Omnivore vs Wallabag: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
Wallabag wins by forfeit and by merit: Omnivore shut down in November 2024, while Wallabag has been continuously maintained since 2013. For an open-source read-it-later queue today, Wallabag is the direct, living equivalent — Omnivore survives only as forks for determined self-hosters.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Omnivore | Wallabag | 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 | Free · €11/year on wallabag.it (official hosting; also €4 for 3 months, or a €30/year supporter plan) | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- Omnivore
- Free
- Wallabag
- Free · €11/year on wallabag.it (official hosting; also €4 for 3 months, or a €30/year supporter plan)
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- 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.
- Wallabag: Wallabag has a free tier; paid plans are €11/year on wallabag.it (official hosting; also €4 for 3 months, or a €30/year supporter plan). 14-day free trial on wallabag.it, no card required. Self-hosting is completely free — Wallabag is open-source (MIT). The wallabag.it hosted service funds development and includes all features on every plan.
- 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 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.
About Wallabag
Wallabag is an open-source read-it-later application, started in 2013 in France and maintained continuously since. You can run it on your own server for free or use the official hosted service at wallabag.it, which costs €11 a year (with a 14-day free trial) and funds development of the open-source project. Saved articles are stripped to a clean reading view, can be tagged manually or through rule-based automatic tagging, annotated with notes on selected text, and exported to PDF, ePub, and other formats — a favorite feature for e-reader owners. Wallabag offers browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, native iOS and Android apps with offline reading, RSS feeds of your saves, public share links for individual articles, and a full REST API. Importers cover Pocket, Instapaper, Readability, and browser bookmark files. The trade-off is polish: the interface is functional rather than beautiful, and there are no AI features.
Which should you choose?
This comparison has a timestamp problem: only one of these apps still exists. Omnivore — launched in 2022, free, open source, deservedly loved for its clean reader, powerful search syntax, and Obsidian and Logseq plugins — announced in late October 2024 that its team was joining ElevenLabs, and the hosted service shut down within weeks. Anything not exported by November 30, 2024 was deleted. Wallabag, meanwhile, has plodded along since 2013: a French open-source project with a clean-enough reading view, rule-based automatic tagging, annotations, ePub and PDF export beloved by e-reader owners, apps for iOS and Android, and official hosting at wallabag.it for €11 a year.
Choose Wallabag if:
- You want an open-source, self-hostable reading queue that is actually maintained — this is now the default answer
- E-reader export (ePub, PDF), a REST API, and Pocket/Instapaper importers cover your needs
- You’d rather pay €11/year than trust another free-with-no-revenue service
Choose an Omnivore fork only if:
- You’re an experienced self-hoster who accepts running PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, and multiple microservices
- You specifically loved Omnivore’s interface and search enough to maintain it yourself, with no guarantees about the fork’s future
Bottom line: Omnivore’s fate is the argument. Its zero-revenue model made it free right up until it made it disappear, taking unexported libraries with it. Wallabag’s model — cheap hosting that funds development, thirteen years of continuity — is precisely what survival looks like in this category. Sentiment aside, one of these can hold your reading list tomorrow; the other requires you to become its sysadmin.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither Omnivore nor Wallabag 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.
Omnivore vs Wallabag FAQ
Can I still use Omnivore instead of Wallabag?
Not the hosted service — it closed in November 2024 after the team joined ElevenLabs, and unexported data was deleted after November 30, 2024. The AGPL code lives on in community forks you can self-host, but the stack (PostgreSQL, Elasticsearch, microservices) is heavy and maintenance is volunteer-run. Wallabag remains fully operational.
Is Wallabag a good replacement for Omnivore?
It's the most established like-for-like option: open source, self-hostable, with a clean reading view, tagging, annotations, native iOS and Android apps, Pocket and Instapaper importers, and a full REST API. Hosted service costs €11/year at wallabag.it. You lose Omnivore's slicker interface; you gain a sustainability model that has worked since 2013.
Why did Omnivore shut down when Wallabag didn't?
Funding models. Omnivore was completely free with no revenue, sustained by its founders — so when the team was acqui-hired by ElevenLabs in late 2024, the service ended abruptly. Wallabag is boring by comparison: cheap hosted subscriptions at wallabag.it fund the open-source project, and a community of self-hosters keeps it healthy.