Comparison

Presently vs. Screenly: An Honest Comparison for Retail Stores

Screenly is a capable Raspberry Pi-based digital signage platform with an open source heritage and a loyal developer community. Presently is built for independent retail store owners who want audience-aware signage without the DIY hardware setup. Here's how they compare.

Presently

Audience-aware, hardware-included, private by design. Built for independent retail.

Screenly

Raspberry Pi digital signage with open source roots. Affordable for technical users willing to DIY.

The Quick Answer

Which one is right for your store?

Choose Presently if:

  • You're a store owner, not a developer — you want it to work, not a project to manage
  • You want audience-aware advertising that adapts to who's actually in front of the screen
  • You want hardware shipped pre-configured — no Raspberry Pi, no SD card, no Linux
  • Your store's internet is unreliable and you need fully offline playback
  • You want hardware replacement covered if something fails

Choose Screenly if:

  • You or someone on your team is comfortable with Raspberry Pi setup and Linux
  • Cost is the primary driver and you need the lowest possible monthly spend
  • You want an open source solution you can inspect, modify, and self-host (Screenly OSE)
  • You already own a Raspberry Pi and want to repurpose it for signage
  • You need a technically customizable signage platform for a non-retail use case
Feature by Feature

Side by Side

Feature
Presently
Screenly
Starting price
$79/month all-in
$9.99/screen/month (+ Raspberry Pi hardware)
Hardware included
Yes — shipped pre-configured
No — Raspberry Pi required (you source and configure)
Setup time
~2 hours, no IT required
Raspberry Pi setup: 3–6 hours, technical skill required
Audience-aware ad targeting
Yes — on-device CV, real-time
No
Works without internet
Fully offline-capable
Partial — OSE version offline, cloud version requires connectivity
Open source option
No
Yes — Screenly OSE (self-hosted, free)
Camera/biometric data storage
Never — nothing stored or transmitted
N/A — no camera integration
Dashboard access
Local network (addashboard.local)
Cloud-based (Screenly One) or self-hosted (OSE)
Content scheduling
Time + audience rules
Time-based scheduling
Technical requirement
Low — plug in and connect to WiFi
High — Linux, SD card flashing, network config
Hardware failure responsibility
Covered in subscription
You source and replace your own Pi
Target customer
Independent retail stores
Developers, IT teams, DIY hobbyists

Screenly pricing sourced from their public pricing page. Presently pricing as of May 2026. Scroll horizontally on small screens.

Go Deeper

Where They're Fundamentally Different

Three areas where the products diverge in ways that matter for independent store owners.

Screenly is software that runs on a Raspberry Pi. That means buying one ($80–150 for a Pi 4 kit), flashing the OS image onto an SD card, connecting to WiFi, and registering the device in Screenly's dashboard. For a developer or IT professional, this is a 45-minute setup. For a coffee shop owner, it's an afternoon of YouTube tutorials and a 50/50 chance of calling someone for help.

Presently ships as a purpose-built device. You plug it into your TV via HDMI, connect to WiFi, and access the dashboard from any device on your store network. No flashing, no Linux command line, no SD cards.

What Screenly setup actually requires

  • ·Purchase: Raspberry Pi 4 + case + power supply + SD card (~$100–150)
  • ·Flash Screenly OS image to SD card using Raspberry Pi Imager
  • ·Configure WiFi credentials, connect to display, register device
  • ·When hardware fails: re-buy, re-flash, re-configure
  • ·Presently: hardware ships pre-configured, covered in subscription

Screenly grew from an open source project (Screenly OSE) with a technically sophisticated user base. Their documentation assumes Linux familiarity. Their community is active on GitHub and developer forums. This is a strength for IT professionals and hobbyists who want full control at low cost.

An independent retail store owner is not this customer. The question isn't whether Screenly is capable software — it is. The question is whether the store owner wants to become a Raspberry Pi administrator as part of running their business.

The honest answer: If you have someone on your team who enjoys this kind of setup, Screenly OSE is genuinely free and capable. If you're the owner and you just want a screen that works — Presently exists for that.

Screenly is a content scheduling and delivery platform. It reliably plays your content on the schedule you define. It has no camera integration, no demographic detection, and no mechanism for adapting content to the person in front of the screen.

Presently adds on-device computer vision. Demographic signals are inferred in real time and discarded immediately — no image stored, no data transmitted. The result is a screen that shows your 6am regulars different content than your lunchtime crowd, automatically, without any schedule you had to write.

Both platforms operate with no camera-based data stored or transmitted — Screenly because it has no camera at all, Presently by architectural design. The difference is that Presently uses the camera for local inference without any external exposure.

For store owners, not developers.

Screenly is a great platform for technically inclined users who want low-cost, flexible signage. If you want to skip the Raspberry Pi setup and get audience-intelligent signage running in an afternoon — Presently was built for that.

Join the Presently PilotSee How Presently Works

$79/month · Hardware included · Cancel anytime