Wallabag: self-hosted Read It Later

Why people self-host Wallabag

Wallabag is a mature read-it-later service focused on saving articles, cleaning reading views, tagging, and export. It is a practical Pocket replacement for readers who want their archive to survive product changes.

The tradeoff is a traditional web-app feel and some parsing variance. Test browser and mobile save flows before importing a large queue.

What Wallabag does well

Saves articles in a clean, ad-free reading view that stays available after the original disappears.
Official Android and iOS apps, browser extensions, and a bookmarklet.
Exports to EPUB, PDF, and other formats, and works with e-readers through KOReader and similar tools.
Tags, automatic tagging rules, annotations, and RSS feeds of your own lists.

Who Wallabag is for

Wallabag is the obvious self-hosted Pocket alternative, and it got a wave of new users when Pocket shut down in 2025. It suits readers who save long articles to get through later, especially on an e-reader. It handles text. If you also want screenshots, videos, and automatic tagging, Karakeep is the newer kind of tool.

Deployment notes

Wallabag is listed with support signals for linux, docker. Check the upstream documentation before exposing it to the internet, review authentication defaults, and keep backups outside the primary host.

It is a PHP and Symfony application with an official Docker image, and it works with PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite. A small VPS is plenty. Set the domain name variable correctly at the start, because it is awkward to change later. Some sites need a login or custom parsing rules to save cleanly, and Wallabag supports per-site configuration for that. It can import from Pocket, Instapaper, Pinboard, and browser bookmarks. The database, plus the images folder if you enabled image downloads, is your backup.

Common questions about Wallabag

Can I import my Pocket export into Wallabag?

Yes. Wallabag has an importer for Pocket data along with Instapaper, Pinboard, Readability, and browser bookmarks. Large imports run best with the asynchronous import option enabled.

Does Wallabag work with Kindle or Kobo?

Yes, in a few ways: export articles as EPUB, use the KOReader plugin on supported devices, or use community integrations for Kobo. Kindle users usually send EPUB exports to the device.