Instapaper vs Omnivore: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
Omnivore shut down in November 2024, so Instapaper wins by default — it is the only one of the two you can actually sign up for. Former Omnivore users wanting a hosted queue should consider Instapaper's free tier; only committed self-hosters should chase Omnivore's community forks.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Instapaper | Omnivore | Marqly |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI auto-tagging | — | — | ✓ |
| Semantic search (find by meaning) | — | — | ✓ |
| AI summaries | — | — | ✓ |
| YouTube AI (summary, chat, transcript) | — | — | ✓ |
| Chat with your saves | — | — | ✓ |
| Web highlighter | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Notes on highlights | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Save page as PDF | — | — | ✓ |
| Full-text search | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Save all open tabs | — | — | ✓ |
| Public sharing (boards/collections) | — | — | ✓ |
| Pocket import | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Browser bookmarks import | — | — | ✓ |
| Offline reading | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| iOS app | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android app | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Browser extension | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free tier | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓ | — |
| Self-hostable | — | ✓ | — |
| Price | Free · $5.99/month or $59.99/year (Premium) | Free | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- Instapaper
- Free · $5.99/month or $59.99/year (Premium)
- Omnivore
- Free
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- Instapaper: 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.
- Omnivore: Omnivore has shut down and no longer accepts new users. Omnivore shut down in November 2024 after its team was acqui-hired by ElevenLabs. Users had until November 30, 2024 to export their data before it was deleted. The open-source code remains on GitHub, and community forks offer self-hosted deployments.
- Marqly: 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.
About Instapaper
Instapaper is the original read-it-later service, created by Marco Arment in 2008 and now run independently as Instant Paper, Inc. It saves articles from any browser or app into a clean, typography-first reading queue that syncs to iPhone, iPad, Android, Kindle, and the web, with dependable offline reading. The free tier includes unlimited saves, folders, and basic highlighting; Premium at $5.99/month or $59.99/year unlocks full-text search across your account, a permanent archive of saved articles, unlimited notes, a PDF reader, speed reading, AI-powered text-to-speech playlists, and send-to-Kindle delivery. Highlights and notes can sync to services like Readwise, and a documented developer API supports third-party clients. Instapaper deliberately stays minimal: there is no AI tagging, summarization, or recommendation layer, and organization is limited to folders. After Pocket shut down in July 2025, Instapaper added a direct Pocket import and became one of the main destinations for former Pocket users.
About Omnivore
Omnivore was an open-source read-it-later app that launched in 2022 and quickly became a favorite alternative to Pocket and Instapaper. It was completely free: saved articles, newsletters, PDFs, and RSS feeds landed in a clean library with labels, filters, and a notably powerful search syntax, backed by native iOS and Android apps, browser extensions for all major browsers, text-to-speech, and plugins that synced highlights to Obsidian and Logseq. In late October 2024, the team announced they had joined ElevenLabs to work on its Reader app, and the hosted service shut down the following month — users had until November 30, 2024 to export their data before it was permanently deleted. Because Omnivore was AGPL-licensed, the code remains on GitHub with well over a thousand forks, and community projects offer self-hosted deployments, though the stack (PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, multiple microservices) is demanding to run. No official successor exists.
Which should you choose?
Start with the fact that settles it: Omnivore no longer exists as a service. The open-source read-it-later favorite announced in October 2024 that its team was joining ElevenLabs, and the hosted platform shut down the following month, deleting whatever users had not exported by November 30. Comparing it with Instapaper today is really a question of what former Omnivore users — or people drawn to its free, open-source ideal — should do now.
Choose Instapaper if:
- You want a hosted queue that will still be there in five years — eighteen years of continuous, independently funded operation is the strongest longevity signal in this category
- Reading comfort ranks first: the typography-focused view, offline sync across iPhone, iPad, and Android, and send-to-Kindle on Premium
- You kept an Omnivore or Pocket export; Instapaper imports Pocket files directly and its free tier makes trying it costless
Choose an Omnivore fork if:
- Self-hosting is non-negotiable and you can run a genuinely heavy stack — PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and multiple microservices
- You accept volunteer maintenance with no promises; the AGPL codebase has well over a thousand forks but no official successor
The bottom line carries a lesson Omnivore taught the whole category: free-with-no-revenue is a countdown, not a price. Omnivore was well-loved — clean reader, powerful search syntax, newsletters and RSS included, all at no charge — and none of it survived contact with its funding model. Instapaper is the duller, sturdier choice, and if search matters you will eventually pay $59.99/year for it. That trade, in hindsight, is the entire point.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither Instapaper nor Omnivore fully solves it. Marqly auto-tags and summarizes every save with AI and lets you retrieve any of them by describing what you remember — plus a highlighter, YouTube summaries with transcripts, and save-as-PDF. There's a free tier with no card required.
Instapaper vs Omnivore FAQ
Can I still use Omnivore instead of Instapaper?
Not the hosted service — it closed in November 2024 after the team was acqui-hired by ElevenLabs, and unexported data was deleted after November 30, 2024. The AGPL code survives on GitHub, and community forks offer self-hosted deployments, but the original stack (PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, multiple microservices) is demanding, and forks are volunteer-run with no guarantees.
Is Instapaper a good replacement for Omnivore?
For the core reading queue, yes: unlimited free saving, offline reading on iOS and Android, folders, and highlights cover most of what Omnivore did daily. You lose Omnivore's built-in newsletter and RSS handling and its free full-text search — Instapaper paywalls search behind Premium at $5.99/month or $59.99/year. Its 2008-to-present track record is the real draw.
Why did Omnivore shut down when Instapaper survived?
Business model. Omnivore was entirely free with no paid plan — no revenue meant the service ended the moment its founders joined ElevenLabs in late 2024. Instapaper has run since 2008 and operates as an independent, subscription-funded company; its Premium price even doubled in 2023, a sign of a business intent on sustaining itself.