Karakeep vs OneTab: Which is better? (2026)
Executive verdict & bottom line
These two solve different problems. OneTab is a free pressure valve for an overloaded browser; Karakeep is a permanent, AI-organized library for things worth keeping. If tabs are the pain, take OneTab; if finding saved content later is the pain, take Karakeep.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Karakeep | OneTab | Marqly |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI auto-tagging | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| Semantic search (find by meaning) | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| AI summaries | ✓ | — | ✓ |
| YouTube AI (summary, chat, transcript) | — | — | ✓ |
| AI Q&A over 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 · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month | Free | Free · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month |
- Karakeep
- Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month
- OneTab
- Free
- Marqly
- Free · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month
Pricing
- Karakeep: Karakeep has a free tier; paid plans are Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month. The self-hosted app is fully free and open source; AI features need your own OpenAI-compatible API key or a local Ollama model. Karakeep Cloud (public beta) has a $0 tier capped at 10 bookmarks and a Pro tier at $4/month — the exact annual price is not published.
- OneTab: OneTab has a free tier. The core tab-saving extension is free. Current official help documents optional encrypted cloud backup and sync; this check did not establish its current license price. Core price record retains its August 2 verification.
- Marqly: Marqly has a free tier; paid plans are $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month. Free tier needs no card and stores up to 100 bookmarks with search across your whole library; every library AI feature is Pro — auto-tagging, summaries, semantic search, AI Q&A over saves and video chat (YouTube summaries have a 3-per-month free allowance). Offline reading is Pro on web and iOS.
About Karakeep
Karakeep is an open-source "bookmark everything" app, launched as Hoarder and renamed in early 2025. It is built for self-hosting: a Docker install stores links, notes, images, videos, and PDFs on your own server, with full-page archiving to guard against link rot. AI does the filing — automatic tagging and summaries run through any OpenAI-compatible API or a local Ollama model, so nothing has to leave your machine. Search is Meilisearch-backed full text, with semantic and hybrid modes added in 2026. Around the core are browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, iOS and Android apps with offline reading, highlights, shareable public lists with RSS feeds, a REST API, and an MCP server for AI agents. Imports cover Pocket, browser bookmark HTML, Omnivore, Instapaper, Linkwarden, and mymind exports. A hosted Karakeep Cloud is in public beta, with a Pro tier at $4 per month.
About OneTab
OneTab is a browser extension that stores open tabs as grouped URL lists and restores them individually or together. Current official help describes folders, saved-tab search, stars and tasks, and optional encrypted cloud backup and synchronization. Local tab saving and sharing a group as a public webpage are distinct from the optional sync service. It stores links rather than full article archives. Back up saved lists before uninstalling: its help warns that uninstalling deletes the browser’s stored tabs.
Which should you choose?
Comparing Karakeep to OneTab is really comparing two different problems. OneTab answers browser overload: one click sweeps every open tab into a list, reclaiming memory and visual sanity, with nothing stored but URLs and titles in your local browser profile. Karakeep answers knowledge loss: content you save is archived in full on your own server, tagged by AI, and retrievable through full-text and semantic search years later. Triage versus preservation — many people genuinely need both.
Choose OneTab if:
- Your actual problem is 80 open tabs and a wheezing laptop, not a research archive — parking tabs is the whole job.
- You want zero commitment: no account, no server, no configuration, and completely free with no limits.
- Privacy through absence appeals — your tab URLs never leave the browser unless you deliberately share a list as a web page.
Choose Karakeep if:
- What you save needs to survive: OneTab keeps a bare link, so a dead page means the content is gone, while Karakeep keeps page copies, screenshots, and PDFs.
- You need your library everywhere — Karakeep pairs its server with iOS and Android apps and offline reading, whereas OneTab has no mobile story at all.
- Search is non-negotiable: AI tagging plus Meilisearch full-text and semantic modes, against OneTab’s simple in-list search.
The honest verdict: this is an odd-couple matchup, and pretending otherwise helps nobody. OneTab is arguably the best free tab parker ever shipped — and a risky place to keep anything precious, since clearing browser data can wipe the list. Karakeep is a serious self-hosted archive that demands Docker and setup effort. Park your tab chaos in OneTab today; move anything you would mind losing into something like Karakeep.
The managed alternative: Zero-setup cloud with AI retrieval
If you want the power of AI retrieval without configuring Docker containers, managing local models, or dealing with unsearchable link graveyards, Marqly delivers a complete managed solution. Marqly provides whole-library search, web highlights, and distraction-free reading on the Free tier, with Pro adding automated AI tagging, summaries, and semantic search by meaning.
Karakeep vs OneTab FAQ
Can OneTab replace a bookmark manager like Karakeep?
Not safely. OneTab stores only URLs and page titles, locally in one browser profile — there is no page content, no full-text search, and uninstalling the extension deletes your stored tabs. Karakeep archives a copy, screenshot, and PDF of each page on your own server, auto-tags it with AI, and makes it searchable by text and meaning.
Does Karakeep have a save-all-tabs feature like OneTab?
No. Karakeep's extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari save pages one at a time, and one-click save-all-tabs is a noted gap. OneTab's entire purpose is that single click: collapse every open tab into a list, cutting browser memory use by up to 95% by the developer's estimate, then restore tabs individually or all at once.
Are Karakeep and OneTab both free?
Yes, in different senses. OneTab is entirely free — no account, no limits, no paid tier — though its promised encrypted sync is still unpriced and unreleased. Karakeep is free when self-hosted, but you provide a Docker server and your own AI key or Ollama model; the hosted Cloud option offers a 10-bookmark free tier and a $4/month Pro plan.
