Marqly vs Session Buddy: 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 AI auto-tagging, semantic search (find by meaning), AI summaries, YouTube AI (summary, chat, transcript) that Session Buddy doesn't offer.
- Choose Session Buddy if — 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.
Looking at the broader market? See our comprehensive benchmark of the best bookmark managers in 2026.
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. 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.
- 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, 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 100 bookmarks with search across your whole library; Pro lifts that cap to unlimited and adds full AI capabilities for $72/year (with $49 first-year offer) or $9/month, billed when you upgrade. Offline reading is a Pro feature of the web app and iOS app: supported pages you mark for offline are cached on that device.
Where Marqly wins
- Semantic search finds saves by meaning — describe what you remember, no exact titles needed
- On Pro, 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 100 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
- Offline reading is Pro-only and per-device — cached on each device, not a synced offline library
- 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 Session Buddy 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.
Keyword & Tag Matching
Matches titles, tags, and exact strings. If you paraphrase or forget the exact wording, the save stays hidden.
"study about sleep cycles and focus"Semantic AI Search
Understands natural-language concepts. Find any bookmark by describing what you remember, just like asking a human colleague.
"study about sleep cycles and focus"Switching 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.
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 100 bookmarks, all of them readable and keyword-searchable. Pro is $72/year (about $6/month billed annually) or $9/month, billed when you upgrade, and unlocks the AI layer — semantic search, auto-tagging and summaries, AI Q&A over your saves, and chat with YouTube videos.
