Marqly vs Karakeep: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
- Choose Marqly — Anyone who saves more than they can organize — researchers, students, and heavy readers who want to find things again by describing them. It adds YouTube AI (summary, chat, transcript), chat with your saves, save all open tabs that Karakeep doesn't offer.
- Choose Karakeep — Self-hosters and privacy-focused tinkerers who want AI tagging, summaries, and full-text search on their own hardware without a subscription. It offers offline reading, Android app, public API, self-hostable, which Marqly doesn't.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Marqly | Karakeep |
|---|---|---|
| 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 · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month | Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month |
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
- Karakeep
- Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month
Pricing
- 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.
- 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.
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.
Where Karakeep wins
- Free, open source, and self-hosted — your bookmarks live on your own server
- AI auto-tagging and summaries via any OpenAI-compatible API or fully local Ollama
- Meilisearch full-text search, with semantic and hybrid modes added in 2026
- Full-page archiving (page copy, screenshot, PDF, even yt-dlp video downloads) fights link rot
- iOS and Android apps plus Chrome, Firefox, and Safari extensions — rare for a self-hosted tool
- REST API, webhooks, CLI, and an MCP server for wiring in AI agents
Where Karakeep falls short
- Self-hosting requires Docker and bring-your-own AI keys — real setup work
- The hosted Cloud option is still in public beta, and its free tier caps at 10 bookmarks
- No built-in chat with your saves and no YouTube-specific AI features
- No one-click save-all-tabs from the extension
About Marqly
Marqly is an AI bookmark manager built around a browser extension for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari, plus a web app and an iOS app. Every save is tagged and summarized automatically, and semantic search lets you retrieve any bookmark by describing what you remember instead of matching exact keywords. On YouTube, an AI card next to the player adds a streaming summary, a playback-synced transcript, and transcript-grounded chat. A built-in highlighter marks up any website in six colors with notes that persist across visits, boards collect links and highlights into shareable public pages, and any page can be captured as a clean PDF locally in the browser. Imports from Pocket, Raindrop, and standard browser bookmark exports make switching quick. A free tier requires no card; Pro is $48/year or $8/month with a 7-day trial.
Where Marqly wins
- Semantic search finds saves by meaning — describe what you remember, no exact titles needed
- AI tags and summarizes every save automatically, so nothing needs manual filing
- YouTube AI card puts summaries, transcript, and Q&A right on the watch page
- Highlights in 6 colors persist on the page itself and sync to your library
- Screen-faithful save-as-PDF handled locally in the browser
- One-click imports from Pocket, Raindrop, and browser bookmark files
Where Marqly falls short
- No Android app yet (the web app works in Android browsers)
- No offline reading mode
- No public API or self-hosting option
- Chat with saves and video chat require Pro
Marqly vs Karakeep FAQ
Which is better, Marqly or Karakeep?
It depends on the job. Karakeep is a better fit if you need offline reading, Android app, public API. Marqly wins when finding saves again matters most: it adds YouTube AI (summary, chat, transcript), chat with your saves, save all open tabs on top of standard bookmarking, so you can retrieve any save by describing it.
Is Karakeep free?
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.
Can I switch from Karakeep to Marqly?
Yes. Export your data from Karakeep (most tools export standard bookmark HTML or CSV), then import the file into Marqly — AI tags everything automatically and semantic search works across all of it.
Does Karakeep have AI search?
Karakeep offers AI tagging, AI summaries, semantic search. Marqly covers the full AI layer — auto-tagging, summaries, semantic search, and chat with your saves — plus YouTube summaries, transcripts, and video chat on the watch page.
Is Marqly free?
Yes — Marqly has a free tier with no card required. Pro is $48/year (about $4/month billed annually) or $8/month, with a 7-day free trial. Pro unlocks chat with your saves and chat with YouTube videos.