Marqly vs Session Buddy: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
- Choose Marqly — Anyone who saves more than they can organize — researchers, students, and heavy readers who want to find things again by describing them. It adds AI auto-tagging, semantic search (find by meaning), AI summaries, YouTube AI (summary, chat, transcript) that Session Buddy doesn't offer.
- Choose Session Buddy — Anyone who works in bursts of many windows and wants to snapshot, name, and reopen whole browsing sessions for free — without needing page content, AI, or phone access.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Marqly | Session Buddy |
|---|---|---|
| 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 · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month | Free |
- Marqly
- Free · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month
- Session Buddy
- Free
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 the 100 most recent accessible; every AI feature is Pro — auto-tagging, summaries, semantic search, AI Q&A over saves and video chat.
- Session Buddy: Session Buddy has a free tier. Free with no paid tier and no limits. Local use needs no account; the optional cloud sync introduced in v4 requires signing in, and no paid plan has been announced for it.
About Session Buddy
Session Buddy is a free Chromium extension for saving and restoring browsing sessions. Rather than collapsing tabs into a flat list, it snapshots whole windows — you name a session, close everything, and reopen the arrangement later with tabs in place. It also keeps a running record of your open windows, which makes it a practical recovery tool after a crash or an accidental close. Sessions are stored locally in the browser profile; the v4 release added optional cloud sync for people who want them on a second machine. That v4 redesign, shipped in 2024, is also its sore point: it drew sustained complaints about missing sessions after upgrading and about a heavier, slower interface than the version it replaced. Development continues, with updates through 2026 and roughly 900,000 users. It runs on Chrome, Edge, and other Chromium browsers only — no Firefox, Safari, or mobile app — and it saves URLs and titles rather than page content, with no AI, highlighting, or full-text search. Exports cover JSON, HTML, CSV, and plain text.
Where Session Buddy wins
- Completely free with no paid tier, no saved-session limits, and no account required for local use
- Best-in-class session restore: save every open window as a named session and reopen the whole arrangement later, not just a flat list of links
- Automatic recovery — it keeps a record of your current windows and tabs, so a crash or an accidentally closed window is recoverable
- Local-first by default: sessions are stored in your browser profile and nothing leaves the machine unless you switch on the optional cloud sync
- Still actively maintained, with 2026 updates and roughly 900,000 users
- Exports sessions to JSON, HTML, CSV, and plain text, so there is almost no lock-in
Where Session Buddy falls short
- The 2024 v4 redesign produced sustained reports of sessions going missing or not carrying over from v3 — export a backup before you update
- v4 is heavier and slower than the old version, and many long-time users say it added complexity to a tool they chose for being minimal
- Local-first also means fragile: uninstalling the extension or clearing browser data can take your sessions with it unless cloud sync is on
- Chromium-only — Chrome, Edge, and Chromium-based browsers; there is no Firefox add-on, no Safari extension, and no mobile app
- Stores tabs, not content: no page archiving, highlights, AI, or full-text search, so when a saved link dies the content is gone
- No public sharing — you can export or copy a session's links, but there's no shareable hosted page
About Marqly
Marqly is an AI bookmark manager built around a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, plus a web app and an iOS 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 the 100 most recent accessible; Pro lifts that cap and is $72/year 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, but only the 100 most recent stay accessible
- 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 Android app yet (the web app works in Android browsers)
- No offline reading mode
- No public API or self-hosting option
Marqly vs Session Buddy FAQ
Which is better, Marqly or Session Buddy?
It depends on the job. Session Buddy is a better fit if you need anyone who works in bursts of many windows and wants to snapshot, name, and reopen whole browsing sessions for free — without needing page content, ai, or phone access. Marqly wins when finding saves again matters most: it adds AI auto-tagging, semantic search (find by meaning), AI summaries on top of standard bookmarking, so you can retrieve any save by describing it.
Is Session Buddy free?
Session Buddy has a free tier. Free with no paid tier and no limits. Local use needs no account; the optional cloud sync introduced in v4 requires signing in, and no paid plan has been announced for it.
Can I switch from Session Buddy to Marqly?
Yes. Export your data from Session Buddy (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 Session Buddy have AI search?
Session Buddy does not offer AI organization features — saving, tagging, and finding content is manual. That gap is exactly what AI-first tools like Marqly automate.
Is Marqly free?
Yes — Marqly has a free tier with no card required (up to 2,000 bookmarks stored, with the 100 most recent accessible). Pro is $72/year (about $6/month billed annually) or $9/month, with a 7-day free trial. Pro unlocks unlimited bookmark access, AI Q&A over your saves, and chat with YouTube videos.
