Pocket vs Omnivore: Which is better? (2026)
Executive verdict & bottom line
Neither — both are dead. Omnivore shut down in November 2024 after its team was acqui-hired by ElevenLabs; Mozilla closed Pocket in July 2025. The real question is where each refugee community landed, and the answer differs by what you valued.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Omnivore | Marqly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | See site | Free | Free · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month |
- See site
- Omnivore
- Free
- Marqly
- Free · $72/year (≈$6/mo) or $9/month
Pricing
- Pocket: Pocket has shut down and no longer accepts new users. Mozilla shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025. Export access and the API were disabled on November 12, 2025, and data deletion began then. Source: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/future-of-pocket (verified 2026-10-06). Premium subscribers received prorated refunds.
- 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.
- 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.
About Pocket
Pocket was one of the most popular read-it-later services on the web. Launched in 2007 as Read It Later and acquired by Mozilla in 2017, it let people save articles, videos, and links from any browser or app, then read them later in a clean, distraction-free view — online or offline — on iOS, Android, and the web. A free tier covered core saving and reading, while Pocket Premium added a permanent article archive, full-text search, and suggested tags. Pocket was built into Firefox and grew a large audience around its editorial Discover recommendations. In May 2025 Mozilla announced it was discontinuing the service: Pocket stopped working on July 8, 2025, export access and the API were disabled on November 12, 2025, and data deletion began then. Source: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/future-of-pocket (verified 2026-10-06). Anyone who kept a Pocket export ZIP can still import those saves into most modern bookmark managers and read-it-later apps.
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.
Which should you choose?
This is a comparison between two ghosts, and they died for opposite reasons. Pocket was a corporate product with revenue — a free tier plus Premium — that Mozilla killed anyway when it chose to refocus on Firefox. Omnivore was open-source idealism: completely free, no paid plan ever, funded by its founders — which meant that when the team joined ElevenLabs in late October 2024, the hosted service had no reason to keep running and closed within a month. Different failure modes, same lesson: a service is only as durable as its reason to exist.
Choose Pocket if
- You can’t, in any form. The service ended July 8, 2025; exports closed November 12, 2025, when Mozilla says deletion of remaining data began (see Mozilla’s Pocket closure notice). There is no code to run and no fork to join.
- Its sixteen-year run survives only in the export ZIPs its users downloaded.
Choose Omnivore if
- Only in one narrow sense: the AGPL code lives on GitHub with well over a thousand forks, so a determined self-hoster can run a community fork today.
- Be honest about the cost — the original stack demands PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and multiple microservices, and forks are volunteer-maintained with no guarantees.
Where the user bases actually went says more than any feature table. Pocket readers scattered to Instapaper and Matter — the closest reading experiences, both with Pocket importers — and to Raindrop.io for collecting. Omnivore’s community mostly chose Wallabag, the boring, stable elder of self-hosted read-it-later, or Linkwarden and Karakeep for archiving and AI, while its heaviest readers paid for Readwise Reader. If you hold an export from either service, nearly every living tool can ingest it. If you don’t, both export deadlines passed long ago (Pocket’s ended November 12, 2025; see Mozilla’s Pocket closure notice), and the practical takeaway is simply this: pick a successor whose business model you believe in, because both of these deaths were predictable in hindsight.
The managed alternative: Zero-setup cloud with AI retrieval
If you want the power of AI retrieval without configuring Docker containers, managing local models, or dealing with unsearchable link graveyards, Marqly delivers a complete managed solution. Marqly provides whole-library search, web highlights, and distraction-free reading on the Free tier, with Pro adding automated AI tagging, summaries, and semantic search by meaning.
Pocket vs Omnivore FAQ
Why did Pocket and Omnivore both shut down?
For opposite reasons. Pocket was corporate-owned with actual revenue, but Mozilla killed it in July 2025 to refocus on Firefox. Omnivore was entirely free with no paid plan, funded by its founders — so when the team joined ElevenLabs in late October 2024, the hosted service closed within a month. Neither had a survival guarantee.
Can I still export my data from Pocket or Omnivore?
No. Omnivore's export window closed on November 30, 2024, and Pocket's on November 12, 2025; Omnivore permanently deleted its remaining hosted data; Mozilla says Pocket’s remaining data entered deletion starting November 12, 2025 (see [Mozilla’s Pocket closure notice](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/future-of-pocket)). If you downloaded an export ZIP in time, most living bookmark managers and read-it-later apps can import it. If you didn't, there is nothing left to recover.
Where did Pocket and Omnivore users end up?
Pocket readers mostly went to Instapaper and Matter, which added Pocket importers, or Raindrop.io for bookmark-style collecting. Omnivore's open-source crowd largely moved to Wallabag, Linkwarden, or Karakeep — self-hostable tools — while power users paid for Readwise Reader. Omnivore's AGPL code also survives on GitHub, where community forks offer self-hosted deployments.
