OneTab vs Toby: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
OneTab for solo minimalists: free, unlimited, no account — but trapped in one browser profile. Toby for visual organizers and teams: collections, cloud sync, sharing, and mobile apps, priced per member with a 60-tab free cap. Solo and frugal, OneTab; collaborative and organized, Toby.
Feature comparison
| Feature | OneTab | Toby | 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 · Productivity $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) or $6/month; Team $8/member/month billed yearly ($96/yr) or $10/month | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- OneTab
- Free
- Toby
- Free · Productivity $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) or $6/month; Team $8/member/month billed yearly ($96/yr) or $10/month
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- OneTab: OneTab has a free tier. Entirely free: no paid tier, no limits, no account required. The announced end-to-end-encrypted cross-device sync is 'coming soon' with no pricing stated, so whether sync stays free is unknown.
- Toby: Toby has a free tier; paid plans are Productivity $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) or $6/month; Team $8/member/month billed yearly ($96/yr) or $10/month. Free Starter plan caps at 60 saved tabs total — over the limit you keep read access but can't add more. No published trial length. Legacy free accounts were force-migrated to Starter in November 2024.
- 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 OneTab
OneTab is a free browser extension from UK-based OneTab Ltd that collapses every open tab into a single list with one click, cutting browser memory use by up to 95% by the developer's estimate. Tabs restore individually or all at once, and any list can be shared as a hosted web page. First released in 2013, it spent years nearly unchanged before a full v2 rewrite in 2026 added folders, in-list search, stars and tasks, and dark mode, with end-to-end-encrypted sync announced as coming soon. It stores only URLs and titles, locally in the browser profile — nothing is transmitted to the developers — and there is no account to create. Extensions exist for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, plus a Mac-only Safari app that lags well behind. Export is a plain-text URL list. The whole product is free, with more than two million Chrome users, no limits, and no paid tier.
About Toby
Toby is a visual tab manager built around the browser's new-tab page. Open tabs save into drag-and-drop collections, whole sessions can be stashed and restored in one click, and collections group into spaces that can be shared with teammates or published as public links that require no Toby account. It began inside Vancouver venture studio Axiom Zen in 2016, was once named a top Chrome extension of the year by Google and Product Hunt, and now claims more than 500,000 users under operator Launch Labs. Extensions cover Chrome, Edge, and Firefox, a web app works anywhere, and companion apps bring collections to iOS and Android. Toby AI can name, sort, and group open tabs automatically. Toby stores links rather than page content, so there is no archiving, highlighting, or full-text search. The free Starter plan caps at 60 saved tabs; Productivity costs $4.50 per member per month billed yearly, and Team runs $8 with SSO and centralized billing.
Which should you choose?
Finally, a true head-to-head: both are tab managers, and they split the category along solo-versus-team lines. OneTab is the minimalist’s answer — one button flattens every open tab into a text list, no account exists, nothing costs anything, and after a 2026 v2 rewrite the old warhorse even gained folders, search, stars, tasks, and dark mode. Toby is the organizer’s answer — tabs become visual cards in collections and spaces, synced through the cloud, restored as whole sessions, and shared with teammates or the public.
Choose OneTab if:
- You want tab relief with zero ceremony: no signup, no sync setup, no tier to outgrow, and unlimited saved tabs forever.
- Privacy by architecture appeals — URLs never leave your machine unless you deliberately publish a list as a shared web page.
- One desktop browser is your whole world, so the absence of mobile apps and sync costs you nothing.
Choose Toby if:
- Tabs are team property: shared spaces, member invites, org-wide collections, and no-account public links are the product’s spine.
- You live across devices — extensions on three browsers, a web app anywhere, and iOS/Android companions keep collections in reach.
- Visual organization sticks better for you than lists, and Toby AI grouping and naming your open tabs sweetens the deal.
Bottom line: solo users should default to OneTab and pocket the savings — its real weaknesses are the missing sync and the fragility of a purely local list, so export backups regularly. Teams and multi-device workers should pay for Toby, which is the strongest collaborative tab manager available, while remembering its 60-tab free plan is a trial in all but name.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither OneTab nor Toby 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.
OneTab vs Toby FAQ
Which is truly free, OneTab or Toby?
OneTab — no account, no limits, no paid tier, a genuine rarity, with over two million Chrome users. Toby's free Starter plan allows 60 saved tabs total; past that you keep read access but cannot add more. Continuing costs $4.50/member/month billed yearly ($54/yr) for Productivity or $8/member/month ($96/yr) for Team with SSO.
Which syncs across devices?
Toby, today. Collections live in the cloud behind an account, reachable from Chrome, Edge, and Firefox extensions, a web app, and iOS and Android companion apps. OneTab has no accounts and no sync — your list exists in one browser profile, and its announced end-to-end-encrypted sync remains 'coming soon' with no release date or pricing. Multi-device users need Toby.
Which handles my data more safely?
Different risks. OneTab's danger is loss: the list lives locally, uninstalling the extension deletes it, and clearing browser data can too — though plain-text export makes backups trivial. Toby's data sits in its cloud, survives your browser, and exports as JSON, HTML, or TXT, but only Toby's own JSON keeps notes and tags, and there is no public API.