Eight years after it was acquired by Mozilla, the popular bookmarking tool Pocket has been sent to the apps graveyard. According to the company, Pocket is being trashed in order to let Mozilla turn its “resources into projects that better match their browsing habits and online needs.”
While Pocket might have lost its gloss in recent years, it was still useful for tracking online articles and other resources that you didn’t have time for at the moment but wanted to get back to later. If you’re a disappointed Pocket loyalist, or if you’re just looking for some way to keep your bookmarks and saved sites in some kind of order, here are a few possibilities. Most offer free versions and sync across a number of devices, including web browsers, Android devices, and iPhones.
Instapaper, which has been around for a while, is a solid, easy-to-use app. Screenshot: Instapaper
Like Pocket, Instapaper started out as a simple web add-on and has gone through several iterations (and owners); currently, it is part of an independent company called Instapaper Holdings. The web app has a nice and simple UI; while there is no grid view, you can turn thumbnails on and off. It works with (and syncs across) web browsers (using a Chrome extension, Safari extension, Firefox extension, or bookmarklet), iOS, Android, and Kindle. A free account lets you save an unlimited number of articles, videos, and other content. You can also highlight text in the articles you’ve saved, create up to five notes a month, add tags, and edit the name, link, or summary of each article.
Paid version: The Premium version ($5.99 a month or $59.99 a year) adds the ability to send articles to your Kindle, full-text search for your saved documents, unlimited notes, and text-to-speech.
Raindrop.io is for the serious user and offers a number of options and UIs. Screenshot: Raindrop.io
Raindrop may not have the simplicity of Instapaper, but it has a load of features, especially if you’re serious about your info collections. (And it’s been one of the favorites of Verge editor-at-large David Pierce.) The web version lets you view your articles in a variety of formats, including an interesting one called Moodboard. Like most of the others listed here, the free version of Raindrop offers an unlimited number of bookmark saves on an unlimited number of devices; these include apps for Macs, iOS devices, Android devices, Linux devices, and extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge browsers. You can share with others and edit titles, tags, and descriptions.
Paid version: The Pro version ($3 a month or $28 a year) adds AI suggestions, full-text search, cloud backup, and a permanent library of all your bookmarked sites, among other features.
PaperSpan provides simple and basic bookmarking.
PaperSpan is an old-fashioned, simple app that is fine if you want a really plain bookmarking service — and it promises no ads and no tracking, which is a plus. You can create separate folders for your saved bookmarks, but that’s about it; there are mobile apps for iOS and Android and extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Unlike other services listed here, there are no nice graphics, highlighting, or choices between lists and grids (although the mobile apps will read your articles to you). But if you just save articles in order to be able to easily read them and don’t care about all the fancy add-ons that the other options offer, this is for you.
Matter’s web-based app is basic and useful, although its iOS app offers more features.
Matter is only available for iOS devices and the web, with extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox browsers. The free version is very basic: you can filter, sort, and search, but that’s about it. The iOS app offers somewhat more than the web version, allowing you to set a reading goal. However, if you want to highlight, use the audio reader, or take advantage of any other features, you have to sign up for the Premium version.
Paid version: Matter Premium costs $14.99 a month or $79.99 a year and adds highlighting, HD audio, AI transcription of podcasts and YouTube videos, and integrations with other services.
Readerwise’s Reader handles a variety of formats, and allows you to annotate any browser page you are reading, even inside your browser. Screenshot: Readwise
Readwise’s Reader, which lets you save a wide variety of content types, including YouTube videos (and their transcriptions), is for-pay only. The Verge’s David Pierce previously recommended it, and I must say, it’s intriguing. When you use its extension to add an article to Reader, the adds a bar to the top of your browser. You can then overlay notes, tags, and more, directly onto the original article as you’re reading it. A checkmark on the extension icon shows it’s active; uncheck it, and the markups disappear from your original article (but not from the copy that’s been saved to Reader). You can also export your highlights to Notion and other note-keeping apps. I only wish there were some sort of basic free version.
Paid version: You get a one-month free trial (perhaps two, if you ask for it). After that, you must subscribe to both Readwise (which gathers all your highlights together) and Reader for $12.99 a month or $119.88 a year.
Pinboard uses a straightforward text-based format. Screenshot: Nine Fives Software
Pinboard, which calls itself “social bookmarking for introverts,” launched in 2009 and has retained its text-based format since. You can make your bookmarks public or private, mark them as “read later,” use tags to organize them, and add notes, among other features. The app uses a bookmarklet that sits on your browser bar (rather than a browser extension) to capture sites; it has a custom version for mobile devices. Pinboard is also security minded: according to the site, there is “no third party content of any kind on the site. No tracking, no ads, no Google Analytics, not even outside javascript.” So if that’s the kind of thing that concerns you — or if you’re looking for something straightforward and somewhat old-fashioned — this may be one to try out.
Paid version: There is no free version. Pinboard costs $22 a year, or $39 a year if you want to add archiving. You can, according to the site, get a full refund within the first trial week.
You can easily use Wallabag even if you aren’t familiar with open-source apps. Screenshot: Wallaby
Wallabag is an open-source app that, while usable by anyone, offers the most utility to those who are comfortable with basic coding or creating dedicated web servers (the app is self-hostable). For example, you can, using relatively simple language, create rules that will automatically tag new entries, which can be really handy if you’re collecting a lot of reading material.
That being said, Wallabag can also be employed as a simple, straightforward method for saving webpages using a web interface or mobile apps. You can add annotations, archive your read articles, and manually tag articles. You can save articles by using email, as well as importing RSS feeds or articles, from a variety of different services.
Wallabag is not free; after a two-week trial, you must pay a relatively small sum for a three-month or one-year subscription.
Paid version: There is no free version. After a two-week trial, you pay €4 (approximately $4.50) for three months or €11 (approximately $12.50) for a year.
Update, May 23rd, 2025: This article was originally published on February 24th, 2022; since then, several entries have been added, updated, or deleted.
