Karakeep is a self-hosted bookmark and content archiving tool designed for developers, data hoarders, and power users who want full control over their digital references. It goes beyond simple link saving by automatically fetching metadata, archiving full pages via Monolith, extracting text from images with OCR, and applying AI-powered tags and summaries. Originally known as Hoarder, it evolved from the creator’s frustration with existing tools like Pocket and Memos that lacked comprehensive archiving and intelligent tagging. Built with Next.js, Drizzle, and Meilisearch, Karakeep supports browser extensions, mobile apps, RSS feeds, and bulk imports from Pocket, Linkwarden, and Omnivore. Its AGPL-3.0 license ensures true open-source freedom while enabling both self-hosting and a managed cloud option.
What You Get
- AI-based tagging and summarization - Automatically generates tags and summaries for bookmarks using OpenAI or local Ollama models, reducing manual categorization effort.
- Full page archival with Monolith - Saves complete HTML snapshots of web pages to prevent link rot, preserving content even if the original page disappears.
- OCR for images and PDFs - Extracts text from uploaded images and PDFs to make their content searchable within the system.
- Auto video archiving with yt-dlp - Downloads and archives videos from YouTube and other platforms for offline reference.
- Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox - One-click bookmarking directly from your browser with automatic metadata extraction.
- iOS and Android apps - Native mobile applications for saving and reading bookmarks on the go with offline support planned.
- Full-text search via Meilisearch - Instantly search across all saved links, notes, image text, and archived content using a fast, typo-tolerant search engine.
- RSS feed auto-hoarding - Automatically imports and archives content from subscribed RSS feeds without manual intervention.
- Bulk actions and collaborative lists - Manage hundreds of bookmarks at once and share curated lists with team members.
- SSO and import from multiple platforms - Log in via SSO and import bookmarks from Chrome, Pocket, Linkwarden, Omnivore, and Tab Session Manager.
- Automatic sync with Floccus - Syncs browser bookmarks in real-time using the Floccus extension for seamless cross-device bookmark management.
Common Use Cases
- Building a personal knowledge base from scattered web content - A researcher or developer saves articles, tools, and tutorials from Reddit, Hacker News, and Twitter; Karakeep automatically archives pages, extracts text from screenshots, and tags them by topic for later review.
- Managing a team’s curated resource library - A DevOps team shares internal documentation, tool guides, and incident reports via shared Karakeep lists with AI-generated summaries for quick onboarding.
- Problem: Lost bookmarks due to link rot → Solution: Full-page archival - A user saves a critical blog post from 2021; when the domain expires, Karakeep’s Monolith archive preserves the full content with formatting intact.
- Team workflow: Cross-platform research collection - A marketing team uses the Chrome extension to save competitor pages during a campaign; mobile users review content offline, and admins generate AI summaries for weekly reports.
Under The Hood
Karakeep is a multi-platform knowledge management and bookmarking tool that unifies browser extensions, mobile apps, CLI tools, and web interfaces under a shared backend ecosystem. It emphasizes cross-platform consistency and developer experience through a modular monorepo structure.
Architecture
Karakeep follows a monorepo architecture with distinct applications and shared libraries, enabling consistent development across platforms.
- The codebase is organized into separate applications (browser extension, CLI, mobile, landing page) with shared packages for common logic and UI components
- It uses a layered architecture where each application maintains domain-specific logic while leveraging shared libraries for cross-cutting concerns
- Component-based UI composition and worker-based background processing are key design patterns throughout the codebase
- State management and API communication are handled through well-defined architectural patterns
Tech Stack
The project is built primarily with TypeScript and modern frontend frameworks, emphasizing type safety and developer tooling.
- The primary language is TypeScript, with strong focus on type safety and modern JavaScript features
- React is extensively used for UI development across browser extension, landing page, and mobile apps
- Vite serves as the build tool and development server for fast reloading and optimized builds
- A rich set of frontend libraries including Radix UI, Tailwind CSS, tRPC, and TanStack Query support the UI and API layers
Code Quality
The codebase shows a mixed quality profile with solid test coverage and consistent error handling practices.
- Error handling is consistently applied using try/catch blocks and structured approaches across modules
- Code maintains reasonable naming conventions and structural patterns that support readability
- Testing is comprehensive with a focus on integration and end-to-end scenarios, though some core implementations are underdeveloped
- The codebase demonstrates good separation of concerns and minimal duplication in well-defined modules
What Makes It Unique
Karakeep distinguishes itself through its unified multi-platform approach and shared architecture across diverse tools.
- A single data model is shared across browser, mobile, and web interfaces with consistent core logic
- Type-safe API communication is enabled through extensive use of TypeScript and tRPC for cross-platform consistency
- An innovative component-based UI system with shared design tokens and theming ensures visual uniformity across platforms
- Strong emphasis on developer experience is evident through documentation, tooling, and modular architecture