A browser tab for the club, or native apps for the whole room.
Blind Valet is a genuinely capable browser-based club and league system, and it matches us on more than most comparison pages admit. Here is where the two actually differ, including the parts that favour them.
Both are modern and capable. The split is native apps and public reach.
Blind Valet deserves more credit than most comparisons give it, so here is the part other vendors leave out. It syncs in real time across every device. It has a proper club with members and five staff roles. Its leagues support logarithmic, square-root, linear, fixed and fully custom points formulas. Players register themselves from a lobby and follow the clock and standings from their own phone. Its free tier is a real free tier. If someone tells you it is just a browser clock, they have not used it.
So the difference is not the club layer, and it is not sync. It is what you install and who can look. Poker Hawk is native: Mac and Windows apps host the event, players use real iOS and Android apps, and Fire TV / Google TV apps carry the room display, with the host clock running local-first so a Wi-Fi blip does not stop the game. Blind Valet runs in a browser tab, and it needs a connection to run at all.
The second difference is reach. Blind Valet has no public tournament links by design — to see a tournament you need a Blind Valet account and membership of that club. Every finished Poker Hawk tournament gets a public results page with the winner, podium and full placements that anyone can open, with no account and no install. That is the difference between showing your league to its members and showing it to everyone they want to tell.
What native + synced buys you over browser-only.
These are the gaps that survive an honest look. Blind Valet matches us on sync, seating, leagues and self-registration, so those are not listed here.
Free player app
Every player gets the live clock, their seat, stack, and projected payout on their own phone — not just the host's screen.
Native TV apps
Fire TV and Google TV apps for the room display. No laptop-to-TV cable, no browser tab in kiosk mode.
Local-first clock
The host clock keeps running through Wi-Fi drops and resyncs devices automatically. A browser tab is only as reliable as its connection.
A results page anyone can open
Every finished tournament gets a public page with the winner, podium and full placements. Blind Valet has no public links at all — viewers need an account and club membership.
Seats and stacks, not just the clock
Players see their own table, seat, chip stack and projected payout, not only the blind level and the standings.
A feed, badges and a lifetime record
Both products track league standings well. Poker Hawk adds a club feed with auto-posted results, 26 badges, cash streaks and a per-player career history.
Native desktop hosts
Real Mac and Windows apps for the person running the night — faster, offline-resilient, and built for live control.
Players never pay
The player experience is free forever on every platform. Hosts fund the game — same model, more for the money.
The head-to-head table.
Read from blindvalet.com and its Help Center on 4 August 2026. Trademarks belong to their owners; tell us via Support & Feedback if anything here is out of date and we will correct it.
| Feature | Poker Hawk | Blind Valet Browser-based · free tier + subscription |
|---|---|---|
| Runs in any browser | ||
| Native Mac + Windows host apps | ||
| Free iOS + Android player apps | ||
| Native Fire TV / Google TV apps | ||
| Real-time sync to every device | ||
| Blind structure calculator / editor | ||
| Payout calculator | ||
| Auto table balancing + seat pushes | ||
| Players register themselves | ||
| League standings + custom points formulas | ||
| Club roster with staff roles | ||
| Public results page, no account needed | ||
| Club feed, badges, lifetime stats | ||
| Runs with no connection | ||
| Free tier for hosts |
Poker Hawk vs Blind Valet — the honest answers
Including where Blind Valet is the right call.
When is Blind Valet the better choice?
Aren't browser-based tools more convenient than apps?
How do the prices compare?
Do my players need to install anything?
Can Poker Hawk generate a blind structure for me like Blind Valet does?
Related
The legacy Windows incumbent.
The whole field, ranked honestly.
Structures, antes, and breaks in depth.
What free actually covers.
Academy guide to structure design.
Plans, tiers and Founder pricing.
See it live
Run one night with the whole room in sync.
Free to start, no card required. If a browser tab still feels like enough after that, no hard feelings.