Pinboard: minimalist archiving
Pinboard built a solid reputation by doing one thing well: archiving links. No frills, no ads, a deliberately bare interface. For developers and users who left Delicious, it long represented the dependable choice for online bookmarking.
But Pinboard is primarily a link archiving tool, not a read-it-later app. It offers no reader view, no content extraction, no offline access to article text. It saves the URL, not the article.
If you want not just to keep your links but also to read their content in good conditions, Pinboard quickly shows its limits.
Some alternatives
- Raindrop.io offers more modern bookmark management with an optional reader view, but its core remains the visual organisation of links.
- Instapaper is focused on read-it-later, but its best features are locked behind an expensive subscription.
- wallabag.it is an open-source alternative, hosted in Europe, built specifically to fetch and read the full content of articles.
Meet wallabag.it
wallabag.it is the hosted version of wallabag, an open-source read-it-later app. It was built around one simple idea: your reading list should belong to you.
Full article storage
Unlike Pinboard, which only saves the link, wallabag fetches the full text of the page, cleaned up and ad-free. Even if the original website disappears, your copy stays intact.
Privacy by design
wallabag does not track you, sell your data or clutter your reading with ads. It is open-source software, run by people who believe in user freedom.
Hosted in Europe
All data on wallabag.it is stored on servers located in Europe, protected by strict EU privacy laws and fully GDPR-compliant.
Offline reading
Sync your saved articles across all your devices (phones, tablets and even e-readers like Kobo) and read them without a connection.
Tags, annotations and search
Organise your articles with tags, take notes and quickly find past reads with full-text search. All these features are included in the base subscription.
Easy migration from Pinboard
Leaving Pinboard is straightforward: wallabag.it provides an import tool that preserves your bookmarks and their metadata.
Pricing comparison
| Service | Yearly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| wallabag.it | €11/year | All features included, open source, hosted in Europe |
| Pinboard | €22/year | Link archiving only, no reader mode, no offline access |
| Raindrop.io Pro | €26/year | Full-text search, annotations, but focused on bookmarking |
| Instapaper Premium | €55/year | Full-text search, unlimited highlights, text-to-speech |
wallabag.it is cheaper than Pinboard and does considerably more: where Pinboard saves a link, wallabag saves the article.
Final thoughts
If you use Pinboard to track articles you have read or want to read, wallabag.it serves that need better, storing the content rather than just the URL. If you need minimalist link archiving with no reading ambitions, Pinboard remains a reliable tool in its own right.