head to head · open source
Karakeep vs Wallabag
Karakeep has 29,110 GitHub stars, 1,516 forks, 726 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Wallabag has 12,969 stars, 896 forks, 764 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. Karakeep leads on adoption by 124% (29,110 vs 12,969 stars). Karakeep is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; Wallabag is written in PHP under MIT. Karakeep has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Wallabag 7%. Karakeep was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (read-it-later, self-hosted), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Karakeep | Wallabag | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 13K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-16 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 896 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Karakeep if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Wallabag if
- You want the Wallabag feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Wallabag fits your workflow better
About Karakeep
Karakeep is a self hostable bookmark and content management application designed for users who collect links, notes, images, and PDFs across devices. It originated as Hoarder and evolved into a full featured tool for personal knowledge management, with strong emphasis on AI assisted organization and long term content preservation. Built with Next.js, it runs in the web browser and mobile apps, supporting both local and cloud hosted AI models.
read the full Karakeep overview →
About Wallabag
wallabag is a self hosted web application for saving web pages and reading them later. It lives in the PHP and Symfony ecosystem, is released under the MIT license, and presents itself as a read it later tool for users who want to keep their saved articles on their own server. The project also points to wallabag.it as a hosted account option for people who do not want to run the application themselves.
read the full Wallabag overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Karakeep or Wallabag more popular?
Karakeep has 29,110 GitHub stars and Wallabag has 12,969. Karakeep has the larger community by that measure.
Are Karakeep and Wallabag free?
Both are open source. Karakeep is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Wallabag under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Karakeep and Wallabag?
Karakeep is written in TypeScript and Wallabag in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Karakeep or Wallabag?
Choose Karakeep if you want the larger community (29,110 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Wallabag if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.