Best LINER alternatives (2026)

LINER started in 2015 as a web highlighter from Seoul-based Aurum Planet, founded by Luke Jinu Kim, and grew past ten million users before pivoting into an AI search company. Today liner.com offers three products — Liner for citation-backed AI search, Liner Scholar for academic research agents, and Liner Write for drafting — while the original highlighter lives on as a supporting feature that clips web pages, PDFs, and YouTube moments into a private My Space with notes and folders. Answers cite sources line by line, and paid tiers unlock agent credits, larger file uploads, and premium models from OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic under one subscription. The platform spans the web app, Chrome and Edge extensions, iOS and Android apps, and Mac and Windows desktop apps; the Safari and Firefox extensions of the highlighter era are no longer offered. The free plan includes unlimited highlighting and unlimited AI search with ads in answers; Pro is $14.99 a month billed annually and Max is $29.99. Below are the strongest alternatives in 2026, ranked honestly: each covers a different mix of jobs, and the right one depends on yours.

The best LINER alternatives, ranked

1. #1

   Marqly

   The AI bookmark manager — save once, find it instantly

   Marqly covers the core job — save, organize, retrieve — and adds AI auto-tagging, semantic search (find by meaning), chat with your saves that LINER doesn't offer. Every save is auto-tagged and summarized, and semantic search finds things by meaning. Free tier, no card required.

   • Semantic search finds saves by meaning — describe what you remember, no exact titles needed
   • AI tags and summarizes every save automatically, so nothing needs manual filing
   • YouTube AI card puts summaries, transcript, and Q&A right on the watch page

   Pricing: Marqly has a free tier; paid plans are $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month. 7-day free trial of Pro. Free tier needs no card; Pro unlocks chat with saves and video chat.

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2. #2

   Glasp

   Social highlighter that turns your reading into a public knowledge profile

   The clear pick if the social angle appeals; think twice if your highlights need to stay private on a budget. Learners who want to highlight in public — building a shareable knowledge profile and discovering what smart people underline — with strong YouTube AI on the side.

   • The social layer is genuinely unique — public profiles and a community feed let you learn from what others highlight
   • Core highlighting is free and unlimited; only privacy and AI features sit behind the paywall
   • Best-in-class YouTube AI — Glasp makes the hugely popular YouTube Summary extension, with transcripts and channel tracking

   Pricing: Glasp has a free tier; paid plans are Pro $15/month or $150/year; Unlimited $36/month or $360/year. Free plan includes unlimited public highlights only — private highlights require Pro. Free AI caps are tight (3 YouTube summaries/day, 20 PDF chat messages/month). Prices rose ~20-25% in May 2026; subscriptions are non-refundable. Student discount on Pro yearly with an academic email.

   Marqly vs Glasp →
3. #3

   Weava

   Web and PDF highlighter built for student research

   Still the most student-shaped free highlighter, but the stalled development makes it hard to recommend for anything you can't afford to lose. Students on a budget who need to highlight PDFs and web pages side by side and generate citations — and can tolerate an aging, minimally maintained tool.

   • Highlights both web pages and PDFs in one tool — still rare among highlighters
   • Automatic citation generation in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard formats, built for essay and paper workflows
   • Folder and sub-folder organization with color-coded filtering suits structured literature reviews

   Pricing: Weava has a free tier; paid plans are $3.99/month billed annually or $7.99/month billed monthly. Free tier includes unlimited highlights and notes but caps storage at 100 MB, blocks sub-folders, and shows ads. Students get 70% off Premium via an education email. No trial advertised. Pricing page appears untouched since ~2022, so verify billing before subscribing.

   Marqly vs Weava →
4. #4

   Raindrop.io

   The all-in-one bookmark manager

   The best traditional bookmark filing cabinet — organization is world-class, but finding things still depends on your own tags and keywords. Collectors and visual organizers who file thousands of bookmarks into structured collections and want polished apps everywhere without paying.

   • One of the most generous free plans anywhere: unlimited bookmarks, collections, and highlights
   • Polished apps on every platform — web, Mac, iOS, Android, and all major browser extensions
   • Strong visual organization with covers, nested collections, and multiple view modes

   Pricing: Raindrop.io has a free tier; paid plans are $28/year or $3/month (Pro; App Store pricing $27.99/year, $2.99/month). The free plan is unusually generous — unlimited bookmarks, collections, highlights, and devices. Pro adds full-text search, AI suggestions, permanent page copies, reminders, annotations, and daily backups. Yearly billing is about 20% cheaper than monthly.

   Marqly vs Raindrop.io →
5. #5

   Instapaper

   The original read-it-later app, saving articles since 2008

   Still the purest reading experience in the category; choose it for distraction-free reading, not for organizing or resurfacing a large library. Long-form readers who want a quiet, beautifully typeset queue of articles — especially Kindle owners and anyone migrating a Pocket export.

   • The cleanest, most typography-focused reading view in the category, refined since 2008
   • Reliable offline reading on iPhone, iPad, and Android
   • Send-to-Kindle delivery and a PDF reader for Premium subscribers

   Pricing: Instapaper has a free tier; paid plans are $5.99/month or $59.99/year (Premium). Premium doubled in price in late 2023 (from $3/month, $30/year). The free tier covers unlimited saving and offline reading; Premium adds full-text search, a permanent archive, unlimited notes, text-to-speech playlists, speed reading, and send-to-Kindle.

   Marqly vs Instapaper →
6. #6

   Readwise Reader

   The power-reader app that folds articles, RSS, newsletters, PDFs, and highlights into one inbox

   The most powerful reading tool on the market — worth the subscription for heavy readers, overkill and overpriced for casual bookmarking. Serious readers and note-takers who consume large volumes across articles, newsletters, PDFs, and video, and want highlights flowing into Notion or Obsidian.

   • Handles every content type in one inbox: articles, RSS, newsletters, PDFs, ePubs, YouTube videos, and Twitter threads
   • Ghostreader AI can summarize documents, define terms, and answer questions about what you're reading
   • YouTube videos get synced transcripts you can read, highlight, and query

   Pricing: Readwise Reader costs $9.99/month billed annually ($119.88/year) or $12.99/month billed monthly (Full plan). 30-day free trial. No permanent free tier — after the 30-day trial you must subscribe. Reader is only included in the Full plan; the cheaper Lite plan ($5.59/month billed annually) covers classic Readwise highlight syncing without the Reader app.

   Marqly vs Readwise Reader →

Marqly vs LINER, feature by feature

See the full Marqly vs LINER comparison →