Matter vs Toby: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
Toby wins for managing active tabs and team workspaces; Matter wins for reading and listening to saved articles. Session management versus content consumption — most people who think they need one actually need the other.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Matter | Toby | 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 · $8/month or $60/year on the web; $7.99/month or $79.99/year via the iOS App Store (Premium) | Free · Productivity $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) or $6/month; Team $8/member/month billed yearly ($96/yr) or $10/month | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- Matter
- Free · $8/month or $60/year on the web; $7.99/month or $79.99/year via the iOS App Store (Premium)
- Toby
- Free · Productivity $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) or $6/month; Team $8/member/month billed yearly ($96/yr) or $10/month
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- Matter: Matter has a free tier; paid plans are $8/month or $60/year on the web; $7.99/month or $79.99/year via the iOS App Store (Premium). Subscribing on the web avoids the App Store markup on the annual plan. A higher Matter Pro tier ($12.99/month) also appears in the App Store. Premium unlocks HD text-to-speech, unlimited highlighting and notes, full-text search, and integrations.
- Toby: Toby has a free tier; paid plans are Productivity $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) or $6/month; Team $8/member/month billed yearly ($96/yr) or $10/month. Free Starter plan caps at 60 saved tabs total — over the limit you keep read access but can't add more. No published trial length. Legacy free accounts were force-migrated to Starter in November 2024.
- 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 Matter
Matter is a design-forward read-it-later app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web, built by a small San Francisco team and known for the strongest text-to-speech in the category. Articles, newsletters, and PDFs collect into a clean queue with excellent parsing, and Matter's human-like voices turn any of it into listenable audio with word-by-word tracking, so you can switch between reading and listening mid-article. Newsletters arrive via Gmail integration or a dedicated Matter email address, and YouTube videos and podcasts are transcribed with time-synced text you can highlight. The free tier includes an unlimited library, saving from the share sheet and a Chrome extension, and unlimited tags; Premium — $8/month or $60/year on the web, $7.99/month or $79.99/year through the App Store — adds HD voices, unlimited highlighting and notes, offline full-text search, and integrations with Notion, Obsidian, and Readwise. There is no Android app or public API.
About Toby
Toby is a visual tab manager built around the browser's new-tab page. Open tabs save into drag-and-drop collections, whole sessions can be stashed and restored in one click, and collections group into spaces that can be shared with teammates or published as public links that require no Toby account. It began inside Vancouver venture studio Axiom Zen in 2016, was once named a top Chrome extension of the year by Google and Product Hunt, and now claims more than 500,000 users under operator Launch Labs. Extensions cover Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, a web app works anywhere, and companion apps bring collections to iOS and Android. Toby AI can name, sort, and group open tabs automatically. Toby stores links rather than page content, so there is no archiving, highlighting, or full-text search. The free Starter plan caps at 60 saved tabs; Productivity costs $4.50 per member per month billed yearly, and Team runs $8 with SSO and centralized billing.
Which should you choose?
Toby lives where work happens; Matter lives where reading happens. Toby turns the new-tab page into a visual command center — open tabs drag into collections, whole sessions stash and restore in one click, collections group into spaces shared with teammates or published as public links, and Toby AI names and sorts what you’ve got open. It’s been at this since 2016 and remains the strongest team story in tab management, with SSO and org-wide collections on the Team plan. Matter ignores your browser almost entirely: it’s an Apple-polished queue where saved articles arrive cleanly parsed, newsletters flow in via Gmail, YouTube and podcasts come transcribed, and the category’s best text-to-speech reads it all to you.
Choose Toby if:
- Your tabs are working sets — projects, clients, recurring tools — that you reopen constantly
- You collaborate: shared spaces and no-account public links beat sending URL lists around
- One-click session restore would genuinely change your day
Choose Matter if:
- Your saved links are articles you mean to consume, ideally by ear
- You need content preserved and readable offline on iPhone and iPad, not bare URLs
- Highlights syncing to Notion, Obsidian, or Readwise feeds your notes practice
Bottom line: the caps reveal the fit. Toby’s 60-tab free ceiling suits people who cycle through sessions, not hoarders building an archive; Matter’s unlimited free library suits readers, but it has no Android app and no way to restore a browsing session. If losing the link would cost you a workflow, choose Toby. If losing the link would cost you the words, choose Matter.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither Matter nor Toby 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.
Matter vs Toby FAQ
Are Matter and Toby solving the same problem?
No. Toby organizes live browsing: tabs save into visual collections on the new-tab page, sessions restore in one click, and spaces are shared across teams. Matter is a reading app: it stores full article content, parsed and offline-ready, with narration and highlights. Toby manages your browser; Matter manages your reading backlog.
Does Toby save article content like Matter?
No — Toby stores links only, with no page archiving, no highlights, and no full-text search, so content lost to link rot is simply gone. Matter saves the parsed article itself, readable offline and searchable (full-text search comes with Premium). For preserving what a page actually said, Matter is the one that does it.
How do Matter and Toby free plans compare?
Matter's free tier is unlimited: saves, parsing, and tags without caps, with Premium at $8/month or $60/year on the web for voices, highlights, and search. Toby's free Starter plan caps at 60 saved tabs total — beyond that you keep read access but can't add more; Productivity costs $4.50/member/month billed yearly.