A wheel of names alternative with no account
wheelofnames.com is the best known tool in this category and, on features, it is the more capable product. This page is an honest account of where it is ahead, and of the single thing SpinPicker does differently: nothing you type ever reaches a server, including the wheels you share.
Where the market leader is better
Starting here, because a comparison page that only lists your own strengths is an advertisement. On its own homepage, wheelofnames.com publishes that its interface is available in 65 languages, that you can upload photos or pull images from an integrated Unsplash gallery, that it offers 150 or more music tracks and sound effects, and that you can import data straight from Google Sheets. SpinPicker has none of those. English only, no images, no sound, and you paste a column of text.
That is not a gap that will be closed, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. Images require uploads, uploads require a server, and a server is the exact thing this tool does not have. The features are downstream of an architectural choice, and the choice is the point.
Feature by feature
Cells quoting the other product are verbatim from their own published text, checked on . Where we could not confirm something from their own page, the cell says so rather than guessing. Products change; check before relying on any row.
| Feature | SpinPicker | wheelofnames.com |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free, every feature | Free to use |
| Account needed | No account exists | Not stated on their homepage |
| Where a saved wheel lives | Your browser's local storage, on that device only | "Save wheels to the cloud for easy access from any device, or save them locally on your machine for maximum privacy and offline control."1 |
| How a wheel is shared | A link that carries the entries in its fragment, which browsers never send to a server | "Once you’ve built your wheel, generate a short link to share it with your audience."1 |
| Are shared wheels indexable? | No. /w carries noindex, follow, deliberately | Not stated on their homepage |
| Languages | English only | "Our interface is fully localized and available in 65 languages."1 |
| Images on slices | Not supported, and not planned | "Upload your own photos or search the integrated Unsplash gallery of millions of high-resolution images."1 |
| Sound | None | "Choose from 150+ music tracks and sound effects to set the mood."1 |
| Spreadsheet import | Paste a column; one entry per line, commas also accepted | "You can import your data instantly from Google Sheets."1 |
| Ready made wheels | 36, each with its own page, FAQ and odds table | Not stated on their homepage |
| Published randomness test | Yes: chi-squared results over 16 million draws, plus the source code | Not stated on their homepage |
| Open data | All wheels as JSON under CC BY 4.0, no key | Not stated on their homepage |
| Transparent OBS browser source | Yes, plus a space bar shortcut | Not stated on their homepage |
| Chat or bot integration | None. There is no backend to integrate with | Not stated on their homepage |
| Embed on your own site | One iframe, no tracking, no cookies, attribution requested | Not stated on their homepage |
1 Quoted verbatim from wheelofnames.com, read on 2026-08-05. Rows marked “not stated on their homepage” were not verifiable from that source on that date and should not be read as an absence of the feature.
The one difference that matters
Every other row in that table is a preference. This one is a structural difference, and it only matters in a specific case: when the entries on the wheel are the names of other people who did not choose to be there. A class register. A team. A list of colleagues in a retrospective. In those situations the question is not which tool has nicer sounds, it is where the names end up.
With SpinPicker, they do not end up anywhere. The wheel is JavaScript running on your machine, and once the page has loaded, spinning makes no network request at all. Save to this browser writes to that browser’s local storage on that device and nowhere else. Copy share link encodes the entries into the fragment of a URL, the part after the #, which browsers have never transmitted in an HTTP request. So a link containing thirty student names can be pasted into Google Classroom without those names reaching us, our host, or any log in between. And a page opened from a share link carries a noindex instruction, because a class list has no business in a search index.
The honest limits: anyone with the link has the names, as with any link; local storage persists in a browser profile until it is cleared, which matters on a shared classroom machine; and this describes how the tool works, not what your school’s policy requires.
How to decide in one question
Are the names on your wheel yours? If it is a list of dinner options, board games or raffle numbers, use whichever tool you enjoy more, and the market leader is the richer one. If it is a list of real people, the useful question becomes what happens to that list, and that is the only question this tool answers better.
Frequently asked questions
Is SpinPicker better than wheelofnames.com?
For most people, no. It has fewer features, one language instead of 65, no images and no sound. It is better for one specific situation: when the names on the wheel are other people's and you would rather they never left the browser. If that is not your situation, the market leader is a more capable tool and this page says so.
What does no server actually mean here?
The page is static HTML and JavaScript delivered from a CDN. Once it has loaded, spinning makes no network request. Entries you type exist in the tab, and in local storage only if you press save. There is no database, no account, and no endpoint that receives a wheel.
So how does a share link work without a server?
The entries are encoded into the part of the URL after the # symbol. Browsers do not transmit that part in the HTTP request, so the link's contents never reach any server on the way to the person you sent it to. The trade-off is that a long list makes a long link, and a few aggressive link shorteners strip fragments.
Why is the comparison table full of not stated?
Because those cells were not verifiable from the other product's own published text on the date checked, and inventing them would make every other row less trustworthy. Absence of a claim in the table means we could not confirm it either way, not that the feature is missing.
Which should a teacher choose?
If your school has already approved a cloud tool and you are happy with it, keep using it. If you have ever hesitated before typing a class list into a website, the argument for this one is that there is nothing to hesitate about: the names have nowhere to go.
Try it before you switch anything
The classroom page is loaded with a sample class and has remove after pick, reset round, saved lists and a whiteboard display. Nothing to install, nothing to sign up for, and no data to migrate if you decide against it.
Related: wheel of names, the spinner wheel, how the randomness is tested, and the privacy policy.