The best Pocket alternatives, compared honestly
Pocket shut down on July 8, 2025. Mozilla retired the original read-it-later app after 18 years, and the export window closed on October 8, 2025 — the data is gone. What's left is choosing a new home for the save-now-read-later habit, and the good news is that several of the options are genuinely better than late-era Pocket ever was.
Pocket is gone. The best replacement depends on how you used it:
- Closest like-for-like swap → Instapaper — clean reader, free unlimited saves, works everywhere. See the comparison →
- Power users (RSS, newsletters, highlights) → Readwise Reader — the serious upgrade, $9.99/mo billed annually.
- Best free organizer → Raindrop.io — unlimited bookmarks and highlights, free forever.
- Never lose a library again → Wallabag or Karakeep — open source, self-hosted, shutdown-proof. See how →
Why everyone's moving
What happened to Pocket
This isn't a "the product got worse" story — Pocket was switched off. If you're here, you don't get to choose whether to leave; you only get to choose where your reading habit lands next.
It's shut down
Mozilla announced the end on May 22, 2025 and switched Pocket off on July 8, 2025. Apps, extensions and the website all stopped working.
The data is deleted
Exports were possible until October 8, 2025; after that every save, highlight and note was permanently deleted. If you have the export ZIP, it's your only copy.
Premium wound down
New Premium sales stopped on May 22, 2025. Annual subscribers were refunded pro rata; the "permanent library" ended with the servers.
Firefox moved on
Mozilla said it's "channeling resources into projects that better match how people use the web" — Pocket's save button and New Tab recommendations left Firefox too.
Second shutdown in a year
Omnivore closed in November 2024, Pocket in July 2025. Sustainability and clean export are now real selection criteria for a read-it-later app.
Pocket did several jobs
One-tap saving, a clean offline reader, highlights, text-to-speech and a permanent archive. No single app matches all of it exactly — pick by the job you actually cared about.
The shortlist
7 Pocket alternatives worth trying
Ranked by how well they replace the everyday Pocket use case — save from anywhere, read distraction-free later — but there's no single winner: pick by what you actually need. Every app here can import a Pocket export file if you saved one in time.
The other original read-it-later app, still doing exactly that job: one-tap save, a beautifully plain reader, folders, offline reading and sync — free with unlimited saves. Premium ($5.99/mo or $59.99/yr) adds full-text search, a permanent archive, unlimited notes and Kindle delivery. Trade-off: development moves slowly, and notes are capped at 5/month on the free tier. Pocket vs Instapaper →
Read-it-later plus RSS, newsletters, PDFs, EPUBs and YouTube transcripts in one inbox, with best-in-class highlighting that syncs to Obsidian, Notion and friends. $9.99/mo billed annually ($12.99 monthly) after a 30-day trial. Trade-off: no free tier, and it's more app than a casual reader needs. Pocket vs Readwise Reader →
A polished bookmark manager with a reader mode — unlimited bookmarks, collections, highlights and devices on the free plan. Pro ($28/yr) adds full-text search, permanent copies and AI tag suggestions. Trade-off: it's organize-first; the reading flow (offline text, listening) is thinner than the dedicated readers.
The proven open-source read-it-later: clean reader, tags, annotations, apps for iOS/Android and e-reader export. Self-host it for free, or pay €11/year for the hosted wallabag.it and own your data either way. Trade-off: the UX is rougher than the commercial apps and the parser occasionally trips on complex pages. The own-your-data lane →
A self-hosted "bookmark everything" app (formerly Hoarder): links, notes and images with AI auto-tagging and full-text search, plus a reader view. Free and open source, actively developed, with a managed cloud in public beta. Trade-off: you need Docker or a NAS, and offline mobile reading is still maturing.
The most polished reading experience on iOS, with the best text-to-speech in the category — articles genuinely sound like a podcast. Core read-later is free; Premium is $60/yr on the web ($79.99/yr via the App Store). Trade-off: Apple-centric (the Android app is thinner), and the standout features sit behind Premium.
A local-first read-later app for iPhone, iPad and Mac: $9.99 once, no subscription required, with iCloud sync and deep Shortcuts automation. An optional $4.99/yr unlocks a year of new features — and you keep them if you cancel. Trade-off: Apple-only, with no web or Android access.
Side by side
Pocket alternatives compared
Pocket is included as the (retired) baseline. Everything below is compiled from each vendor's official pages — pricing and free tiers change, so verify current terms before you commit.
| App | Price | Free tier | Pocket import | Highlights & notes | Platforms | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pocket (shut down Jul 2025) | Was free + $44.99/yr Premium | — | — | Had both | — | Nothing — it's gone |
| Instapaper | Free · Premium $5.99/mo · $59.99/yr | Unlimited saves, folders, offline | ✓ CSV | Notes 5/mo free · unlimited paid | Web, iOS, Android, Kindle | Like-for-like Pocket swap |
| Readwise Reader | $9.99/mo annual · $12.99/mo | 30-day trial only | ✓ CSV | Best in class + sync out | Web, iOS, Android, desktop | Power users, PKM workflows |
| Raindrop.io | Free · Pro $28/yr | Unlimited bookmarks & highlights | ✓ CSV | ✓ (annotations Pro) | Web, mobile, desktop | Organized bookmarks + reading |
| Wallabag | Self-host free · hosted €11/yr | Everything (open source) | ✓ CSV | ✓ annotations | Web, iOS, Android, e-readers | Own your data, cheap hosted |
| Karakeep | Self-host free · cloud in beta | Everything (open source) | ✓ CSV | Notes ✓ · highlights basic | Docker/NAS, web, mobile | Self-hosted + AI tagging |
| Matter | Free core · Premium $60/yr web | Read-later basics | ✓ (while Pocket lived) | Unlimited on Premium | iOS/iPadOS first, Android, web | Listening to articles |
| GoodLinks | $9.99 one-time · optional $4.99/yr | Paid app (no subscription) | ✓ CSV | ✓ tags & notes | iPhone, iPad, Mac | One-time purchase, local-first |
"Pocket import" means the app reads the CSV export Pocket generated — useful only if you downloaded yours before October 8, 2025; Pocket's servers are gone. Pricing compiled July 2026 from each vendor's official pages.
Official pages: Pocket shutdown (Mozilla) · Instapaper · Readwise Reader · Raindrop.io · Wallabag · Karakeep · Matter · GoodLinks
A fair call
Picking the right replacement
Don't overthink it — match the app to the part of Pocket you actually used. Most people fall cleanly into one of these two camps.
Keep it simple if…
- You just want save now, read later back — Instapaper free does the whole core job.
- You mostly collect and organize links and read some of them — Raindrop.io free.
- You're all-Apple and allergic to subscriptions — GoodLinks, $9.99 once.
- You mainly listened to articles — Matter's TTS is the best in the category.
Go deeper if…
- Reading feeds a note-taking system (Obsidian, Notion) — Readwise Reader is worth every cent of $9.99/mo.
- You want your library shutdown-proof — self-host Wallabag or Karakeep; Omnivore and Pocket both proved the risk is real.
- You save more than articles (images, notes, references) — Karakeep's AI tagging shines.
- You want hosted-but-yours for pocket money — wallabag.it at €11/year.
Common questions
Pocket alternatives — common questions
Why did Pocket shut down?
Mozilla, which acquired Pocket in 2017, announced on May 22, 2025 that it was shutting the service down to focus resources on Firefox, saying "the way people use the web has evolved." Pocket stopped working on July 8, 2025. Digg founder Kevin Rose publicly offered to take Pocket over and keep it running; Mozilla went ahead with the shutdown anyway. Mozilla's announcement has the official framing.
Can I still export my Pocket data?
No. The export window closed on October 8, 2025, and all remaining Pocket data was permanently deleted after that date. If you downloaded your export (a ZIP containing a CSV of your saves) before the deadline, that file is your only copy — and most apps on this page can import it. If you didn't export in time, the library is unrecoverable.
What is the best replacement for Pocket?
It depends on the job. Instapaper is the closest like-for-like replacement — a clean, focused read-it-later app with free unlimited saves. Readwise Reader is the power-user upgrade (read-later plus RSS, newsletters, PDFs and highlight sync). Raindrop.io is the best free option for organized bookmarks with reading on top. Wallabag or Karakeep if you never want a shutdown to take your library again.
What is the best free Pocket alternative?
Instapaper's free tier covers the core Pocket job: unlimited saves, folders, offline reading and cross-device sync. Raindrop.io is also genuinely free — unlimited bookmarks, collections and highlights, with paid Pro only for extras like full-text search. If you can run Docker, Wallabag and Karakeep are free, open source and entirely yours.
Which apps can import a Pocket export file?
Instapaper, Raindrop.io, Readwise Reader, Wallabag and Karakeep all read the Pocket export format (the CSV inside the ZIP). Import preserves your saved URLs and tags; article text is re-fetched from the live web, so pages that have since gone offline may come back empty — one more argument for apps that store permanent copies going forward.
What happened to Pocket Premium subscriptions?
Mozilla stopped selling Premium on May 22, 2025. Monthly subscribers kept access through their final billing cycle and weren't charged again; annual subscribers received automatic prorated refunds. Premium's "permanent library" of archived copies ended with the servers — those stored copies weren't part of the export.
How do I make sure I never lose my reading library again?
Two strategies work. Self-host an open-source app — Wallabag or Karakeep — so your library lives on your own server; Omnivore (2024) and Pocket (2025) both proved that hosted read-later services can vanish. Or pick a hosted app with easy, complete export — Instapaper, Raindrop.io and Readwise Reader all let you download your data — and actually run that export once in a while.