Raindrop vs Pocket
Raindrop is an active, well-polished bookmark manager; Pocket was a classic read-later app that Mozilla shut down in July 2025. For anyone picking between them today, there isn't really a choice left. This comparison is mostly useful for Pocket refugees deciding whether Raindrop fits their workflow.
Raindrop
All-in-one bookmark manager with collections, tags, and a polished UI across every platform.
Free, paid from $3/mo
- Best-in-class UI for organising a large library of saves
- Nested collections and tags for serious curators
- Native apps on every major platform including browsers
Save articles, videos, and stories from any publication.
Free, paid from $4.99/mo
- Simple, polished reading experience
- Strong native apps across iOS, Android, and web
- Defined the read-later category for over a decade
Feature comparison
Raindrop covers more territory than Pocket ever did: nested collections, file uploads, highlights on the free tier, and an MCP server for AI tools. Here's how they line up on every feature.
| Feature | Raindrop | Keep | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capture and save | |||
| Browser extension | ✓Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge | ✓ | ✓Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave |
| Mobile apps | ✓iOS, Android | ✓iOS, Android | × |
| Save from email | × | −Send-to-Pocket address | ✓Forward to in.keep.md |
| Save tweets | −Partial | × | ✓ |
| Save YouTube videos | −Partial | ✓URL only | ✓With transcripts |
| Save GitHub stars | × | × | ✓ |
| Save PDFs | ✓Full-text search Pro only | × | ✓Converted to markdown |
| Save files (docs, spreadsheets) | ✓PDF, EPUB, images, video | × | ✓Word, Excel, CSV, HTML, OpenDocument |
| Save audio files | ✓mp3, wav, aiff, flac | × | ✓With Whisper transcription |
| Save via API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Auto-sync sources | |||
| RSS auto-sync | −Via IFTTT applet | × | ✓ |
| YouTube channel sync | × | × | ✓ |
| X bookmarks sync | × | × | ✓Automatic sync is a $5/month add-on. Manual CSV or JSON import on every plan. |
| GitHub stars sync | × | × | ✓ |
| Newsletter inbox sync | × | × | ✓ |
| Library and reading | |||
| Reader view | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Offline reading | × | ✓ | −Partial |
| Full-text search | −Pro | −Premium | ✓ |
| Semantic / AI search | −Pro (Stella) | × | ✓ |
| Highlights | ✓ | −Premium | ✓Highlight from the extension or from inside the reader, with optional notes; renders inline |
| Notes | ✓ | −Partial | ✓ |
| Tags | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Collections | ✓Nested | × | ✓ |
| Public sharing | ✓ | −Partial | −Partial |
| Full-text RSS extraction | × | × | ✓ |
| AI and agents | |||
| Markdown export for AI agents | × | × | ✓Per-item .md URL |
| Bulk markdown export | × | × | ✓ |
| MCP server | ✓Official server | × | ✓ |
| CLI tool | × | × | ✓keep npm package |
| Claude Code skill | × | × | ✓ |
| AI summaries | ✓Pro (Stella) | × | ✓AI summary and AI tagging on every saved article |
| Public API | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Import and export | |||
| OPML import / export | × | × | ✓Import from and export to any OPML-compatible reader |
| Pocket import | ✓ | × | ✓ZIP, CSV, and legacy HTML exports |
| Instapaper import | ✓ | ✓ | ✓CSV export with folders, archive, and starred state |
| CSV / JSON export | −HTML, CSV, TXT only | ✓ | ✓Export to CSV or JSON. Import plain CSV/TSV plus Omnivore, Raindrop.io, Pinboard, and Wallabag export files. |
| Send to Kindle | × | × | ✓EPUB delivered to your Kindle email |
| Import Kindle highlights | × | × | ✓From My Clippings.txt, no Amazon login required |
Pricing
Raindrop is free for unlimited bookmarks with a generous free tier, and Pro is $3/mo ($28/yr). Pocket Premium was $4.99/mo, but Pocket has shut down.
Raindrop
- Free
- Unlimited bookmarks, collections, tags, sync devices. 100 MB/month uploads.
- Free
- Pro
- Full-text search, permanent web archive, 10 GB/month uploads, Stella AI assistant, annotations on highlights.
- $3/mo
- Free
- Save unlimited items, basic offline reading.
- Free
- Premium
- Permanent library, full-text search, unlimited highlights, suggested tags, premium fonts, ad-free.
- $4.99/mo
Keep
- Starter
- Bookmark saves from the web app and browser extension, plus a limited note library.
- Free
- Personal
- Full-content Markdown, search, sources, automations, MCP, CLI, API, and export. Also available as a one-time lifetime purchase.
- $10/mo
- X bookmark sync
- Optional add-on. Automatic private X bookmark sync. Requires Personal.
- $5/mo
Strengths and weaknesses
Raindrop's strengths are its organisation polish and free-tier generosity. Pocket's were simplicity and distribution (it came with Firefox). Neither was built as an agent-ready library.
What Raindrop does well
- Best-in-class UI for organising a large library of saves
- Nested collections and tags for serious curators
- Native apps on every major platform including browsers
- Genuinely usable free tier with unlimited saves
- Official MCP server for Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, and more
Where it falls short
- Not a reading app; reader view is secondary
- Export formats limited to HTML, CSV, and TXT (no markdown or JSON)
- No native RSS subscription or newsletter intake
- Highlights are basic compared to Readwise Reader or Matter
What Pocket did well
- Simple, polished reading experience
- Strong native apps across iOS, Android, and web
- Defined the read-later category for over a decade
- Clean text extraction for most articles
Where it fell short
- Pocket was shut down by Mozilla on July 8, 2025
- Limited search and organization without Premium
- No structured export for AI tools or LLM workflows
- Proprietary lock-in; RSS and bulk sync workflows are limited
Which one should you pick?
Pick Raindrop if…
You want a polished place to store a large library of links with tags, nested collections, and public shareable folders. You're fine using Raindrop's reader view as a secondary feature rather than the main one.
Pocket is no longer an option
Pocket has shut down and is no longer available. Any of the active alternatives is a safer bet.
About Raindrop
Raindrop is a bookmark manager with polished apps on every major platform, a generous free tier with unlimited bookmarks, and a surprisingly thorough AI layer for Pro users. Pro is $3/mo ($28/yr) and unlocks full-text search across saved pages and PDFs, the Stella AI assistant, a permanent web archive, reminders, and annotations on highlights. Highlights themselves are free on every tier. The product quietly got ambitious on AI in 2025. There's an official MCP server at /rest/v2/ai/mcp that works with Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, VS Code with Copilot, Windsurf, and Zed, plus an open REST API with OAuth and token auth.
About Pocket
Pocket launched in 2007 as Read It Later, pioneered the modern read-later category, and was acquired by Mozilla in 2017. For nearly two decades it was the default way to save web articles and read them later on any device, with a clean reader view and optional offline access. Mozilla shut Pocket down on July 8, 2025. All user data was permanently deleted on November 12, 2025. The apps and extensions no longer work, and any integrations built against the Pocket API have stopped. If you still have an export file from before that date, most modern alternatives (Instapaper, Readwise Reader, Raindrop, Matter, Keep) can import it.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Mozilla shut down Pocket on July 8, 2025 and deleted all user data on November 12, 2025. Existing apps and extensions should be uninstalled. If you still have your export file from before that date, most alternatives can import it.
Mostly yes. Raindrop's free tier is unlimited bookmarks, unlimited collections, unlimited tags, and includes highlights. Pocket Premium's full-text search equivalent on Raindrop requires Pro ($3/mo).
Yes. Raindrop accepts HTML exports from Pocket directly. Import is under Settings → Import.
Not really. Raindrop has a reader view but it's secondary to its bookmark manager core. If clean, distraction-free reading is what drew you to Pocket, Instapaper or Matter are closer matches.
Yes on Pro. The permanent web archive feature stores a copy of every page you save. On the free tier, Raindrop stores the bookmark and metadata but not the full page body.
Raindrop Pro is $3/month, the cheapest paid tier in the category. Pocket Premium was $4.99/month. Raindrop's free tier is also more usable than Pocket's free tier ever was.
Yes, on iOS and Android, plus desktop apps for macOS, Windows, and Linux. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. More platform reach than Pocket ever had.
Yes, this is where it shines. Nested collections, unlimited tags, smart filters, collaboration on collections, and a polished UI across every device. If you save a lot, Raindrop handles it better than Pocket did.
Yes, on Pro. The Stella AI assistant does semantic search, summaries, and organizational suggestions. There's also an official MCP server that works with Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, and other AI tools.
Raindrop's highlights are free on every tier and work on web pages, PDFs, and EPUBs. Annotations on highlights (adding notes) require Pro. Pocket's highlights required Premium.