Caute and Omnivore.
Omnivore's code lives on for people who run it themselves. If you kept the export from its hosted service, Caute reads it with the pages Omnivore saved, your highlights on their passages and your labels as tags.
Omnivore's hosted service closed in November 2024.
In their words
“Omnivore is a complete, open source read-it-later solution for people who like text.”
From github.com
Side by side
| Compared | Omnivore | Caute |
|---|---|---|
| The export | A zip with each page as Omnivore kept it, its highlights and its labels | Reads all three: the page as kept, each highlight on its passage with your note, labels as tags |
| Source code | Open source, with a guide to running it yourself | Not open source; the card format is open, and the command line and the Obsidian plugin are MIT-licensed |
| Exporting | From a server you run | At any time, on every plan, in the open card format |
- The export
- Omnivore: A zip with each page as Omnivore kept it, its highlights and its labels
- Caute: Reads all three: the page as kept, each highlight on its passage with your note, labels as tags
Checked 2026-10-25.
What is the same
- Both keep a copy of the page, so a link that breaks still has its words.
- Both keep your highlights with the notes you wrote on them.
- Both take newsletters by email.
Stay with Omnivore if
- You want to run your reader on your own server. Omnivore's README has a guide to self-hosting, and Caute runs only as a service.
- You want an app whose code you can read and change. Caute is not open source.
Move to Caute if
- You'd rather not run a server, and want your library kept for you, with export at any time in an open format.
- You want to find the sentence later, by its words or by what it means.
- You want Claude, ChatGPT or another assistant to search what you saved and cite the passage it used.
- You want to know what happens if the service closes: Caute promises at least ninety days' notice, with export working until the end.
Moving from Omnivore
- Find the zip from Omnivore's export.
- In Caute, open Settings, then Import a library, and choose Import from Omnivore.
- Choose the zip. Caute saves each page from the copy in it, and places your highlights once each page is read.
An export file made from Omnivore still imports.
Questions
What about pages that are gone from the web?
They read as Omnivore kept them, from the copy in your export.
And PDFs I saved?
Caute reads each one again from its address. One no longer online is kept as a link.
Who can see what I import?
Only you. Everything lands in your private inbox, and nothing is shared until you move it into a shared space.
Caute compares itself to products people ask about. Prices and features are theirs, checked on the date shown, and change without notice. Tell us at support@axionarylabs.com if something here is out of date.