Del.icio.us is closing down. Time for a roundup of alternative bookmark managers.

article

Del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site, after being born in 2003 became somewhat an internet sensation with very troubled life.

It had its share of drama when Yahoo accidentally suggested it may shut down service in 2010. After that it was sold from hand to hand. And also redesigned multiple times leaving users angry and looking for other alternatives. And as I last checked it couple of months ago - it looked dead and I knew it will be only moments till it will disappear completely.

And as of recent events it was sold again to competing service Pinboard which plans - as I've foreseen this - to shut it down almost completely. Today (June 15, 2017) it will be set to read-only mode without ability to save new bookmarks as to preserve the "fascinating piece of web history" that contains around 1 billion of bookmarks.

But lets now focus on the future. You may have used Del.icio.us. And if you have used it then you are now probably looking for a new, simple and just the best bookmark manager that will fill the void of your bookmark managing (and even sharing) needs.

You're in good place. This is the ultimate showdown of currently available bookmark managers on the market! It lists all the top bookmark managers, but for completeness sake it also contains bookmarks managers that could be improved in some areas, and also other related tools.

Well... at least at the time of writing this article, which is year 2017.

(Update #1: this list is still correct in beginning of 2018.)

(Update #2: this list is still correct in beginning of 2019.)

(Update #3: added start.me.)

(Update #4: added tottem.app.)

Pocket

Website: https://getpocket.com   Cost: Free, with a 45$/year premium account

Who It's For: If you just want to save stuff to read it later from your various devices and if you are not an internet power user then Pocket will be ideal for you.

Platforms: Web, Android, iPhone, iPad, Kobo, Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Opera, Safari

Its seamless integration with Firefox and presence on almost all devices makes this the most popular bookmark manager there is. Or as Pocket describes itself - a "read it later" app.

Not as feature packed like some of the managers listed below but it has the solid basics. You have your list of bookmarks which you can then favorite, archive and add to the tags you create yourself.

You can also filter your bookmarks by their type (articles, videos and images).

Its web interface isn't most beautiful or highly functional but it gets the job done most of the time. The mobile apps are pretty good in terms of going through your read later list and actually reading it. And if you have premium account you can even read them without access to internet.

GGather

Website: https://ggather.com   Cost: Free with a $3/month premium account.

Who It's For: If you want to have a single place for all the websites, articles, images, etc. that you save because you know they will be useful some time in future then GGather is for you. Bonus points if you like to discover new links from other people.

Platforms: Web, Google Chrome, easy way to save on all devices by typing ggather.com/ before any link.

GGather is a shiny new bookmarking application which comes in two flavors - private bookmarks manager cleverly fused with social bookmarking and content discovery.

It packs features like human-friendly tags, scoring your bookmarks, notes, all-in-one search, ordering and advanced filtering. It also has multiple links layouts (list, grid, cards, etc.) that allow you to view your saved articles as a list and your saved images as a moodboard grid.

One of its coolest features is the ability to quickly save links without installing any apps. You just type ggather.com/ before any link and save it on your phone or your desktop browser. And its Chrome Extension doesn't only help you save bookmarks but also serves as a feature-complete browser of your links.

The social part of GGather sits on the concept of public tags. By default all of the tags created by people are private - but they can be changed to public and they will be then visible in their owners profiles and "discover" section. One of the examples of how it works would be my GGather public profile - https://ggather.com/dominik.

Disclaimer: This service is created by me (Dominik Serafin - author of this article) so even though I really try to be objective - the description above could be a little biased. But it's only because I'm really passionate about making GGather and I really think it's one of the best bookmarking services there currently is, and will be - with the direction it's heading in.

Instapaper

Website: https://www.instapaper.com   Cost: Free with a $2.99/month premium account.

Who It's For: If you are a minimalist and don't save that much stuff from internet, and things you save are mostly articles then Instapaper is for you.

Platforms: Web, Android, iPhone, iPad

Instapaper is a pretty popular bookmarking manager. It has a clean, minimalist interface and the basic features that everyone will make use for.

You can favorite links, add them to folders, archive them and take notes from their text. And that last feature is pretty useful. If you're on iOS then you can just select any text and tap "Highlight" and that text snippet will be then saved to your Instapaper library. Good for taking notes from tutorials and other interesting articles.

There's only one bad thing about Instapaper - it's web interface is pretty slow - going between sections takes couple of seconds and adding new links needs whole page refresh. But otherwise it's a pretty solid and simple bookmarking service.

Dropmark

Website: https://www.dropmark.com   Cost: Free with a $5/month premium account

Who It's For: If you need to save not only links but also text, images, videos and other files and share them with your team then Dropmark is for you.

Platforms: Web, MacOS, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari

Dropmark isn't exactly a bookmark manager but it can be most surely used as one. Mainly it's a tool for creative teams that need to share & discuss some links, images, videos, files and other types of media between them. But don't let that fool you. You can use it solo and it will be just as good.

One of the biggest cons (at least for customer) is that some of the basic features like tagging and commenting are not for free. You need to upgrade your account for $5 a month to access them.

It has a very nice interface that lets you neatly organize your files and view in a nice grid. All-in-all one of the best saving services after you buy a premium account.

Refind

Website: https://refind.com/   Cost: Free

Who It's For: If you don't care that much about growing and organizing your bookmarks library to revisit it later, but you care about discovering new content, then Refind is for you.

Platforms: Web, Windows, macOS, Android, iPhone, iPad, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera

Refind isn't the best bookmark manager but it's a superstar discovery tool. You follow some users and topics that interest you and after that you get a neat Flipboard-style feed with all the top links that were saved by other people.

It also has other major feature - you can create automatic newsletters with your saves that will be send to all the people that follow you.

It's a pretty simple service (which is a good thing) and useful.

Pinboard

Website: https://pinboard.in   Price: $11/year basic + $25/year for archiving feature

Platforms: Web, Android, 3rd party Android & iOS apps

This is actually the company that bought Del.icio.us.

It's a bookmark manager for people who don't like graphical interfaces, and value speed and privacy. There are no ads and no third-party tracking. You can connect and sync Twitter, Instapaper, Pocket and similar services.

It also has an archiving feature for additional $25 a year where you can save complete content of a website and access it even if that website is no longer on the internet.

But one of the most important feature it has in my eyes are the funny and mostly satirical tweets send out by its founder Maciej Ceglowski on official Pinboard twitter account - https://twitter.com/pinboard. Check them out, sometimes they are pretty funny.

Stash

Website: https://stash.ai   Cost: $3/month

Who It's For: If you don't like tagging and organizing your bookmarks manually then Stash is for you.

Platforms: Web, Android, iPhone, iPad

Stash is a pretty cool new bookmarking service that tries to use Artifical Intelligence to sort your bookmarks for you.

Its other features are pretty cool too. You can "push link" from one of your devices to another and also set reminders on links and notified about them later.

Raindrop

Website: http://raindrop.io   Cost: Free with a $2 premium account

Platforms: Web, Windows, macOS, Android, iPhone, iPad, Google Chrome, Chrome Start Page, Firefox, Safari, Opera

It has a lot going on for it - a really pretty interface, nested links collections with icons, pretty neat tagging, search and multiple link layouts like "list", "moodboard", etc and integrations with all the most important devices and platforms. All you would want to have from bookmark manager.

The problem I found with it is that its web interface only works properly on Google Chrome - it doesn't work correctly on Firefox and it doesn't work at all on Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge.

Unmark

Website: https://unmark.it   Cost: Free with a $12/year premium account

Platforms: Web

Basket

Website: https://www.basketapp.net   Cost: Free

Who It's For: For people who like Pocket but want to try something different but similar.

Platforms: Web, Google Chrome, Android

I'll be honest. It's almost a copy of Pocket and I couldn't find any differentiating features in favor of Basket.

Enboard

Website: https://enboard.co   Cost: Free

Platforms: Web

Enboard is simple service where you can create private & public boards that are filled with the notes, links and checklists in a neat "masonry" grid.

2019 Update: Enboard is no longer maintained.

Papaly

Website: https://papaly.com   Cost: Free

Platforms: Web

Very similar to Enboard - you create boards filled with links in a "masonry" layout.

Start.me

Website: https://start.me/   Cost: Free with paid plans starting at $20/year

Platforms: Web, Browser Extension

"Masonry" layout dashboard with bookmarks. Similar to Enboard and Papaly.

Stache

Website: http://getstache.com   Cost: Free

Platforms: Chrome Extension, but you need MacOS to use it at all.

Unhoard

Disclaimer: This is not bookmark manager per se. But it's worth the mention.

Website: https://www.unhoard.io/   Cost: Free

Some of us collect a ton of stuff only to not touch it later. Unhoard is a new service that tries to solve that. It helps to rediscover your own stuff by sending you the things you've ever saved, liked, pinned or favorited.

It works with various applications such as Pocket, Instapaper, Product Hunt, Dribbble, etc. - and that list is constantly growing...

Weirdos

Things that aren't exactly bookmark managers but they have some interesting saving, sharing or organizing functionality.

  • Point → Use Point to send and discuss webpages with friends.
  • Hypershoot → Capture fullpage snapshots of your favorite websites & organize them.
  • Pinterest → Discover recipes, home ideas, style inspiration and other ideas to try.
  • Stashes → Start your own curated directory. Discover awesome resources.
  • We Heart It → The young woman’s destination for self-expression. Connect with communities with similar interests and be inspired to collect & share what you love.
  • Curator → With Curator you can organise your thoughts visually, refine your visual story telling, collect inspiration, create mood boards...
  • Evernote → Capture, organize, and share notes from anywhere. Your best ideas are always with you and always in sync.
  • Fetching → Fetching is a new kind of bookmarking app. It keeps track of all the web pages you visit so you can easily re-find them later.
  • Pearltrees → Pearltrees is a place to organize all your interests. It lets you organize, explore and share everything you like.
  • Lumio → Break up with bookmarks! Highlight, organize and share text, data and images with lumio.
  • Channelkit → Channelkit creates beautiful customisable cards for all kinds of information.

Oldies & Other

Bookmark managers that are as old as the world itself and those that aren't worth digging in depth into. They're included in this list for completeness sake.

  • Google Bookmarks → Bookmarks from Google.
  • Saved → The simplest bookmarking tool ever.
  • Yabs → Yet Another Bookmarks Service. Smart bookmarking online service.
  • Wallabag → Save and classify articles. Read them later. Freely.
  • Diigo → Your Learning, Simplified.
  • Bookmark OS → Unlock the potential of bookmarks.
  • linkaGoGo → Your most favorite websites just one click away.
  • XMarks → Free bookmarks sync.
  • Larder → Bookmarking for developers.
  • Linkpack → Save, read and share your links.
  • Buttons → Buttons introduces innovative ways to save your favourite websites and collaborate with others.
  • Dewey → Better bookmarks for Google Chrome.
  • Revisit → Visual bookmarks for designers and developers.
  • Atavi → Your bookmarks are always close at hand!
  • SiteBar → The Online Bookmark Manager / The Bookmark Server.

Self Hosted & Open Source

  • Shaarli (+Shaarli Material/Shaarli Serious) → The personal, minimalist, super-fast, database free, bookmarking service
  • Wallabag → Save and classify articles. Read them later. Freely.
  • Buku → Highly delicious bookmark manager. Your mini web!
  • Bookie → Python based delicious.com replacement.
  • Sync-1.5 Server → Self hosted Firefox sync.
  • Lobsters Source → Run your own link aggregation site.
  • Pinry → The tiling image board system for people who want to save, tag, and share images, videos, and webpages.
  • Unmark Source → An open source to do app for bookmarks.
  • Easy Bookmark Manager → Easy and simple self-hosted bookmark / snippet management tool.
  • SemanticScuttle → SemanticScuttle is a social bookmarking tool experimenting with features like structured tags and collaborative tag descriptions.
  • Tottem → All the content you love, in one place. Tottem is an open-source library. Smart, social and beautiful.
  • Collect (Pre-Launch) → Gather your inspiration and resources.

Browser Extensions Only

  • Chrome → Toby → Toby brings your team closer to key resources without needing to use search on every work app. It's tab management for modern teams.
  • Chrome → Google Bookmarks Manager → Bookmarking made easier with the smarts of Google Search and a new modern UI.
  • Chrome → Oh, Hi Mark! → Bookmarks manager with smart search.
  • Chrome → Temporary Bookmarks → Temporarily stores bookmarks for a period of time of your choice with optional notifications.

References

This article was also published on Medium.com

Roundup of 40+ bookmark managers and Del.icio.us alternatives.