8 Best Pocket and Readwise Alternatives for Researchers

The short answer

The best Pocket alternative depends on what you need to carry over, and the best Readwise alternative depends on which half of Readwise you used:

• Closest Pocket replacement: Instapaper, because it imports a Pocket file, keeps your tags and stays free for unlimited saves.
• For heavy highlighters leaving Pocket: Readwise Reader, which accepts the Pocket ZIP and syncs highlights to note apps.
• For iPhone and iPad readers who listen: Matter.
• Free bookmarks with highlights: Raindrop.io.
• Free replacement for Readwise highlights: Glasp, which imports from Readwise and Kindle.
• Own your archive: Karakeep or Wallabag, both self-hostable.
• Readwise leavers who live in Obsidian: Obsidian Web Clipper plus a Markdown export.

Why are people leaving Pocket and Readwise?

People are leaving Pocket because it no longer exists, and leaving Readwise mostly because of price and scope. The two migrations look similar but start from different problems.

Pocket was closed by Mozilla. The export page stayed open for a limited period, then Mozilla deleted user data and turned off the API, as explained in Mozilla's notice about the end of Pocket. Anyone switching today is working from an export file they saved, or from nothing.

Readwise still works well, and the reasons to leave are different:

• Price: the Full plan, which includes Reader, costs $9.99 a month billed annually or $12.99 billed monthly. Lite, at $5.59 a month billed annually, covers highlight review but not Reader.
• Scope: Reader bundles RSS, newsletters, PDFs, an AI assistant and review. Some users only want a reading queue, or only want their Kindle highlights.
• Overlap: people who already keep notes in Obsidian or Notion may need only the export step, not a second library.

The practical consequence: a Pocket refugee needs a good importer, while a Readwise leaver needs a good exporter on the way out and a narrower tool on the way in.

What does a Pocket or Readwise export actually contain?

A Pocket export is a ZIP with one or more CSV files of your saves and, if you used the highlighter, a separate JSON file with the annotations. A Readwise export can be all your highlights as CSV or Markdown, plus your Reader library as CSV or a full ZIP.

Knowing the contents tells you what an importer can and cannot rescue.

Inside a Pocket ZIP:

• CSV files of saved items, the first named part_000000.csv, with links, titles, tags and the date each item was added
• A JSON file of highlights, present only if you annotated
• No copy of the articles themselves, so every importer fetches the pages again, and pages that have disappeared stay lost

What Readwise lets you take out (from the Readwise export documentation and Reader's export help):

• Every highlight as one CSV, or as Markdown files formatted with your own Jinja2 templates
• Highlights of a single document as a Markdown download
• Your Reader library as a CSV of documents
• A ZIP with uploaded files and full article content, sent by email
• Your feed subscriptions as OPML, readable by any RSS reader
• A PDF of any document with its highlights and notes

The asymmetry matters. Pocket highlights live in a file most importers ignore, while Readwise highlights leave in formats nearly every tool reads.

How were these alternatives evaluated?

Each alternative was judged on the migration, not only on the reading experience. I read each vendor's import, export and pricing documentation and noted four things:

1. Import path: does it accept a Pocket CSV or ZIP, a Readwise or Reader export, or only an HTML bookmarks file?
2. What survives: tags, folders, archive status, highlights and notes, as the vendor documents them.
3. Exit path: can you export again, in what format, on the free plan?
4. Price against Readwise: the yearly USD cost where the vendor publishes it.

Where a vendor does not say whether something is preserved, this article says so rather than guessing.

8 Best Pocket and Readwise Alternatives

1. Instapaper

Instapaper is the read-it-later service closest in spirit to Pocket: save a page, read it later in a clean view on the web, iOS or Android. It has openly courted former Pocket users with a dedicated welcome page and a Pocket import in Settings.

For a Pocket migration, Instapaper's advantage is that it asks almost nothing of you. Upload the export file, and Instapaper adds the tags from your imported articles automatically, so the organization you built in Pocket comes with the links.

Migration path

• From Pocket: upload the export file in Instapaper Settings; tags are imported and applied to each article.
• From Readwise: no documented Readwise import; it suits Readwise leavers who only want a queue.
• Exit path: a CSV download in Settings with URLs, titles and folders, available without Premium, plus a public API whose new version includes tag endpoints.

Key capabilities

• Unlimited saves on the free plan, synced across web, iOS and Android
• Folders and tags for organizing by project
• Highlights and notes, with notes capped at five a month on the free plan
• Full-text search and a permanent archive of every saved page (Premium)
• PDF reader for uploaded and web PDFs (Premium)
• Kindle and Kobo delivery of saved articles
• Text-to-speech with AI voices and speed reading (Premium)
• Developer API with OAuth, SDKs for Python and TypeScript

Best for

Researchers who used Pocket as a plain reading queue and want the same habit, on any phone, with the least setup.

Pricing

Free plan available. Instapaper Premium costs $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year, about half the yearly cost of Readwise Full.

Limitations

• Pocket highlights are not documented as part of the import, so expect links and tags, not annotations.
• Five notes a month on the free plan is tight for annotation-heavy reading.
• No native highlight sync to Obsidian or Notion; you rely on the API or third-party tools.

Instapaper replaces Pocket almost one to one; it does not replace Readwise's note pipeline.

2. Readwise Reader

Readwise Reader belongs here only for one group: people leaving Pocket who highlight a lot. For anyone leaving Readwise, it is the thing being replaced. Reader collects articles, PDFs, EPUBs, newsletters, RSS feeds and YouTube transcripts in one queue, and its highlights flow into Obsidian, Notion and Logseq.

The Pocket integration that once pulled a library over automatically no longer works, because the Pocket API is gone. What remains, according to Reader's migration guide, is uploading the Pocket ZIP you saved.

Migration path

• From Pocket: upload the exported ZIP file; the direct Pocket connection is disabled.
• From Instapaper: a direct integration keeps folders and archive status, with archived items landing in Reader's Archive.
• From Matter: forward Matter's export email to Reader; tags and inbox or archive locations are not imported.
• Exit path: library CSV, full-content ZIP, OPML for feeds, and highlights as CSV or Markdown.

Key capabilities

• Articles, PDFs, EPUBs, newsletters, RSS and YouTube transcripts in one queue
• Highlights on text, images and tables, with tags and notes
• Ghostreader, an AI assistant for questions about a document
• Text-to-speech with adjustable speed
• Offline full-text search
• Automatic highlight sync to Obsidian, Notion, Logseq, Roam and Evernote
• Daily Review of past highlights
• Apps for web, Mac, Windows, iOS and Android

Best for

Former Pocket users who read across formats, highlight daily and want those highlights in a notes app without copying.

Pricing

Reader requires the Readwise Full plan: $9.99 a month billed annually or $12.99 billed monthly. There is a 30-day free trial and 50% off for students and academics.

Limitations

• The most expensive option on this list, with no permanent free plan.
• The breadth of features takes configuration and can turn into a second inbox.
• Pocket highlights are not documented as part of the ZIP import.

Reader is the upgrade path from Pocket, not a cheaper path away from Readwise.

3. Matter

Matter is a reading and listening app for iPhone, iPad and the web that greets Pocket readers on its homepage. It treats an article, a newsletter and a podcast transcript as the same kind of document, which you can read or play.

Matter's import pitch is the most generous in wording: it says the Pocket and Instapaper integration brings over your entire library, including tags and folders, and uses your old account to suggest writers to follow.

Migration path

• From Pocket or Instapaper: a built-in integration that imports the library with tags and folders, according to Matter.
• From Readwise: no documented import of Readwise highlights.
• Exit path: a data export sent by email, and highlight sync to note apps on Premium.

Key capabilities

• Save articles, threads and PDFs from the browser extension or share sheet
• Newsletters through a Gmail connection or a Matter email address
• Follow writers and feeds wherever they publish
• YouTube videos and podcasts transcribed into time-synced text
• Text-to-speech that switches between audio and text
• Highlights by long press, Apple Pencil, or voice while listening
• Offline full-text search, tags and queue filtering
• Quoteshots for sharing passages as images

Best for

Researchers on Apple devices who follow many newsletters and switch between reading and listening during the day.

Pricing

Free plan with an unlimited library. Matter Premium costs $8 a month or $60 a year and adds highlighting, notes, integrations and full-text search.

Limitations

• No Android or native desktop app.
• Highlighting sits in Premium, so the free plan cannot replace Readwise's highlight side.
• Matter's page does not say whether Pocket highlights or archive status transfer.

Matter costs about half of Readwise Full and trades PDF and RSS depth for audio.

4. Raindrop.io

Raindrop.io is a bookmark manager that many researchers use as a read-it-later library. Its import page is the broadest on this list, and it is the only one that explicitly accepts a Readwise Reader export.

Raindrop.io's help center says bookmarks, folders, tags, notes, highlights and annotations "can all come with you", when the source file contains them. Imported items land in collections that mirror your original folders.

Migration path

• From Pocket: imports Pocket's HTML export format.
• From Readwise Reader: imports the Reader library CSV; a separate integration syncs Raindrop.io highlights to Readwise.
• From others: Instapaper CSV, Omnivore, GoodLinks, Pinboard, Diigo and browsers, among more than fifteen sources.
• Limits: files up to 300 MB (zip larger ones); duplicate URLs are skipped and existing bookmarks are never overwritten.

Key capabilities

• Unlimited bookmarks, collections and devices on the free plan
• Unlimited highlights on the free plan
• Nested collections, tags and shared collections
• Apps for Mac, iOS and Android, extensions for every major browser
• Full-text search, including words spoken in YouTube videos (Pro)
• Permanent copies of bookmarked pages (Pro)
• Annotations, reminders and AI suggestions (Pro)
• Duplicate and broken link finder, plus daily backups (Pro)

Best for

Researchers who collect links by project and want structure, sharing and highlights without paying, including Readwise Reader users who want their library in a cheaper home.

Pricing

Free plan available. Raindrop.io Pro is billed monthly or yearly; current prices are on Raindrop.io's pricing page, with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Limitations

• Pocket's documented import format is HTML, while saved Pocket exports are mostly CSV, so you may need to convert the file first.
• The reading view is secondary to organization.
• Permanent copies and full-text search require Pro.

Raindrop.io is the cheapest landing spot for a Readwise Reader library, with a lighter reader.

5. Glasp

Glasp is a social highlighter for web pages, PDFs, YouTube videos and Kindle books. It answers a narrower question than the other tools here: where do my highlights go if I stop paying for Readwise?

The answer is unusually complete on the import side. Glasp connects to a Readwise account to import highlights and notes, and its integrations list Kindle, Pocket, Instapaper, Matter, Raindrop.io, Wallabag, Hypothesis and others as sources.

Migration path

• From Readwise: connect the account; highlights and notes arrive and can be organized by tag and author.
• From Pocket: listed among import sources; test it on your file before relying on it.
• Exit path: Notion, Obsidian, Roam, Readwise, Zotero, Tana, Anki, plus Markdown and CSV; Glasp states that export is not a paid feature.

Key capabilities

• Highlight web pages, PDFs, YouTube and Kindle for free
• Kindle highlights exported as TXT, CSV or Markdown
• Browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox
• iOS and Android apps
• Public profile and community feed of highlights
• YouTube summaries (three a day on the free plan)
• Chat with uploaded PDFs, within monthly limits
• Audio transcription minutes on every plan

Best for

Readers who used Readwise mainly to collect Kindle and web highlights and want them in Obsidian or Notion without a subscription.

Pricing

Free plan available. Pro costs $12.50 a month ($150 a year) and adds unlimited private highlights and larger AI limits; Unlimited costs $30 a month ($360 a year). Students and educators get 40% off Pro billed annually.

Limitations

• Free highlights are public; privacy is the paid feature.
• No reading queue comparable to Reader: Glasp highlights where you already read.
• Pro costs more per year than Readwise Full, so it is only cheaper if public highlights are acceptable.

Glasp replaces Readwise's highlight collection, not its reader.

6. Karakeep

Karakeep, formerly Hoarder, is an open source "bookmark everything" app that you can host yourself or use as Karakeep Cloud. It saves links, notes, images and PDFs, tags them with AI and archives full pages against link rot.

Its documentation is the most precise about what a Pocket import keeps: titles, tags and the date each item was added, all preserved from Pocket's CSV format. Every import also creates a list of the imported items, which makes reviewing the result easy.

Migration path

• From Pocket: unzip the export and upload the CSV via "Import Bookmarks from Pocket export".
• From Omnivore: imports the JSON files from an Omnivore export.
• From browsers or a list: Chrome and Firefox HTML bookmarks, or a text file of URLs through the CLI.
• Exit path: API, CLI and an MCP server for connecting AI tools.

Key capabilities

• Links, notes, images and PDFs in one library
• AI-generated tags and summaries
• Keyword, hybrid and semantic search, with OCR on images
• Full-page archiving
• Reader view with highlighting
• Automation rules and RSS subscriptions
• Shared lists with editor or viewer roles
• iOS and Android apps, browser extensions

Best for

Technical researchers and archivists who want their former Pocket library on their own server, organized by AI rather than by hand.

Pricing

Self-hosting is free with all features. Karakeep Cloud Pro costs $4 a month or $40 a year, the lowest paid price here, with a 10-bookmark free tier for testing.

Limitations

• The docs do not mention importing highlights or archive status.
• Self-hosting AI tagging means configuring a model provider.
• Reading and annotation are lighter than in Readwise Reader.

Karakeep keeps more Pocket metadata than most, at a third of Readwise's yearly price.

7. Wallabag

Wallabag is a long-running open source read-it-later app, self-hosted or available as wallabag.it, a hosted service in Europe. It stores the full text of each article, which is exactly what a Pocket export lacks.

Wallabag added Pocket CSV import in version 2.6.13 and maintains a migration guide for former Pocket users. On wallabag.it, you choose "Import", then "Pocket CSV", and upload each CSV file from your ZIP one at a time.

Migration path

• From Pocket: Pocket CSV import; processing runs in the background and can take a few hours.
• From others: Instapaper, Pinboard, Readability and older wallabag instances.
• Exit path: export of articles, tags and annotations at any time.

Key capabilities

• Full-text storage for offline reading
• Annotations on saved articles
• Tags, favorites and search
• Full export of articles, tags and annotations
• Apps for web, mobile and e-readers
• Browser extensions for saving
• Self-hosting with the full source code
• Hosted option with support included

Best for

Privacy-minded researchers and librarians who want a permanent, exportable archive and accept a plainer interface.

Pricing

Self-hosting is free. wallabag.it has a 14-day free trial without a credit card; its plans are priced in euros on the wallabag.it site.

Limitations

• Wallabag re-fetches each page, so articles from sites that blocked or deleted them may fail to import.
• No AI features, newsletter inbox or note-app sync.
• Self-hosting means maintaining a server.

Wallabag gives you the full text Pocket never exported, without Readwise's conveniences.

8. Obsidian Web Clipper

Obsidian Web Clipper is a free, open source browser extension that saves pages and highlights into an Obsidian vault as Markdown files. For Readwise leavers, it pairs with the export step: bring your history over once with Readwise's Markdown export, then clip new reading directly into the same vault.

That combination removes the middle layer. Your highlights stop living in a service and start living in files you control, linked to the rest of your notes.

Migration path

• From Readwise: run the Markdown export with a template that matches your vault, then drop the files in.
• From Pocket: no importer; convert the CSV to notes with a script, or keep it as a reference file.
• Exit path: none needed, since everything is already plain Markdown on disk.

Key capabilities

• Pages saved as local Markdown files
• On-page highlighting, clipped in one click
• Templates for articles, references and academic papers
• Rules that apply a template by website
• Extraction of metadata and Schema.org data into note properties
• Hotkeys for clipping and highlighting
• Support for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Arc and more
• No account or server

Best for

Researchers who already think in Obsidian and used Readwise mostly as a pipe into their vault.

Pricing

Free and open source.

Limitations

• No reading queue or mobile reading app.
• No spaced review of highlights unless you add a plugin.
• Useful only if Obsidian is your base.

Obsidian Web Clipper replaces Readwise's sync with ownership, and drops the reader.

How do these alternatives compare on migration?

Compared on the four migration attributes, in the same order:

• Instapaper: imports a Pocket file; tags kept; highlights not documented; CSV export; $59.99 a year.
• Readwise Reader: imports the Pocket ZIP; Instapaper folders and archive kept; highlights not documented for Pocket; full exports; $119.88 a year billed annually.
• Matter: imports Pocket and Instapaper with tags and folders; highlights not documented; $60 a year.
• Raindrop.io: imports Pocket HTML and Reader CSV; folders, tags, notes and highlights when present in the file; price on vendor page.
• Glasp: imports Readwise highlights and notes, lists Pocket; free export to Markdown, CSV and note apps; free with public highlights, $150 a year private.
• Karakeep: imports the Pocket CSV with titles, tags and dates; free self-hosted, $40 a year in the cloud.
• Wallabag: imports the Pocket CSV and re-fetches full text; full export; free self-hosted, euro pricing hosted.
• Obsidian Web Clipper: takes Readwise Markdown exports; no Pocket importer; free.

How do you migrate without losing highlights, tags or your archive?

Treat the migration as a data job before it is a software choice. This checklist works for both Pocket and Readwise:

1. Secure the originals. Copy the Pocket ZIP, or run every Readwise export (highlights CSV, Markdown, Reader CSV, full ZIP, OPML), and store them outside any app.
2. Inventory what you have. Count rows in the CSV, check whether a Pocket annotations JSON exists, and note how many items are tagged.
3. Decide what must survive. Rank highlights, tags, archive status and full text. The ranking picks the tool.
4. Test with a sample. Import fifty items, including some with tags and some archived, and compare against the original.
5. Import in pieces. Pocket ZIPs can contain several CSV files; Wallabag asks for them one at a time, and Raindrop.io caps files at 300 MB.
6. Park the highlights separately. If the new app ignores the Pocket JSON or a Readwise CSV, convert it to Markdown and keep it in your notes.
7. Verify, then cancel. Cancel a Readwise subscription only after you have opened the exports and found your notes in them.
8. Check the exit. Before settling in, export once from the new tool. An archive you cannot export is one you rent.

Do researchers need a reading queue or an intelligence system?

A reading queue stores what you chose to read; an intelligence system decides what deserves reading from the sources you follow. Both problems get called "information overload", and they need different tools.

Every app above manages a queue you fill by hand. That works when you save a few articles a day. It breaks when the real input is dozens of newsletters, X accounts, company blogs and filings, because the queue grows faster than anyone reads, and moving it to a new app moves the backlog too.

If that is your situation, the fix sits upstream of the read-it-later app. Tools such as Kindal read the sources you choose and write a short brief only when something changes, with each line linked to its source, so the queue keeps only what deserves a close read. The two layers combine well: briefs for watching, a reading app for the pieces worth highlighting.

Which alternative should you choose?

Choose by the thing you are least willing to lose:

• You want Pocket back, as it was: Instapaper.
• Your highlights are the asset: Readwise Reader if you were on Pocket, Glasp or Obsidian Web Clipper if you are leaving Readwise.
• Your archive is the asset: Karakeep for metadata and AI organization, Wallabag for full text.
• Your library is large and messy: Raindrop.io, for its broad importer and duplicate handling.
• You read on the move: Matter on Apple devices, Instapaper everywhere else.

Whichever you pick, keep the original export files. Apps change; a CSV and a folder of Markdown files stay readable.