Pocket vs OneTab: Which is better? (2026)
Executive verdict & bottom line
OneTab is the only living option here — Pocket died in July 2025 — but it replaces just one sliver of it: parking open tabs. OneTab stores bare URLs in a single browser, so former Pocket readers still need a real read-it-later app.
Feature comparison
| Feature | OneTab | 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
- OneTab
- 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.
- OneTab: OneTab has a free tier. The core tab-saving extension is free. Current official help documents optional encrypted cloud backup and sync; this check did not establish its current license price. Core price record retains its August 2 verification.
- 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 OneTab
OneTab is a browser extension that stores open tabs as grouped URL lists and restores them individually or together. Current official help describes folders, saved-tab search, stars and tasks, and optional encrypted cloud backup and synchronization. Local tab saving and sharing a group as a public webpage are distinct from the optional sync service. It stores links rather than full article archives. Back up saved lists before uninstalling: its help warns that uninstalling deletes the browser’s stored tabs.
Which should you choose?
Pocket died in July 2025, and OneTab is very much alive — but this pairing mostly reveals how little the two overlap. OneTab does exactly one thing: collapse every open browser tab into a list with one click, cutting memory use by up to 95% by its developer’s estimate. It stores URLs and titles, locally, in one browser profile. Pocket stored the articles themselves, synced them to your phone, and let you read offline. A tab parker can’t inherit a read-it-later service’s job.
Choose Pocket if
- Nothing to install — it went offline in July 2025 and all remaining data was purged that autumn.
- Every path back to it is closed, including the app stores.
Choose OneTab if
- Your actual problem is fifty open tabs, not a reading backlog: parking and restoring sessions is instant, free, and account-less.
- Privacy and simplicity outrank features — tab URLs never leave your machine unless you deliberately share a list, and the 2026 v2 rewrite added folders, in-list search, stars, tasks, and dark mode.
- You occasionally hand a set of links to someone: any list becomes a shareable web page in one click.
Understand the fragility before trusting it with anything precious. There’s no sync (the promised encrypted version is still “coming soon”), no mobile apps, no page content, and no full-text search — and uninstalling the extension or clearing browser data can erase your list entirely. There’s no importer either, so a Pocket export has nowhere to go here. The sensible conclusion isn’t either/or: use OneTab as the free pressure valve for tab overload it was always meant to be, and give the reading half of your old Pocket habit to an actual read-it-later app like Instapaper or Matter, which can also absorb your export.
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 OneTab FAQ
Is OneTab a replacement for Pocket?
Only for tab overload. OneTab collapses every open tab into a local list — free, no account, one click — but it saves URLs and titles only. There's no article content, offline reading, highlighting, tagging, sync, or mobile app, so the core Pocket habit of reading saved articles on your phone has no equivalent in OneTab.
Is OneTab free?
Completely. There's no paid tier, no limits, and no account requirement — the extension has been free since 2013 and has over two million Chrome users. The developer has announced end-to-end-encrypted cross-device sync as coming soon without stating a price, but everything OneTab does today costs nothing.
Can OneTab lose my saved tabs?
Yes, and it's the biggest caveat. Your list lives inside one browser profile: uninstalling the extension deletes your stored tabs, and clearing browser data can wipe them too. There's no cloud backup or sync yet. The plain-text export — one URL per line — is your safety net, so export anything you'd hate to lose.
