Readwise Reader: powerful, but at a price
Readwise Reader launched in 2022 and quickly became the tool of choice for readers who want everything in one place: articles, PDFs, newsletters, highlights and notes, all synced to a knowledge base. If you use Obsidian, Notion or Roam, it is genuinely useful.
That said, Readwise Reader costs around €96/year — roughly nine times the price of wallabag.it. It is a proprietary service hosted in the United States, and its value proposition is strongly tied to its highlight-sync ecosystem. If you are not part of that ecosystem, you are paying for features you will never use.
Some alternatives
- Instapaper is a focused read-it-later app at €55/year. Polished but expensive, with an uncertain long-term ownership history.
- Omnivore was an open-source alternative, but its team was acquired and the service shut down in 2024.
- wallabag.it is the open-source, EU-hosted option that covers the core read-it-later use case without the complexity or the cost.
Meet wallabag.it
wallabag.it is the hosted version of wallabag, an open-source read-it-later app running since 2013. It was built around one idea: your reading list should belong to you.
Full article storage
wallabag fetches the full text of every page you save, 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 show you ads. It is open-source software, run by people who believe in user freedom rather than exploitation.
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 — a meaningful difference for anyone wary of US data practices.
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 find past reads quickly with full-text search. Every feature is included in the base subscription, at no extra cost.
Export your data
Export your articles and annotations to PDF, ePUB, mobi, CSV or JSON whenever you want. Your data stays with you, always.
Pricing comparison
| Service | Yearly cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| wallabag.it | €11/year | All features included, privacy-focused, open source |
| Readwise Reader | €96/year | Highlights sync, RSS, AI features, US-hosted, proprietary |
| Instapaper | €55/year | Highlights, notes, text-to-speech |
| Raindrop.io | €26/year | Bookmark-focused, limited reader view |
wallabag.it offers the best value: a complete, distraction-free reading experience for just €11/year, with no ads or upsells. You can also support development more generously with the supporter plan at €30/year, or try the service for €4 over 3 months.
Final thoughts
Readwise Reader is a powerful tool for a specific type of reader — one who is deeply invested in highlight sync and personal knowledge management. If that is not you, you are paying €96/year for features you will never use.
wallabag.it covers the core need — save an article, read it later, offline if needed — for €11/year, open source and hosted in Europe. If simplicity and price matter, the choice is straightforward.