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Anyone who’s spent more than a minute using Craigslist knows the meaning of “ugly.” The absolute leader in community classifieds excels at giving you that “1995 again” feeling and has a face that only a mother (and true believers) could love.

That said, of the two Craigslist clients I found (CL Multicity, $14.95, is an after thought at best) for the Mac, Marketplace ($19.95) is capable, fairly well featured and offers a fully-functional, 25-day demo period.

More than an attractive face

You can search by item by city/region. An initial search for an item can include multiple cities, be limited by price and restricted to listings with photos — searches can be saved, as well.

Thereafter, one very nice feature is the ability to search within results, including the ability to cull older items that likely have already sold or are otherwise unavailable.

Marketplace has a three-pane interface — two views available — that’s pleasant enough to look at. As noted in the screen cap above, you can perform search within results in those layouts.

Also, check out the buttons on the bottom right of the right screen cap — view listed items on their original Craiglist page in Safari, mark items as favorites or email them.

Oh, and this Craigslist client includes Growl notifications (geeky).

All-in-all, Marketplace is fairly capable, though it could use some polish. For example, the ability to post, edit and renew Craigslist listings would represent a significant boost in functionality.

Nevertheless, it is a huge, huge, huge improvement over searching Craiglist naked.

Call me a Marketplace fan…

What’s your take?