Pocket vs Karakeep: Which is better? (2026)
The short answer
Karakeep — Mozilla closed Pocket in July 2025, and Karakeep (formerly Hoarder) is the most feature-complete self-hosted successor: AI tagging, summaries, semantic search, and full-page archiving, free forever on your own Docker server.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Karakeep | 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 | See site | Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month | Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month |
- See site
- Karakeep
- Free · Self-hosted: free. Karakeep Cloud Pro: $4/month
- Marqly
- Free · $48/year (≈$4/mo) or $8/month
Pricing
- Pocket: Pocket has shut down and no longer accepts new users. Mozilla shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025. Saves could be exported until October 8, 2025, after which all user data was permanently deleted. Premium subscribers received prorated refunds.
- 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.
- 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 Pocket
Pocket was one of the most popular read-it-later services on the web. Launched in 2007 as Read It Later and acquired by Mozilla in 2017, it let people save articles, videos, and links from any browser or app, then read them later in a clean, distraction-free view — online or offline — on iOS, Android, and the web. A free tier covered core saving and reading, while Pocket Premium added a permanent article archive, full-text search, and suggested tags. Pocket was built into Firefox and grew a large audience around its editorial Discover recommendations. In May 2025 Mozilla announced it was discontinuing the service: Pocket stopped working on July 8, 2025, exports remained available until October 8, 2025, and remaining data was then permanently deleted. Anyone who kept a Pocket export ZIP can still import those saves into most modern bookmark managers and read-it-later apps.
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.
Which should you choose?
Pocket asked nothing of you — install, save, read, free. Karakeep asks for a Docker server and an API key, and pays you back with a feature set Pocket never approached: AI tagging and summaries through any OpenAI-compatible service or a fully local Ollama model, Meilisearch full-text search with semantic and hybrid modes added in 2026, and full-page archiving that captures a copy, screenshot, and PDF of everything — even downloading videos via yt-dlp. Mozilla closed Pocket in July 2025; Karakeep, formerly Hoarder, is what a successor looks like when the ceiling is removed.
Choose Pocket if
- You genuinely can’t — the shutdown completed in 2025 and nothing survives past the October export deadline.
- No hosted revival or official successor exists.
Choose Karakeep if
- You’re comfortable self-hosting: everything is free, open source, and fully featured on your own hardware, with mobile apps and three browser extensions — unusual completeness for a self-hosted tool.
- You want the AI to do the filing: automatic tags, summaries, and search that understands meaning rather than exact keywords.
- You wire tools together — REST API, webhooks, a CLI, and an MCP server for AI agents are all included.
The honest trade is maintenance for immortality. Setup is real work, AI features need your own keys or local models, and the hosted Karakeep Cloud is still in public beta with a free tier capped at ten bookmarks and a $4/month Pro tier. But the project is thriving — past 28,000 GitHub stars with a steady release cadence — and its importers handle Pocket exports cleanly along with Omnivore, Instapaper, Linkwarden, and browser HTML. Ex-Pocket users who felt burned by a corporate shutdown and already run a homelab know exactly which way this verdict points.
The option both sides overlook
If the real problem is finding things again, neither Pocket nor Karakeep 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.
Pocket vs Karakeep FAQ
Can Karakeep import a Pocket export?
Yes. Karakeep's importers cover Pocket exports alongside browser bookmark HTML, Omnivore, Instapaper, Linkwarden, and mymind files — one of the broadest import lists anywhere. You need the ZIP you downloaded before October 8, 2025, since Pocket itself deleted everything after that date. Imported saves get AI tags, summaries, and full-page archives automatically.
Is Karakeep free?
The self-hosted app is completely free, fully featured, and open source; you supply a Docker server plus, for AI tagging and summaries, your own OpenAI-compatible API key or a local Ollama model. The hosted Karakeep Cloud, still in public beta, offers a free tier capped at 10 bookmarks and a Pro tier at $4/month.
How hard is Karakeep to set up compared with Pocket?
Meaningfully harder — that's the price of ownership. Pocket was install-and-go; Karakeep expects a Docker deployment and bring-your-own AI keys, though it rewards the effort with iOS and Android apps, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari extensions, offline reading, and Meilisearch-backed search with semantic and hybrid modes added in 2026.