Omnivore vs Karakeep: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
Karakeep wins: Omnivore shut down in November 2024, while Karakeep is an actively developed, self-hosted alternative that even imports Omnivore exports. For open-source savers, this one isn't close — the only living option is also the more capable one.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Omnivore | Karakeep | 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 | Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- Omnivore
- Free
- Karakeep
- Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- Omnivore: Omnivore has shut down and no longer accepts new users. Omnivore shut down in November 2024 after its team was acqui-hired by ElevenLabs. Users had until November 30, 2024 to export their data before it was deleted. The open-source code remains on GitHub, and community forks offer self-hosted deployments.
- 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.
- 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 Omnivore
Omnivore was an open-source read-it-later app that launched in 2022 and quickly became a favorite alternative to Pocket and Instapaper. It was completely free: saved articles, newsletters, PDFs, and RSS feeds landed in a clean library with labels, filters, and a notably powerful search syntax, backed by native iOS and Android apps, browser extensions for all major browsers, text-to-speech, and plugins that synced highlights to Obsidian and Logseq. In late October 2024, the team announced they had joined ElevenLabs to work on its Reader app, and the hosted service shut down the following month — users had until November 30, 2024 to export their data before it was permanently deleted. Because Omnivore was AGPL-licensed, the code remains on GitHub with well over a thousand forks, and community projects offer self-hosted deployments, though the stack (PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, multiple microservices) is demanding to run. No official successor exists.
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.
Which should you choose?
Only one of these projects is alive, and it happens to be the more ambitious one. Omnivore’s hosted service closed in November 2024 when its team was acqui-hired by ElevenLabs; users had until November 30 to export before deletion, and while the AGPL code persists on GitHub, self-hosting the original PostgreSQL-Elasticsearch-microservices stack is a serious undertaking maintained by volunteers. Karakeep — launched as Hoarder, renamed in early 2025 — is the self-hosted bookmark-everything app in rude health: a Docker install with AI auto-tagging and summaries through any OpenAI-compatible API or local Ollama, Meilisearch full-text plus semantic search, full-page archiving down to yt-dlp video downloads, and rare-for-self-hosted iOS, Android, and Safari support.
Choose Karakeep if:
- You want an open-source, self-hosted home for your saves that’s actually maintained — free forever on your own hardware
- AI organization appeals: automatic tags, summaries, and semantic search, kept private via local models
- You still have an Omnivore export sitting around — Karakeep imports it directly
Choose an Omnivore fork only if:
- You specifically want Omnivore’s reading-queue experience — newsletters, text-to-speech, its search syntax — and accept the heavy operations
- Running a volunteer-maintained stack with no guarantees genuinely doesn’t bother you
Bottom line: there’s a fair caveat. Karakeep is a bookmark manager, not a reader — no text-to-speech, no chat with saves, no newsletter inbox — so it replaces Omnivore’s library rather than its reading flow. But as a place for an open-source enthusiast’s saves to live and be found again, Karakeep is better than Omnivore ever was, and unlike Omnivore, it will still be running next month.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither Omnivore nor Karakeep 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.
Omnivore vs Karakeep FAQ
Can Karakeep import my old Omnivore data?
Yes — Karakeep's importers explicitly cover Omnivore exports, alongside Pocket, Instapaper, Linkwarden, mymind, and browser bookmark HTML. That only helps if you exported before Omnivore's November 30, 2024 deadline, after which hosted data was permanently deleted. If you have that export, Karakeep is one of the smoothest landing spots for it.
How does self-hosting Karakeep compare to self-hosting an Omnivore fork?
Karakeep is far more practical. It ships as a straightforward Docker install with active maintenance, 28,000+ GitHub stars, and steady releases — version 0.33 arrived in August 2026. Omnivore's original stack needs PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and multiple microservices, and its forks are volunteer-run with uncertain futures. Both are free; only one is sustainable to operate.
Does Karakeep have features Omnivore lacked?
Several. AI auto-tagging and summaries via any OpenAI-compatible API or local Ollama, semantic search added in 2026, full-page archiving including screenshots, PDFs, and yt-dlp video downloads, public shareable lists with RSS, plus webhooks, a CLI, and an MCP server. Omnivore countered with a reading queue, newsletters, and text-to-speech — consumption features Karakeep doesn't chase.