Instapaper vs wallabag
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
Instapaper
Read-later app that strips articles down to clean text
wallabag
Open-source read-it-later app you can self-host or use hosted
Where they differ
- Instapaper starts at $5.99 per month, or $59.99 per year. wallabag starts at 11 € per year, or 4 € for 3 months (wallabag.it hosted service).
- Only Instapaper lists a macOS app.
- wallabag is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
At a glance
| Instapaper | wallabag | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free plan |
| Starts at | $5.99 per month, or $59.99 per year | 11 € per year, or 4 € for 3 months (wallabag.it hosted service) |
| Free plan | Unlimited saves, sync across web, iOS and Android, folders and API access. Notes are capped at 5 a month, and AI summaries and speed reading at 10 a month each. | The open-source software is free to install on your own server under the MIT license. The hosted wallabag.it service has no free plan, only a 14-day trial. |
| Free trial | None listed | 14-day free trial of wallabag.it with no credit card; saving by email, feeds and imports are held back for subscribers |
| Web | ||
| macOS | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Browser extension | ||
| Made by | Instant Paper, Inc. | Nicolas Lœuillet and wallabag contributors |
| Price read from | instapaper.com | wallabag.it |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
Who each one suits
Instapaper
- Saving long articles to read later without ads or page clutter
- Reading saved articles on a Kindle, Kobo or Boox eReader
- Commuters and travelers who read or listen offline
wallabag
- People who want a read-later archive on a server they control
- Readers looking for a low-cost hosted service based in Europe
- Reading saved articles on a Kobo or PocketBook e-reader
- Former Pocket and Omnivore users moving an existing archive
Worth knowing
Instapaper
- Full-text search, the PDF reader and the permanent archive all require Premium.
- Free accounts get 5 notes a month, and 10 summaries and 10 speed-read articles a month.
- AI summaries are not yet available on Android, according to Instapaper's docs.
- Free accounts see ads on the Instapaper website; Premium removes them.
wallabag
- The hosted wallabag.it service has no free plan: after the 14-day trial it costs 4 € for 3 months or 11 € a year, and prices are in euros only.
- During the wallabag.it trial, saving by email, RSS and Atom feeds and imports from other services are switched off.
- Using wallabag at no cost means installing it on your own server and handling backups and upgrades yourself.
- The iOS app went closed source with its own paid features from version 7.6, and the project no longer presents it as the official iOS app.
Key features
Instapaper
- Decluttered reading view
- Removes ads, navigation and other page clutter from a saved article and reformats it for reading, with adjustable fonts, margins, line spacing and text size.
- Offline reading and sync
- The iOS and Android apps download unread articles so they can be read without a connection, and reading lists stay in sync across devices.
- Highlights and notes
- Highlight passages and attach notes, then export them as plain text, Markdown or HTML or send them to Obsidian, Evernote or Notion.
- Kindle, Kobo and Boox delivery
- Kobo eReaders link directly to an Instapaper account, free accounts included. Scheduled and manual Kindle digests require Premium.
- Text to speech
- The iOS and Android apps read saved articles aloud at 0.5x to 2x speed. AI Voices and multi-article playlists come with Premium.
- Summaries and speed reading
- Generates an AI summary with the key sentences of an article, and can flash text one word at a time. Each is free for 10 articles a month.
wallabag
- Article extraction and reading view
- wallabag pulls the article content out of a saved page and stores the readable text in your account, shown in a distraction-free view that adapts to phones and tablets.
- Tags, filters and full-text search
- Saved articles can be tagged, marked as favorites, filtered and found again through a search engine that covers their full text.
- Highlights and annotations
- An annotation system lets you highlight extracts in an article and write notes against them.
- Mobile apps and browser add-ons
- Android and iOS apps download saved articles for offline reading, and Chrome and Firefox add-ons save the page you are on in one click.
- Feeds, e-readers and export
- Unread, starred, archived or tagged articles can be published as private RSS or Atom feeds, sent to Kobo and PocketBook e-readers with community apps, and exported as PDF, ePUB, mobi, JSON, CSV, txt or HTML.
- Imports from other services
- Reading lists can be imported from Pocket, Instapaper, Pinboard, Omnivore, Shaarli, another wallabag instance or any RSS or Atom feed, keeping tags and read and favorite status.
Plans
Instapaper
Free$0
Unlimited saved articles, videos and pages, sync across web, iOS and Android, folders and API access. Notes are limited to 5 a month.
Premium$5.99
per month, or $59.99 per year
Full-text search, PDF reader, permanent archive, unlimited notes, Kindle digests, AI Voices and text-to-speech playlists, and an ad-free website.
wallabag
Self-hostedFree
The full open-source application on a server you install, back up and upgrade yourself.
3 months4 €
for 3 months, not renewed automatically
The complete hosted wallabag.it service for one quarter, with every feature included.
1 year11 €
per year, not renewed automatically
The complete hosted service for a year in a single payment; the vendor marks it as its most popular plan.
The ❤️ subscription30 €
per year
The same hosted service and features, priced higher to give extra funding to the open-source project and its maintenance.
Ways to pay less
Instapaper
- Annual discount
Save over 15% with the yearly plan
Instapaper's Premium page says the yearly plan saves over 15%: $59.99 a year instead of $5.99 a month.
wallabag
- Annual discount
A year costs less than four 3-month terms
The pricing page lists 11 € for one year against 4 € for 3 months, so a year bought in one payment costs 5 € less than four consecutive 3-month subscriptions.
