MarkLayer is built and maintained by Dean Rusin, a software engineer who works on browser extensions, real-time collaboration, and Cloudflare's edge platform. This page exists so you know who is behind the comparisons, alternatives, and use-case guides on this site, and how the editorial work is done.
I'm a software engineer focused on browser extensions, real-time collaboration, and Cloudflare's edge platform (Workers, Durable Objects, D1, R2). I read and write Preact, TypeScript, Hono, and Cloudflare's Workers runtime daily. MarkLayer started as a tool I wanted for design review and visual feedback on live pages and turned into the public free + anonymous version you're looking at now.
The full source is on GitHub. Anyone can read it, file issues, or self-host their own instance on Cloudflare. Reach me at hello@marklayer.app or via GitHub Issues.
MarkLayer's stack is public. The Chrome extension is built with WXT and Preact + Preact Signals. The backend is Cloudflare Workers (Hono framework), with a Durable Object per share session for real-time WebSocket fan-out, D1 (SQLite at the edge) for annotation persistence, and R2 for OG image storage. The choice of stack is itself an editorial position: free, open-source software that runs on a low-cost edge platform is what makes the "no paid plan, ever" promise structurally credible.
Comparison and alternatives pages on this site are written from hands-on use, public documentation, and competitor pricing pages at the time of last review. When MarkLayer is genuinely the wrong fit for a workflow, the relevant page says so and points to a better tool. Every comparison page has a date stamp at the top showing when its pricing and feature claims were last checked.
I don't accept payment, sponsorship, or affiliate fees from any tool listed in a comparison or alternatives page. There are no affiliate links on this site.
If anything stated about another product is wrong, outdated, or unfair, I want to fix it. The fastest path is opening a GitHub issue at github.com/thevrus/MarkLayer/issues with the URL and the specific claim that needs updating. Corrections typically ship within a few days. If a competitor has changed pricing or shipped a feature that closes a gap I called out, that's the kind of update I want to see and apply.
I do. MarkLayer takes no sponsorship, sells nothing and has no paid tier, so the Cloudflare bill and the domain come out of my own pocket, which is the whole reason the "free, forever" claim is structurally credible rather than a promise. If the tool has been useful to you there is an optional, one-off way to put something towards that bill on the support page, itemised line by line. It buys nothing: no tier, no perks, no priority here or in the issue tracker. A Chrome Web Store review, or the bug report you were about to skip, helps about as much, and that page lists those too.
GitHub Issues for product feedback or comparison-page corrections. Email at hello@marklayer.app for everything else.