).

The math for one person

One Shade seat costs more than MediaFind's one-time price within about six weeks — and keeps costing after that, plus upload time and storage limits. MediaFind indexes the drive you already have; the only thing it ever downloads is the optional on-device models, once.

Privacy you can check, not just read about

Cloud tools are private by policy; MediaFind is private by architecture — and it ships a built-in audit that watches the indexing and search path and confirms zero external connections. For NDA'd footage, legal material or unreleased work, that's the difference between a promise and a proof.

Looking for a Shade alternative that doesn't upload your footage?

Which one is for you

The math for one person

Privacy you can check, not just read about

Search your whole library for $29 — once.