At a Glance:
Readeck is a self-hosted bookmark manager and read-later tool that automatically saves web page content, highlights, creates collections, and exports articles as EPUB e-books, with full-text search and browser extensions.
Overview:
Readeck is a self-hosted web application that functions as both a bookmark manager and a read-later tool. It saves the complete readable content of web pages, including text and images, to a user's own instance for permanent archival. The application automatically detects articles, pictures, and videos, processes them accordingly, and supports organizing saved content through labels, favorites, archives, and search-based collections. Readeck offers full-text search, browser extensions for one-click saving, and EPUB export for e-readers with OPDS support. It is distributed as a single binary or container image, runs server-side rendered rather than as a single-page application, and stores bookmarks in immutable ZIP files using SQLite as the database engine.
Key Decision Points:
Self-hosted application: Deployed using a single binary file or container image on a laptop or server, giving users full control over where their data resides.
Server-side rendered architecture: Written in Go with server-side rendering and minimal JavaScript, avoiding the dependency complexity of single-page applications.
Complete content preservation: Saves all text and images from bookmarked pages into the local instance at the moment of saving, ensuring long-term access even if the original source disappears.
No external browser requests: For non-video content, no requests are made from the user's browser to external websites after a bookmark is saved, reinforcing privacy.
E-reader integration: Supports EPUB export for individual articles or entire collections, and provides OPDS access for e-readers to browse catalogs directly.
Core Features:
Bookmark saving: Paste a URL to save a web page's readable content, with automatic detection of articles, images, and videos.
Labels, favorites, and archives: Organize bookmarks by adding labels, marking as favorites, or moving to an archive.
Highlights: Highlight important text within saved bookmarks for easier retrieval later.
Collections: Save search queries as persistent collections to group bookmarks by criteria like time period and labels.
Browser extension: Save bookmarks in one click from Firefox or Chrome without copying and pasting URLs.
EPUB export: Export individual articles or entire collections to EPUB format for reading on e-readers.
OPDS support: Access the article catalog and collections directly from e-readers that support standard OPDS feeds.
Full-text search: Search across all saved content, including article text, labels, and website sources.
Use Cases:
Individuals who want to preserve articles, images, or videos in a private, self-hosted archive for long-term reference.
Developers and system administrators comfortable deploying single-binary or container-based applications for personal use.
Readers who prefer consuming web articles on e-readers and need EPUB export with OPDS integration for seamless transfer.
Open-Source Alternative Value:
Readeck provides an open-source, self-hosted alternative to proprietary read-later and bookmarking services by keeping all saved content—text and images—stored locally in the user's own instance. The application's single-binary and container deployment options allow individuals to run it on personal hardware without relying on external servers. Its server-side rendered architecture and SQLite database reduce operational complexity compared to many modern web applications, while immutable ZIP storage per bookmark offers a transparent and durable content preservation model. As an open-source project, users can inspect, modify, and contribute to the codebase, with source installation available for development and testing.