Omnivore alternatives after the ElevenLabs shutdown
ElevenLabs acqui-hired the Omnivore team in October 2024 and the service closed on 15 November 2024, with roughly two weeks to export before the data was deleted. Nothing replaces it exactly, because Omnivore was open source, free, and a genuinely good reader all at once. Karakeep is the closest on philosophy and you host it yourself, Readwise Reader is the closest on highlight review and costs around $10 a month, and Kyurations is the closest on the reading itself: free, hosted, and the whole article rendered in the app from a capture taken in your own browser.
Why people are looking
Omnivore was open source, which is exactly why the shutdown stung. People had chosen it to avoid this outcome.
The code is still on GitHub and a community fork runs at omnivore.work, so self-hosting is a real option rather than a theoretical one.
The hosted service is gone and the data with it. If you exported in that two-week window you have an archive; if not, you do not.
The picks
Open source, self-hosted, and actively maintained. The philosophical successor.
Best for: People who picked Omnivore because it was open source.
Strong at- No company that can be acqui-hired out from under you
- Full-text search over archived pages, with automatic tagging
- Docker install and a healthy release cadence
Weak at- You are the operations team, including backups
- The reading experience is not as polished as Omnivore's was
The closest match on features, if you will pay for it.
Best for: People who used Omnivore's highlights and its newsletter inbox.
Strong at- Highlighting, notes and spaced review
- Newsletters, PDFs, YouTube and articles in one queue
- Exports into Obsidian, Notion and Roam
Weak at- Closed source, which is the thing you were avoiding
- No free tier
For the part of Omnivore that was building a library, not clearing a queue.
Best for: People whose saves were a collection with a shape.
Strong at- Reads in the app: the whole article in its own type, PDFs included, and it picks up where you stopped
- The extension captures the article from the page you are already signed in to, so a paywalled piece arrives whole
- Highlight as you read, and each quote links back to the exact words on the source
- Cover, author, tags and a gist arrive with the save
- Any list publishes as a page, which Omnivore never did
Weak at- Not open source
- No offline reading, and no unread count to work down
The older self-hosted read-later, still going.
Best for: People who want the Omnivore model with a longer track record.
Strong at- Has outlasted most of this category
- Real mobile apps and browser extensions
- Imports from Pocket, Instapaper and Omnivore exports
Weak at- The interface looks its age
- No highlight review
Questions people ask
- Why did Omnivore shut down?
- ElevenLabs hired the founding team in October 2024 to work on its ElevenReader text-to-speech app. The product was not acquired, it was discontinued, and the service closed on 15 November 2024.
- Can I still self-host Omnivore?
- Yes. The codebase is still on GitHub and a community fork runs at omnivore.work. It is unmaintained by the original team, so you are adopting an orphan, but it works.
- What is the best free Omnivore alternative?
- Karakeep or Wallabag if you can host it, Kyurations if you want something hosted and free without a self-hosting setup. Readwise Reader is the closest on features but is paid only.
- Is there a free Omnivore alternative that reads articles in the app?
- Kyurations does, free and hosted. The whole article renders in the app and you highlight as you read. There is no offline mode and no unread count, so it is a library rather than a queue you work down. Karakeep and Wallabag also read in-app if you are willing to host them.
- Can I recover my Omnivore data?
- Only from an export taken before 15 November 2024. Everything else was deleted.