The 9 Best Read-It-Later Apps in 2027 (Ranked by Whether You Can Find Things Again)

The best read-it-later app in 2027 is Marqly for most people, because it is the only tool here whose retrieval works by meaning rather than by remembering words — and retrieval, not saving, is the part this category has never solved. Readwise Reader is the best pick if you highlight and study what you read. Raindrop.io is the best free all-rounder. Wallabag is the best pick if the reason you are shopping again is that your last app disappeared.

A read-it-later app should do two things well: make saving frictionless, and make coming back worthwhile. Almost everything on the market nailed the first half by 2015 and has competed on typography ever since. The second half is where libraries go to die, and it is the axis this list is sorted on.

The context has also changed shape. When we last published this ranking, Pocket had been gone about eight months and the question was what do I switch to. In 2027 Pocket has been dead for a year and a half, its export window closed on November 12, 2025, and Omnivore has been gone for two years. The category has settled into a small number of business models, and you can now judge a read-it-later app on whether it will still exist when you next need it. That is a new column in our table, and it changed two rankings.

How this list was compiled. We compare capture, reader quality, retrieval, offline and audio support, import and export paths, pricing and durability, using dated competitor fact sheets and linked official sources. The criteria are published in how we test. Marqly publishes this article and is one of the products discussed, so weigh our own section accordingly — where a competitor wins a row, we say so. Our separately measured import results live in the import-fidelity study; we do not publish numbers we have not measured.

What changed in read-it-later since our 2026 edition

We re-verified every price and plan limit against its fact sheet rather than carrying 2026 copy forward. Several things we printed last time were wrong, and one entry was not a tool at all.

• Readwise Reader’s price was stale. We quoted “$12 per month.” The Full plan is $9.99/month billed annually ($119.88/year) or $12.99/month billed monthly — we had printed the monthly rate as the headline price.
• Instapaper’s price was badly stale. Our 2026 table said “$3/mo.” Premium is $5.99/month or $59.99/year, roughly doubled in late 2023 from $3/month and $30/year. We also omitted that free accounts cannot full-text search their own saves and cap notes at five per month.
• mymind was described as having no free tier at about $8/month. Both halves were wrong: a free guest plan caps at 100 cards, and paid runs $4.99/month (The Bookmarker, no AI), $7.99/month or $79/year (Student of Life, where AI tagging starts) and $12.99/month or $129/year (Mastermind). For this query the decisive detail is that reading mode is a Mastermind feature.
• Raindrop.io was marked as supporting offline reading. It does not. Pages are cached and Pro keeps permanent copies, but its fact sheet records no offline mode.
• Matter’s free tier was understated and its App Store markup missed. The free tier is real — unlimited library, strong parsing, unlimited tags — and the same annual plan costs $60 on the web but $79.99 through iOS.
• Entry eight in 2026 was “Pocket Casts-style hybrids / Omnivore forks.” That was a shrug, not a tool. Omnivore is status: shutdown and its forks are volunteer-maintained. GoodLinks and Karakeep replace it — both verifiable, both absent from the 2026 list.

Two ranking changes follow. Wallabag moves up from seventh to fifth, because durability stopped being a niche preference and became a criterion with two data points. mymind moves down from fifth to ninth, because a visual saver whose reading mode costs $12.99/month and whose fact sheet records no bulk import at all is a hard sell as a read-it-later app.

What separates a great read-it-later app in 2027

1. Capture friction. One click on desktop, share-sheet on mobile, an email address for newsletters, and a browser you actually use.
2. Reader quality. Clean parse, reliable typography, graceful failure on script-heavy or paywalled pages. Parsing decides daily satisfaction.
3. Retrieval. Keyword search requires you to remember the words; semantic search only requires you to remember the idea. Of the nine tools below, semantic retrieval exists in Marqly (Pro) and Karakeep (with your own model or key), and nowhere else at any price.
4. Offline and audio. Per-device caches and real sync are different things, and video rarely comes along. Audio splits into genuine text-to-speech (Matter, Instapaper Premium) and transcribed video (Matter, Marqly, Readwise Reader).
5. Durability. Can you get everything out in a documented format without asking anyone, and does the revenue model depend on anything other than a parent company’s mood?

Every tool below wins something and is limited on exactly one of these axes. We name the limiting axis for each, because that is the axis to shop on.

How the best read-it-later apps compare

App	Retrieval	Reader	Offline	Audio	Free tier	Exit path if the vendor dies	Price (verified October 2026)
Marqly	✅ Semantic (Pro)	✅ Read mode free	⚠️ Pro, web + iOS, per device	✅ YouTube transcripts	✅ 100 bookmarks	⚠️ Proprietary; CSV (URL/title/description/tags) + full copy via support	Free; Pro $72/yr or $9/mo
Readwise Reader	⚠️ Keyword + full text	✅ Best-in-class	✅ Yes	✅ YouTube transcripts	❌ None permanent	⚠️ Proprietary; highlights export to Notion/Obsidian	$9.99/mo annual ($119.88/yr)
Raindrop.io	⚠️ Keyword; full text on Pro	⚠️ Basic	❌ No offline mode	❌	✅ Unlimited bookmarks	⚠️ Proprietary; HTML/CSV export on free	Free; Pro $28/yr or $3.25/mo
Instapaper	⚠️ Full text is Premium	✅ Best typography	✅ Yes	✅ TTS playlists (Premium)	✅ Unlimited saving	⚠️ Proprietary; CSV/HTML export	Free; Premium $5.99/mo or $59.99/yr
Wallabag	⚠️ Full text, no AI	✅ Clean, utilitarian	✅ Yes	❌	✅ Free self-hosted	✅ MIT, self-hostable; open formats, maintained since 2013	Free; €11/yr hosted
Matter	⚠️ Full text on Premium	✅ Polished, Apple-first	✅ Yes	✅ Best TTS here	✅ Unlimited library	❌ Proprietary; limited export, no public API	$8/mo or $60/yr on web
GoodLinks	⚠️ Full text, manual tags	✅ Fast native	✅ On device by default	⚠️ Via system TTS	❌ None	⚠️ Proprietary, but one-time purchase and on-device	$9.99 once + optional $4.99/yr
Karakeep	✅ Semantic (BYO key)	✅ Plus full-page archive	✅ Yes	❌	✅ Free self-hosted	✅ Open source, self-hostable; exports JSON or Netscape HTML	Free; Cloud Pro $4/mo
mymind	✅ AI search on paid tiers	⚠️ Reading mode is Mastermind	❌	❌	⚠️ 100-card guest plan	❌ One-way CSV, desktop Chrome/Edge only; no import either	$4.99–$12.99/mo

“Semantic” means retrieval by described meaning rather than matched keywords, and it is the scarcest capability here; everything marked ⚠️ is keyword-shaped at best. The exit path column is new for 2027 and it is the one that moved two rankings — after Omnivore (November 2024) and Pocket (July 2025) both disappeared, “can you get your library out, in a documented format, without asking anyone” stopped being a theoretical question. Wallabag and Karakeep score best because their code is open and a shutdown leaves a working fork; Matter and mymind score worst, mymind because its export is one-way from two desktop browsers and it accepts no bulk import in either direction. Prices are the cheapest route to each paid tier, checked against dated fact sheets in October 2026. Annual and App Store rates differ for Matter, mymind and Readwise, and those differences are named below.

1. Marqly — best for finding things again

Marqly is built around the half of this category nobody solved. Saving is one click from the extension or the share sheet, and read mode is free on every plan, as are six-colour highlights, boards, public board sharing and unlimited devices. On Pro every save is auto-tagged and summarised, and semantic search retrieves it by meaning — “the piece about sleep and decision-making” works even when none of those words appear in the title, because the index covers titles, content, highlights and video transcripts.

If your queue is as much video as text, the YouTube AI card is the differentiator: a Summary tab with a streaming TL;DR, key sections and books mentioned, a Chat tab on Pro grounded in the transcript, and a Transcript tab synced to playback. Saving a video attaches its transcript to the bookmark, so it stays searchable by what was said in it. The Summary tab carries a three-per-month allowance on the free plan.

The limits a heavy reader hits first: the free plan stores up to 100 bookmarks with keyword search across the whole library, there is no AI of any kind on free, and offline reading is Pro on the web and iOS apps only — cached per device with no server copy, no video, and nothing on Android or in the extensions. There is no public API and no self-hosting, so durability is answered by export rather than by owning the code.

Who it’s best for: readers who save far more than they read and whose real complaint is that the pile is unsearchable. Skip it if you want a bare cheap text reader with no AI (Instapaper), you want to own the code (Wallabag, Karakeep), or you need an unlimited free library (Raindrop.io).

• Pros: semantic search across titles, content, highlights and transcripts on Pro; read mode, six-colour highlights, boards and public board sharing free on every plan; YouTube AI card; save-as-PDF processed locally in Chrome and Edge; imports browser HTML, Raindrop HTML and the Pocket list.csv; web, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, iOS and Android.
• Cons: free tier capped at 100 bookmarks; no AI on free; offline is Pro, web and iOS only, per-device rather than synced; no public API or self-hosting; the CSV export carries URL, title, description and tags but not highlights or notes.
• Price: free plan, no card required · Pro $72/year (about $6/month billed annually) or $9/month · a standing $49 first-year offer, 31% off your first year against the $72 baseline · verified students $48 first year, 33% off the same baseline.

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2. Readwise Reader — best for power readers who highlight

Reader is the most complete reading pipeline on the market and the right answer if studying what you read is part of your job. Articles, RSS, newsletters, PDFs, ePubs, Twitter threads and YouTube videos land in one triage-oriented inbox on web, iOS, Android, Chrome and Firefox. YouTube gets synced transcripts you can highlight like an article, and Ghostreader summarises documents, defines terms and answers questions against the text.

Underneath sits the loop nothing else here has: highlights resurface on a spaced-repetition schedule and export to Notion, Obsidian, Evernote and Roam, with a documented public API. See Readwise Reader vs Marqly and our Ghostreader comparison for the retrieval head-to-head.

Price the plan structure correctly, because it is confusing. Reader ships only with the Readwise Full plan — the cheaper Lite plan covers classic highlight syncing and excludes the app entirely. There is no permanent free tier: Readwise offers a 30-day trial, after which a subscription is required. Verified students and educators get 50% off, which changes the maths considerably if you qualify.

Who it’s best for: researchers, students and writers consuming across many formats who want highlights resurfaced and exported. Skip it if you want free, you want a lightweight highlighter rather than a whole workflow, or you need semantic search — Reader’s search is keyword-based and its tagging manual.

• Pros: every content type in one inbox; best-in-class highlighting plus spaced-repetition review; exports to Notion, Obsidian, Evernote and Roam with a documented API; synced YouTube transcripts; actively developed and subscription-funded.
• Cons: no permanent free tier; the most expensive option here; Reader requires Full; keyword rather than semantic search; manual tagging; dense UI; no public sharing of collections.
• Price: no free tier · Full $9.99/month billed annually ($119.88/year) or $12.99/month monthly · Lite $5.59/month billed annually, without Reader · 50% student and educator discount.

3. Raindrop.io — best free all-rounder

Raindrop is the most generous free tier in the category and the safest default for anyone who does not want to pay: unlimited bookmarks, collections and devices, up to three highlights per bookmark, plus import and export, with no expiry and no card. Apps cover web, Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android with extensions for Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari — the broadest platform reach here.

Where it stops short is retrieval and reading. Search on free is titles and tags; full-text search requires Pro and is keyword-shaped even then. There is no offline mode — pages are cached and Pro keeps permanent copies, but the fact sheet records no offline reading, a real gap for commuters and a correction to our 2026 table.

Pro is cheap and worth it for archiving alone: $28/year or $3.25/month adds full-text search across saved pages and PDFs, Stella AI suggestions for tags and collections at save time, permanent page copies, annotations with unlimited highlights in four colours, reminders, a duplicate finder and daily backups. Stella is a save-time assistant, not a retrieval engine — it suggests a tag, it does not find an article you have forgotten.

Who it’s best for: collectors who want a free, dependable, cross-platform filing cabinet and will organise by hand. Skip it if retrieval is your pain, since no tier changes the keyword-only model, or you need offline reading on a plane.

• Pros: the most generous free tier here; apps on every platform including Linux; polished visual organisation with nested collections; public and collaborative collections; cheap Pro with permanent page copies and daily backups; open API.
• Cons: no semantic search at any price; full-text search and annotations beyond three highlights are paywalled; no offline reading; basic reader; organisation entirely manual.
• Price: free (unlimited) · Pro $28/year or $3.25/month · App Store pricing $27.99/year or $2.99/month.

4. Instapaper — best minimalist reader

Instapaper has run continuously since 2008, which in 2027 is itself an argument. If all you want is to save an article and read it later in a clean, fast, typography-first view, nothing here does it better, and the free tier covers unlimited saving, folders, offline reading on mobile and basic highlighting — usable rather than a demo. It reaches web, iOS, Android, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Kindle, and after Pocket’s shutdown it added a direct Pocket import.

Two corrections matter, because much advice about Instapaper is stale. Premium is $5.99/month or $59.99/year; it roughly doubled in late 2023 from $3/month and $30/year, so any article still quoting three dollars describes a price that no longer exists. And free accounts cannot full-text search their own saves — search is Premium, free notes cap at five per month, and organisation is manual folders. Premium adds full-text search, a permanent archive, unlimited notes, a PDF reader, speed reading, text-to-speech playlists and send-to-Kindle.

There is no AI layer of any kind: no auto-tagging, no summaries, no semantic search. That is a deliberate choice and for many readers the appeal — but it means a large old archive stays exactly as unsearchable as it was.

Who it’s best for: minimalists who read within a week of saving, Kindle owners, and anyone migrating a Pocket export who wants the least app possible. Skip it if you are trying to make a big backlog findable, or want audio without paying. See Instapaper alternatives and Instapaper vs Marqly.

• Pros: the cleanest reading view in the category, refined over 18 years; free tier includes unlimited saving and offline reading; send-to-Kindle and a PDF reader on Premium; direct Pocket import; documented developer API.
• Cons: full-text search is paywalled; free notes capped at five per month; no AI of any kind; Premium roughly doubled in late 2023; parsing occasionally mangles complex or paywalled pages.
• Price: free · Premium $5.99/month or $59.99/year.

5. Wallabag — best if durability is the whole point

Wallabag is open source under MIT, free to self-host, and maintained continuously since it started in France in 2013. That combination is the direct answer to the Pocket and Omnivore lesson: no company can decide to shut it down, and if the project stalls, a working copy is already on your server. It is a read-it-later tool first, so it reproduces the behaviour people miss — save a page, read a clean copy later, on web, iOS, Android, Chrome or Firefox.

It is also the cheapest paid option here. Official wallabag.it hosting is €11/year with every feature on every plan, plus a €4 three-month option and a €30/year supporter plan; hosted accounts get a 14-day trial with no card. Export is comprehensive both ways — JSON, CSV, ePub, PDF and plain text out, with imports from Pocket, Instapaper, Readability and browser bookmark HTML, and a full REST API. ePub export is the sleeper feature and the reason many e-reader owners never leave.

The trade is polish and intelligence. The interface is functional, parsing can fail on script-heavy sites, self-hosting means running PHP, a database and updates, and there is no AI of any kind. Tagging can be rule-based and automatic, which is genuinely useful, but the rules are yours to write.

Who it’s best for: anyone whose primary 2027 criterion is “this will still exist in 2030,” plus e-reader owners and technical users. Skip it if you want AI retrieval or a polished native app; our self-hosted Pocket alternative guide compares the open-source field.

• Pros: MIT-licensed and free to self-host; 13 years of continuous maintenance; €11/year hosted with no feature gating; ePub and PDF export; rule-based automatic tagging; full REST API; imports from Pocket and Instapaper.
• Cons: no AI features at all; utilitarian design; parsing can fail on complex pages; self-hosting is real setup and ongoing maintenance.
• Price: free self-hosted · €11/year on wallabag.it · €4 for three months · €30/year supporter plan.

6. Matter — best for listening

Matter is the design-forward pick and the clear winner on audio. Its human-like text-to-speech with word-by-word tracking is the best in this category, so you can switch between reading and listening mid-article, and newsletters arrive through Gmail integration or a dedicated Matter address. YouTube videos and podcasts are transcribed with time-synced text you can highlight. The free tier is real: unlimited library, excellent parsing, unlimited tags.

Premium adds HD voices, unlimited highlighting and notes, offline full-text search, and highlight syncing to Notion, Obsidian and Readwise. Check where you buy: the same annual plan is $8/month or $60/year on the web versus $7.99/month or $79.99/year through the iOS App Store — $20 more per year for identical features — and a Matter Pro tier at $12.99/month also appears in the App Store.

The structural limit is platform. There is no Android app. Matter is built for iPhone, iPad, Mac and the web with a Chrome extension, and there is no public API and no public sharing. Organisation is manual: no AI summaries, no chat, no automatic tagging.

Who it’s best for: Apple-ecosystem readers who listen as much as they read. Skip it if you use Android, need deep search, or want automatic organisation. If audio is the job but you also want a searchable library, see saving YouTube videos to watch later.

• Pros: the best text-to-speech here; focused reading design on iOS with Apple Pencil highlighting; newsletter delivery by Gmail or email address; transcribes YouTube and podcasts with time-synced text; solid free tier; highlights sync to Notion, Obsidian and Readwise.
• Cons: no Android app; annual Premium is $79.99 through the App Store versus $60 on the web; no public API or sharing; unlimited highlighting, HD voices and full-text search sit behind Premium; no AI summaries, chat or auto-tagging.
• Price: free · Premium $8/month or $60/year on the web · $7.99/month or $79.99/year via the iOS App Store.

7. GoodLinks — best one-time purchase on Apple

GoodLinks is the anti-subscription answer and the best value here if everything you own has an Apple logo on it. It costs $9.99 once for iPhone, iPad, Mac and Vision Pro, with no account: links sync privately through iCloud and articles are stored on-device, so offline reading is the default rather than a feature. Article Sync keeps permanent copies including images, meaning a page that dies later is still readable — the strongest link-rot defence in the top nine.

The reader is fast and clean, with multi-colour highlights, notes attached to highlights, tag-based organisation and full-text search. Automation is the signature strength: deep Shortcuts support, a URL scheme and a local API on macOS. Version 3.3 in 2026 added one-tap AI summaries through Apple Intelligence or your own LLM API keys — a notably honest design, since the AI runs on your model at your cost with no subscription in the middle. Imports cover Pocket, Instapaper, Raindrop, Pinboard and browser bookmarks.

The upgrade model is unusual and fair: $9.99 includes all current features plus a year of new ones, after which an optional $4.99/year pass unlocks later additions, and anything unlocked during a paid year stays yours forever. The limits are platform and retrieval — no Android, no Windows, no web version, no browser extension, keyword search only, manual tags, no semantic retrieval.

Who it’s best for: Apple-only readers who want a fast, private, subscription-free queue with strong automation and permanent article copies. Skip it if you use a non-Apple device, need a browser extension, or want your library findable by meaning.

• Pros: $9.99 once with features that never expire; no account and no server holding your data; offline by default with Article Sync; clean native reader with multi-colour highlights; deep Shortcuts, URL scheme and local macOS API; AI summaries via Apple Intelligence or your own keys.
• Cons: Apple platforms only; no browser extension; no AI tagging or semantic search; no public sharing; features shipped after your first year need the $4.99/year pass.
• Price: $9.99 one-time · optional $4.99/year upgrade pass · no free tier and no trial.

8. Karakeep — best self-hosted option with real AI

Karakeep is the only tool here offering both properties people usually choose between: your own server and automatic organisation. Formerly Hoarder, renamed in early 2025, it is free and open source to self-host with every feature included, and an LLM you configure — any OpenAI-compatible key, or a local Ollama model at no cost — auto-tags everything and writes summaries, with Meilisearch full-text search plus semantic and hybrid modes added in 2026. The model can run locally, so the AI can be private as well as free.

It is also a serious archive: full-page preservation stores a page copy, a screenshot and a PDF, and can pull video with yt-dlp, so link rot cannot take your library. Extensions ship for Chrome, Firefox and Safari, iOS and Android apps have offline reading, public lists have RSS feeds, and a REST API, webhooks, CLI and MCP server let you wire it in. Imports cover Pocket, browser HTML, Omnivore, Instapaper, Linkwarden and mymind.

Count the costs before committing: Docker, updates and backups, plus token costs or a local GPU. There is no built-in AI Q&A over your saves and no YouTube AI, and no one-click save-all-tabs. The hosted Karakeep Cloud is in public beta with a $0 tier capped at 10 bookmarks and a $4/month Pro tier — ten bookmarks is a preview, so “free Karakeep” means your own server.

Who it’s best for: technical readers who want AI organisation without handing a vendor their library. Skip it if you do not want to administer software, or you want audio and YouTube handling.

• Pros: free and open source with all features self-hosted; AI auto-tagging and summaries via any provider or a local model; semantic and hybrid search added in 2026; full-page archiving including PDF and screenshots; iOS and Android apps plus three browser extensions; REST API, webhooks, CLI and MCP server.
• Cons: you run the server, updates and backups; AI costs surface eventually; cloud free tier caps at 10 bookmarks; no AI Q&A and no YouTube AI; no tab saver.
• Price: free self-hosted · Karakeep Cloud Pro $4/month (annual price not published).

9. mymind — best for visual saving, if you never need to import

mymind is the most beautiful saving tool here and the one whose fact sheet argues hardest against ranking it as a read-it-later app. Everything you save — bookmarks, images, quotes, notes, PDFs — lands as a card on one searchable visual canvas, with no folders and no manual filing. AI tags each card automatically and recognises objects, colours, brands and text inside images, so visual saves become searchable by description. It is deliberately single-player: no ads, no tracking, no social features.

The disqualifiers for this query are structural. There is no bulk import by design — no Pocket archive, no Raindrop export, no browser bookmarks — and the read/write API that entered beta in mid-2026 means writing code. Nothing can be shared. There are no highlights and no offline reading. And the tier a reader needs is the expensive one: the free guest plan caps at 100 cards, The Bookmarker at $4.99/month has no AI at all, AI tagging starts at Student of Life ($7.99/month or $79/year), and AI summaries, reading mode, article backup and the PDF analyzer require Mastermind at $12.99/month or $129/year.

Export is a one-way CSV of cards plus your files, and it works only from desktop Chrome or Edge, with no re-import format.

Who it’s best for: designers and visual thinkers starting fresh, who save more images than articles and value privacy and aesthetics over organisation. Skip it if you have a library to move, need to share a reading list, want offline reading, or want reading mode without the top tier. See Marqly vs mymind.

• Pros: the best-looking canvas in the category; AI recognises content inside images; zero-filing philosophy; hard privacy stance; apps on web, Mac, iOS and Android with Chrome, Edge and Safari extensions; read/write API in beta since mid-2026.
• Cons: no bulk import by design; nothing shareable; reading mode and AI summaries sit in the $12.99/month tier; no highlights and no offline reading; free guest plan caps at 100 cards; export is one-way CSV from desktop Chrome or Edge only.
• Price: free guest plan capped at 100 cards · The Bookmarker $4.99/month · Student of Life $7.99/month or $79/year · Mastermind $12.99/month or $129/year.

Also tested, and why they did not make the top nine

• Notion Web Clipper. Free, and right if your notes already live in Notion — clips land in databases and inherit properties and views, and offline mode arrived in 2025 on all plans. It misses because the clipper is bare-bones at capture (no tags, notes or highlights), Notion’s own docs warn clip fidelity varies, browser support has narrowed to Chrome and Safari, and the AI people assume is included is a Business-tier capability at $20/member/month — Free and Plus ($10/member/month annual) only get a trial of it. See Marqly vs Notion Web Clipper.
• Evernote Web Clipper. Works on all five major browsers and v11 in January 2026 added an AI assistant plus semantic search. It misses because the free plan is a demo — 50 notes, one notebook, one device — so real use means Starter at $14.99/month or $99/year, or Advanced at $24.99/month or $249.99/year. It also cannot highlight live web pages.
• Linkwarden. AGPL-3.0 with every feature self-hosted, and the best pure preservation tool we know: each save becomes a screenshot, a PDF and a readable copy. Not a reader — no queue, no text-to-speech, no reading progress. Cloud is $3/month per user billed yearly or $4 monthly, with a 14-day trial and no free cloud tier.
• Anybox. A superb native Apple organiser at $14.99/year, $1.99/month or $39.99 lifetime, with a 50-link free tier — but no AI, no web-page highlighting, no full-text search inside archives, and no web or Android version.
• Pocket. Mozilla shut it down on July 8, 2025; export access and the API were disabled on November 12, 2025 and remaining data was queued for permanent deletion from that date. It is status: shutdown in our data layer and is not a recommendation.
• Omnivore and its forks. Shut down in November 2024 after its team joined ElevenLabs, with an export deadline of November 30, 2024. The AGPL code survives, but the stack needs PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch and multiple microservices, and the forks are volunteer-maintained with no guarantees. Karakeep is the actively developed replacement.

Which read-it-later app should you choose?

Pick by the axis you are limited on, not by feature count.

• You cannot find what you saved → Marqly. Semantic retrieval on Pro is the only real fix here; Karakeep is the self-hosted equivalent.
• You highlight and want to retain it → Readwise Reader, at $119.88/year.
• You want free and unlimited → Raindrop.io, accepting keyword search and no offline mode.
• You want the least app possible → Instapaper, accepting that full-text search costs Premium.
• You want the tool to outlive the next shutdown → Wallabag or Karakeep.
• You would rather listen → Matter, subscribing on the web.
• You are all-Apple and hate subscriptions → GoodLinks, $9.99 once.
• You already live in Notion → Notion Web Clipper, after checking you have Business.

If this and our Pocket alternatives guide look overlapping, they answer different questions. That one is sorted on migrating an archive and on durability; this one on the daily act of reading — parse quality, offline behaviour, audio and retrieval. Read that one if you are holding an export.

How to move a reading library without losing it

1. Export in the right file. Rescuing a Pocket archive means using the list.csv inside the export ZIP — not the HTML preview file, whose <ul><li> layout is not the Netscape bookmark format and does not parse. We measured 0 of 261 items from a genuine export; method in the import-fidelity study. From Raindrop use Settings → Backups → Export HTML, since its JSON export is not accepted everywhere.
2. Clean before importing. Importing 4,000 links of which 900 are dead just relocates the problem. The free Duplicate Bookmark Finder and Dead Link Checker handle both; the Bookmark File Viewer and Pocket Export Converter tell you what you hold.
3. Check file limits. Marqly’s importer takes .html, .htm and .csv up to 10 MB on free and 30 MB on Pro, with 10,000 bookmarks per file.
4. Know what carries across. Titles, URLs, descriptions and tags do, and folders become boards flattened to at most two levels. Original save dates do not — imported items take the import date — and highlights, article text and read status never survive any importer. No deduplication runs during import.
5. Budget for tagging, or let Pro do it. Auto-tagging an import is Pro; on free your existing tags come across and nothing new is added.
6. Test the exit on day one. Export something back out and confirm it is readable. Marqly’s CSV button sits in the sidebar and profile menu and carries URL, title, description and tags; a complete account copy including highlights, notes and boards comes from support@marqly.com.

Tool-specific steps live in the Pocket migration guide, the Instapaper guide and the Migration Center.

What actually matters in 2027

Retrieval beats capture. Pocket proved that a delightful save button plus title-and-URL search produces a library nobody uses. Every tool here saves well; only two retrieve by meaning.

Durability is a ten-minute check. Two category leaders vanished within eight months, one of them free with no revenue model. Ask whether you can get everything out in a documented format without asking anyone, whether the business depends on subscribers rather than a parent company’s portfolio review, and whether the code is open source so a shutdown leaves a fork instead of a hole. Wallabag, Karakeep, Linkwarden and GoodLinks score best by construction. Every hosted tool is weaker, including ours.

Offline and audio are where the fine print lives. “Supports offline” hides per-device caches with no server copy and tiers that gate it. “Has audio” hides the gap between real narration and a system voice. And if you buy through an app store, check the web price first — Matter’s annual plan is $20 cheaper there.

If the reason you are here is a queue you have stopped opening, Marqly is built to make that pile findable — import what you have, save in one click from the web, iOS or any of four browser extensions, and search everything by meaning rather than by title. Compare it in Marqly vs Pocket, see the free-tier roundup if budget is the constraint, or estimate your backlog with the Reading Time Calculator.

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Prices, plan limits and shutdown dates verified against dated competitor fact sheets in October 2026; the Pocket timeline was checked against Mozilla’s shutdown notice on October 6, 2026. Changes from the 2026 edition: Readwise Reader corrected from a stale “$12/mo” to $9.99/month billed annually ($119.88/year) or $12.99/month monthly; Instapaper Premium corrected from “$3/mo” to $5.99/month or $59.99/year, with its paywalled full-text search and five-note free cap disclosed; mymind corrected from “no free tier, ~$8/mo” to a 100-card free guest plan with tiers at $4.99, $7.99 and $12.99, and demoted because reading mode is Mastermind-gated and there is no bulk import; Raindrop.io corrected to no offline mode; Matter’s free tier and App Store markup documented; the vague “Omnivore forks” entry replaced by GoodLinks and Karakeep; Wallabag re-ranked upward on durability; and Marqly’s platform list corrected to include Edge, Firefox, Safari and Android. We’ll update this guide as plans change.