Marqly vs Glasp: Which is better? (2026)

Executive verdict & bottom line

  • Choose Marqly if — Anyone who saves more than they can organize — researchers, students, and heavy readers who want to find things again by describing them. It adds semantic search (find by meaning), full-text search, save all open tabs, browser bookmarks import that Glasp doesn't offer.
  • Choose Glasp if — 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. It offers public API, which Marqly doesn't.

Looking at the broader market? See our comprehensive benchmark of the best bookmark managers in 2026.

Feature comparison

Marqly vs Glasp — feature by feature
FeatureMarqlyGlasp
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
PriceFree · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/monthFree · Pro $15/month or $150/year; Unlimited $36/month or $360/year
Marqly
Free · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month
Glasp
Free · Pro $15/month or $150/year; Unlimited $36/month or $360/year

Pricing

  • Marqly: Marqly has a free tier; paid plans are $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month. 7-day free trial of Pro. Free tier needs no card and stores up to 2,000 bookmarks with search across your whole library; every AI feature is Pro — auto-tagging, summaries, semantic search, AI Q&A over saves and video chat.
  • Glasp: 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.

About Glasp

Glasp is a social web highlighter founded in San Francisco in 2021 by Kazuki Nakayashiki and Kei Watanabe. Its extension highlights text on web pages and PDFs, attaches notes, and — the distinctive part — publishes highlights to a public profile where a community feed lets people learn from each other's reading. The company also makes the popular YouTube Summary extension, and paid plans add advanced YouTube summaries, channel tracking, PDF chat, audio transcription, and an AI clone that answers questions from your highlights. AI-suggested tags help organize saves, and imports cover Pocket, Instapaper, Medium, Readwise, and Kindle. Exports are strong: Markdown, CSV, HTML, and JSON, plus Notion auto-sync, an Obsidian plugin, and a developer API with an MCP connector. Extensions ship for Chrome, Safari, Edge, and Firefox alongside iOS and Android apps rebuilt in 2026. Highlighting is free and unlimited but public; private highlights require Pro at $150 a year, with an Unlimited tier at $360.

Where Glasp wins

  • 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
  • Broadest platform coverage in the highlighter niche: Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox, iOS, Android, and a mobile Safari extension
  • Excellent export and integrations: Markdown, CSV, HTML, and JSON, plus Notion auto-sync, an Obsidian plugin, Readwise, and a developer API with MCP connector
  • Dedicated Kindle highlight import and export

Where Glasp falls short

  • Free highlights are public by default — keeping highlights private requires Pro at $150/year
  • Free AI limits are tight: 3 YouTube summaries a day and 20 PDF chat messages a month
  • Prices rose about 20-25% in May 2026, the Unlimited tier is expensive, and subscriptions are explicitly non-refundable
  • No full-page archiving, full-text search, or offline mode — it's a highlight layer, not an archive
  • Two-person team, which is a real support and longevity risk

About Marqly

Marqly is an AI bookmark manager built around a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, plus a web app, an iOS app, and an Android app. On Pro, every save is tagged and summarized automatically and semantic search retrieves a bookmark by describing what you remember instead of matching exact keywords; the free tier is the manual half — saving, boards, highlights and keyword search. On YouTube, an AI card next to the player adds a streaming summary, a playback-synced transcript, and transcript-grounded chat. A built-in highlighter marks up any website in six colors with notes that persist across visits, boards collect links and highlights into shareable public pages, and any page can be captured as a clean PDF locally in the browser. Imports from Pocket, Raindrop, and standard browser bookmark exports make switching quick. A free tier requires no card and stores up to 2,000 bookmarks with search across your whole library; Pro lifts that cap to unlimited and adds full AI capabilities for $72/year (with $39 first-year offer) or $9/month with a 7-day trial.

Where Marqly wins

  • 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
  • Highlights in 6 colors persist on the page itself and sync to your library
  • Screen-faithful save-as-PDF handled locally in the browser
  • One-click imports from Pocket, Raindrop, and browser bookmark files

Where Marqly falls short

  • Free tier stores up to 2,000 bookmarks (without AI); unlimited bookmarks and all AI capabilities require Pro
  • No AI at all on the free tier — auto-tagging, summaries, semantic search and chat are all Pro
  • Lifetime plans (AppSumo, 2022-24) save, browse and search without limit, but include no AI
  • No offline reading mode
  • No public API or self-hosting option

The core difference: Finding saves when you forgot the exact title

The most frequent pain point with traditional bookmark tools like Glasp is search failure. When you save hundreds of links and later only remember the concept—not the exact title or tag—keyword matching comes up empty. Marqly indexes the actual meaning of your bookmarks, articles, highlights, and YouTube transcripts with semantic embeddings.

Glasp

Keyword & Tag Matching

Matches titles, tags, and exact strings. If you paraphrase or forget the exact wording, the save stays hidden.

Search Query:"study about sleep cycles and focus"
0 results (Title was "Huberman Morning Protocols")
Marqly

Semantic AI Search

Understands natural-language concepts. Find any bookmark by describing what you remember, just like asking a human colleague.

Search Query:"study about sleep cycles and focus"
Found: Huberman Morning Protocols (matched by concept)

Switching from Glasp to Marqly

Yes. Export your data from Glasp (most tools export standard bookmark HTML or CSV), then import the file into Marqly — AI tags everything automatically and semantic search works across all of it.

1Export your Glasp bookmarks as HTML or CSV
2Upload file in Marqly Settings → Import
3AI auto-tags and indexes your library in minutes

Marqly vs Glasp FAQ

Which is better, Marqly or Glasp?

It depends on the job. Glasp is a better fit if you need public API. Marqly wins when finding saves again matters most: it adds semantic search (find by meaning), full-text search, save all open tabs on top of standard bookmarking, so you can retrieve any save by describing it.

Is Glasp free?

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.

Can I switch from Glasp to Marqly?

Yes. Export your data from Glasp (most tools export standard bookmark HTML or CSV), then import the file into Marqly — AI tags everything automatically and semantic search works across all of it.

Does Glasp have AI search?

Glasp offers AI tagging, AI summaries, AI Q&A over saves. Marqly covers the full AI layer — auto-tagging, summaries, semantic search, and AI Q&A over your saves — plus YouTube summaries, transcripts, and video chat on the watch page.

Is Marqly free?

Yes — Marqly has a free tier with no card required: up to 2,000 bookmarks, all of them readable and keyword-searchable. Pro is $72/year (about $6/month billed annually) or $9/month, with a 7-day free trial, and unlocks the AI layer — semantic search, auto-tagging and summaries, AI Q&A over your saves, and chat with YouTube videos.