Pocket alternatives, one year after the shutdown
Mozilla shut Pocket down on 8 July 2025 and deleted all remaining user data on 8 October 2025, so there is nothing left to migrate from. The best replacement depends on what you used Pocket for. Raindrop.io is the closest free swap for saving and tagging links, Readwise Reader is the strongest choice if you read and highlight seriously, Instapaper is the lightest reader, and Kyurations is the one to pick if the point was never storage but building a collection you would show someone.
Why people are looking
Mozilla announced the shutdown on 22 May 2025, closed the service on 8 July, and gave a three-month export window that ended on 8 October 2025.
Anyone who missed that window has no archive to move. If you have an export file sitting on a drive, Raindrop, Readwise Reader, Karakeep and Kyurations will all read it directly.
Pocket did two jobs at once: it was a queue of things to read later, and it was a pile of things you liked. Most replacements only do one of those well, which is why picking the wrong one feels wrong for months.
The picks
The closest free swap for saving, tagging and finding links again.
Best for: Someone who wants Pocket back, with folders.
Strong at- Unlimited bookmarks on the free tier, which no other established tool matches
- Nested collections, tags and a fast search
- Browser extensions and apps on every platform
Weak at- The reading experience is thinner than Pocket's was
- Collections look like a file manager, so a shared collection reads as a folder rather than as something you made
The best of these if you actually read what you save and mark it up.
Best for: Someone whose saved links are research, not a wishlist.
Strong at- Highlighting, notes and spaced review that surfaces old highlights
- Handles articles, PDFs, email newsletters, YouTube and Twitter threads in one queue
- Exports cleanly into Obsidian, Notion and Roam
Weak at- No free tier worth planning around
- Built for a private workflow, so there is little to show anyone
The one to pick if the pile was always meant to become something other people could see.
Best for: Someone who saves with taste and wants the result to look like it, not like a folder.
Strong at- Saved links arrive as cards that look like where they came from, with cover, author, tags and a short gist already filled in
- Articles and PDFs read in the app, and it picks up where you stopped
- Lists form themselves out of what you save, and you rearrange them until they feel right
- Any list can be published as a page worth sending to someone
- Ask Kyuri questions across everything you have saved, and every answer cites the items it came from
- Export the whole collection at any time
Weak at- Newer than the rest of this list, so it installs from the browser rather than from an app store
- Reading happens in the app but not offline, and nothing keeps an unread count for you
The lightest reader here, and the least in your way.
Best for: Someone who wants text, on a phone, on a train.
Strong at- The cleanest article view of any of these
- Genuinely good offline reading
- Has outlived most of its competitors, including Pocket
Weak at- Organisation stops at folders and highlights
- Not built for links that are videos, repos or products
The self-hosted option, if you would rather own the server.
Best for: Someone who runs their own things and wants no vendor to trust.
Strong at- Open source, so a shutdown announcement can never apply to you
- Full-text search over saved pages, with automatic tagging
- Docker install, active development
Weak at- You are the operations team
- Sharing is a link to your own server, which is not the same as publishing
Plain text bookmarking that has not changed in fifteen years, on purpose.
Best for: Someone who wants a URL, a tag, and no opinions.
Strong at- Fast, tiny, and completely uninterested in engagement
- Archiving tier keeps a copy of every page you save
Weak at- No covers, no previews, no reading view
- One person maintains it, which is both the appeal and the risk
How to choose without trying six of them
Ask what you did with Pocket on the day you liked it most. If the answer is that you read a long article on a phone, take Instapaper or Readwise Reader. If the answer is that you found a link you had saved eight months earlier, take Raindrop.io or Pinboard. If the answer is that you sent someone a list of the good stuff, take Kyurations.
Most people who bounce between tools are answering the wrong question. They compare feature lists when the real difference is what the tool assumes you are doing.
If you still have a Pocket export
The export is an HTML file of links with tags and timestamps. Raindrop, Readwise Reader, Karakeep and Kyurations all read it directly. In Kyurations the tags come across with the links and the whole file lands in one go, though it is still worth asking how much of an archive you kept because it was good rather than because saving was free.
If you do not have the file, you do not have the data. Mozilla deleted it after 8 October 2025 and there is no recovery path.
Questions people ask
- Is Pocket really gone?
- Yes. Mozilla closed the service on 8 July 2025 and permanently deleted all remaining user data after 8 October 2025. The apps and extensions no longer work.
- What is the closest thing to Pocket now?
- Raindrop.io, if you mean the saving and tagging. Instapaper, if you mean the reading. Neither is a full replacement, because Pocket was doing both.
- Is there a free Pocket alternative?
- Raindrop.io has the most generous free tier for plain bookmarking. Kyurations is free and adds automatic covers, tags and gists, plus publishing. Karakeep is free if you host it yourself.
- Can I still recover my Pocket data?
- Only if you downloaded the export before 8 October 2025. After that date Mozilla deleted it, and there is no way to request a copy.
- Which Pocket alternative is best for sharing a reading list?
- Kyurations, because publishing is the point of the product rather than a setting inside it. A list becomes a page with covers and your name on it in one tap. Raindrop can share a collection, but it arrives looking like a folder.