Karakeep vs Obsidian Web Clipper: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
Two local-first favorites, split by automation. Karakeep files everything for you — AI tags, summaries, semantic search — on a server you run; Obsidian Web Clipper hands you clean Markdown files you organize yourself. Automators pick Karakeep; plain-text purists pick Obsidian.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Karakeep | Obsidian Web Clipper | 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 · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month | Free | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- Karakeep
- Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month
- Obsidian Web Clipper
- Free
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- 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.
- Obsidian Web Clipper: Obsidian Web Clipper has a free tier. The clipper and the Obsidian app are completely free, including commercial use (policy since February 2025). The only paid add-ons are optional: Obsidian Sync from $4/month billed annually ($5 monthly) for cross-device sync, and Obsidian Publish at $8/site/month for public sharing.
- 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 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.
About Obsidian Web Clipper
Obsidian Web Clipper is the official, open-source browser extension for Obsidian, the local-first Markdown note app. It runs on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari — including Safari on iOS and iPadOS — and saves pages, selections, or highlights as clean Markdown files in your vault, where they stay on your own disk with zero lock-in. Per-site templates decide how each clip is titled, tagged, and filed, pulling metadata through selector and Schema.org variables. An optional Interpreter feature runs natural-language prompts at clip time — summarize, extract, translate — using your own API key from Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, and others, or a local Ollama model at no cost. Everything is free, including commercial use of Obsidian since early 2025. The trade-off is that cloud conveniences are add-ons: cross-device sync via Obsidian Sync starts at $4 per month, and public sharing via Obsidian Publish costs $8 per site per month.
Which should you choose?
Karakeep and Obsidian Web Clipper agree on the destination — your data, your disk, no landlord — and disagree entirely on format and labor. Karakeep is a self-hosted database application: saves flow into a server that auto-tags them with AI, archives full page copies, and answers full-text and semantic queries. Obsidian’s clipper is a converter: it turns pages, selections, and highlighted passages into plain Markdown files inside your vault, where every organizational decision is yours to make, forever portable and forever manual.
Choose Karakeep if:
- You save far more than you file — automatic tagging and summaries mean a thousand unsorted bookmarks stay findable.
- Search matters beyond keywords: Meilisearch full-text plus the semantic and hybrid modes added in 2026 have no equivalent in a folder of Markdown files.
- You want defense against link rot — page copies, screenshots, PDFs, and even yt-dlp video downloads travel with each save.
Choose Obsidian Web Clipper if:
- Your knowledge base is already an Obsidian vault, and clips belong next to your notes as ordinary files.
- Highlighter mode fits how you read — capturing the exact passages you mark rather than whole pages.
- Per-site templates appeal to your inner tinkerer: auto-titling, tagging, and filing driven by page metadata, no server required.
Both are free in the way that counts — Karakeep is open source with optional $4/month cloud hosting, Obsidian charges only for optional Sync ($4/month) and Publish ($8/month). So money settles nothing here; workflow does. If you want a system that organizes itself while you keep root access, run Karakeep. If you want your clipped web pages to outlive every app as plain text you own, Obsidian’s clipper remains unbeaten.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither Karakeep nor Obsidian Web Clipper 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.
Karakeep vs Obsidian Web Clipper FAQ
Which is easier to set up, Karakeep or Obsidian Web Clipper?
Obsidian's clipper, by a wide margin: install the browser extension, point it at your vault, and clips arrive as Markdown files — no server involved. Karakeep requires a Docker deployment plus an OpenAI-compatible API key or local Ollama model for its AI features. The payoff for that setup is a hosted web app, mobile apps, and automatic filing.
Can both run their AI fully locally?
Yes — this is rare and both deliver it. Karakeep runs automatic tagging and summaries through a local Ollama model so nothing leaves your machine. Obsidian's Interpreter runs clip-time prompts — summarize, extract, translate — against Ollama at no cost, or your own API key from Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, and others. Karakeep's AI is automatic; Obsidian's fires per-clip.
Which works better across devices?
Karakeep, out of the box: your server is the sync point, with iOS and Android apps (offline reading included) and Chrome, Firefox, and Safari extensions all connecting to it. Obsidian has no built-in sync — cross-device access means Obsidian Sync at $4/month billed annually, or a DIY arrangement like iCloud, on top of the free clipper and app.