Compare Instapaper and Omnivore side by side on features, pricing, and the workflows each one is designed for.
A classic read-later app with clean text extraction and distraction-free reading.
Free, paid from $5.99/mo
Open-source read-later app with strong newsletter and markdown workflows.
Free
Here's how Instapaper and Omnivore compare across the features people actually look for. They share 13 core capabilities; the differences show up in what each tool focuses on.
| Feature | Instapaper | Omnivore |
|---|---|---|
| Capture and save | ||
| Browser extension | Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge | |
| Mobile apps | iOS, Android | iOS, Android |
| Save from email | Unique save-by-email address | Per-user address |
| Save tweets | ||
| Save YouTube videos | URL only | Partial |
| Save GitHub stars | ||
| Save PDFs | Premium | |
| Save files (docs, spreadsheets) | ||
| Save audio files | ||
| Save via API | ||
| Auto-sync sources | ||
| RSS auto-sync | ||
| YouTube channel sync | ||
| X bookmarks sync | ||
| GitHub stars sync | ||
| Newsletter inbox sync | Forward-to-save, not a dedicated inbox | |
| Library and reading | ||
| Reader view | ||
| Offline reading | ||
| Full-text search | Premium | |
| Semantic / AI search | ||
| Highlights | ||
| Notes | ||
| Tags | Labels | |
| Collections | Folders | Partial |
| Public sharing | ||
| Full-text RSS extraction | Partial | |
| AI and agents | ||
| Markdown export for AI agents | Raw markdown only | |
| Bulk markdown export | ||
| MCP server | ||
| CLI tool | ||
| Claude Code skill | ||
| AI summaries | ||
| Public API | ||
| Import and export | ||
| OPML import / export | ||
| Pocket import | ||
| Instapaper import | ||
| CSV / JSON export | HTML + CSV | |
| Send to Kindle | Premium |
Omnivore has shut down, so pricing below is for reference only. Instapaper is free, paid from $5.99/mo.
Free
Unlimited saves, folders, tags, sync across web/iOS/Android, API access.
Premium
Full-text search, permanent archive, PDF reader, unlimited notes, Kindle send, AI voices, speed reading, ad-free.
Free
All features free; open source.
Both tools do their category well, but the specifics differ. Here's what each one is good at and where it tends to fall short.
Omnivore has shut down and is no longer available. Any of the active alternatives is a safer bet.
Instapaper is one of the original read-later apps, still going strong after Betaworks took it back from Pinterest in 2020. The product has always been sharp on one thing: save a web page, read it later in a clean typographic view. Free tier gets you unlimited saves, folders, tags, sync across iOS/Android/web, and a public API. Premium at $5.99/mo or $59.99/yr layers on full-text search, permanent archive, PDF reader, Kindle send, AI voices, and speed reading. Most of the product has shipped in a long tail of small updates rather than big reinventions. The recent wave added tags across every platform, highlights on the open web via the browser extensions, and send-to-Kindle right from the extension.
Omnivore was a free, open-source read-later app that did everything right on paper: RSS feeds, newsletter inbox, PDFs, highlights, labels, filters, rules, full-text search, a GraphQL API that returned markdown, and sync with Logseq, Obsidian, and Notion. It ran on iOS, macOS, Android, web, and extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. It shut down on November 15, 2024 after ElevenLabs acquired the team for their ElevenReader TTS product. The cloud service deleted all user data; the open-source codebase still lives on GitHub for anyone who wants to self-host.