Pocket Shutdown Sparks Demand for Alternative Read-It-Later Apps

Mozilla's decision to shut down Pocket has led to a surge in interest for competing apps that offer similar functionality, including import features to help users transition their existing content.

In May 2025, Mozilla announced that it was closing down the popular read-it-later app Pocket, which it had acquired in 2017 for an undisclosed amount. This move sparked a growing demand for alternative apps that could help people save online content, particularly longer articles, that they want to read later when they have more time.

While Mozilla exited the business, citing a change in the way people browse the web, the shutdown has boosted adoption of a number of other apps, like Matter, Instapaper, and Raindrop.io, among others. It's also supporting the creation of new, indie alternatives.

Top Pocket Alternatives

• Matter: A GV-backed company that makes an eponymous iOS app along with browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. The app lets you listen to articles and transcribes your favorite podcasts. A $79.99 annual subscription unlocks features like improved transcriptions for podcasts and YouTube videos, tools to adjust reading speed, and additional integrations with other apps like notes apps, Gmail, and Kindle.
• Instapaper: Founded by developer Marco Arment in 2008, Instapaper is one of the oldest read-it-later apps. It's available on both iOS and Android, and lets you save unlimited articles and videos without paying any fees. A $59.99 annual subscription adds notes to saved articles, a permanent archive of articles in your accounts, create a text-to-speech playlist to listen to stories, enable full text search for all saved items, and get the ability to send articles to your Kindle.
• Raindrop: Works primarily as an alternative bookmark manager for web browsers. However, its accompanying mobile apps for iOS and Android allow you to read your saved articles and PDFs. A $33 annual subscription gets you AI-powered suggestions for organizing your content better, full text search, reminders for your bookmarks, a duplicate and broken links finder, and a file upload limit of 10GB per month.

Other Notable Alternatives

• Matter: A GV-backed company that makes an eponymous iOS app along with browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox. The app lets you listen to articles and transcribes your favorite podcasts. A $79.99 annual subscription unlocks features like improved transcriptions for podcasts and YouTube videos, tools to adjust reading speed, and additional integrations with other apps like notes apps, Gmail, and Kindle.
• Plinky: Former Twitter engineer Joe Fabisevich created Plinky to allow users to save and categorize any kind of link, including articles, videos, recipes, and memes. The app is available across all Apple platforms, along with browser extensions to save links. A $3.99 monthly subscription, $39.99 a year, or a one-time fee of $159.99 unlocks unlimited features.
• Readwise: A tool to add notes and highlights to articles, launched its Reader app in 2021. The app allows you to import RSS feeds, YouTube videos, Twitter threads, and more to read at your convenience. A $9.99 monthly subscription gets you access to the app.

Conclusion

The shutdown of Pocket has created a surge in demand for alternative read-it-later apps. While Mozilla exited the business, citing a change in the way people browse the web, the shutdown has boosted adoption of a number of other apps, like Matter, Instapaper, and Raindrop.io, among others. It's also supporting the creation of new, indie alternatives.