Read Later" Apps Compared: Pocket vs. Instapaper vs. Readability

"Read Later" Apps Compared: Pocket vs. Instapaper vs. Readability

Chances are, you stumble upon a lot of articles during the day that look interesting, but that you don't have time to read right now. Lots of services have cropped up to solve this problem, and today we're looking at the most popular three and pitting them against one another: Pocket, Instapaper, and Readability. Here's how they stack up.

We've touched on this subject a few times before, and this article originally appeared back in March of 2012 (which is why some of the comments are outdated). However, with the years come new names, new features, and more. So, we've updated this comparison to include the latest versions of each app.

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Pocket (Formerly Read It Later)

Pocket was the first of these bookmark and read later services back when it was called Read It Later, and as such has an impressive spread of supported devices and apps. It's also come a long way in the looks department, and has some killer features that make it our favorite of the three.

Price: Free

Supported Devices: Pocket has official apps for iOS, Android, Chrome, and the web. There are also third party clients for Windows Phone, BlackBerry, WebOS, and others available.

Supported Apps: Pocket has, by a good margin, the most support among third party apps. If you want to save articles from Pulse, Flipboard, the Onion, TweetBot, the Alien Blue Reddit Client, and other apps, Pocket is the service to use. It also has browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, and a bookmarklet that works in any browser. For everything else, it has an easy save-by-email function. You can view the full list of supported apps here.

Interface & Features: Pocket is probably the most feature-packed of the three clients. Apart from the features mentioned above, Pocket can also:

• Save embedded video in any article so you can watch them inline. No other read-it-later app does this (though you must unfortunately be online for this feature to work in Pocket).
• Send articles to other people via email, or—even better—straight to other Pocket users.
• Choose from two different fonts, multiple font sizes, and three different color palettes (black on white, white on black, and sepia).
• Choose from two views on the home screen: a tiled "card" view and a traditional list view.
• Tag articles for easier browsing

Who Should Use It: When in doubt, Pocket probably supports your device of choice and the apps you use. It has a solid feature set and a well put together interface, plus it's supported by nearly everyone that supports a bookmark and read later app. Currently, it's our favorite read later service.

Instapaper

Instapaper was long popular with the iOS crowd, but has since expanded to other platforms. Its always been praised for its design, but we think its biggest strength lies in its article discovery. Not only can you save articles you found on the web, but the ability to follow your friends on Instapaper is a great way to pick up a few more, plus the Editor's Picks help you find articles you wouldn't have otherwise read. It's mainly focused on the Mac and iOS side of things, but has a lot of third party support on other platforms too.

Price: $3.99 on iOS, $2.99 on Android. Instapaper also offers a $1/month subscription service that lets you search your entire archive of articles, which is handy.

Supported Devices: Instapaper officially only supports iOS, Android, and the Kindle. You can also export your articles in ePub format, for use on any ereader that supports it.

Supported Apps: Instapaper doesn't have quite as many supported apps as Pocket, and many of them are iOS and Mac apps (like Reeder, NetNewsWire, and Tweetbot), but the list is still impressive. You can also submit articles via a bookmarklet or by email. Check out Instapaper's list of supported apps for more information.

Interface & Features: Instapaper has a very pretty interface, and has grown to include a solid list of features. Apart from the above, Instapaper also lets you:

• Choose from 14 different fonts, multiple font sizes, paragraph spacing, and line spacing options as well as three color palletes. Instapaper has more choices for customizing the reader interface than any other app of its type.
• Follow other people on Instapaper and read articles they've "liked"
• Discover popular articles others are reading through Instapaper's "The Feature" section (which is a little wonky and includes a lot of duplicates, but is still a great way to find stuff to read)
• Choose from two views on the home screen: a tiled "card" view and a traditional list view.
• Scroll through articles by tilting your device back and forth.
• Define words you don't know using an offline dictionary.
• Organize articles in folders for easier browsing.
• Search your entire archive of articles (pro subscription only).

Who Should Use It: If you love choosing between a bunch of different fonts, like novel features like tilt scrolling, and have other friends using Instapaper, this app is for you. In our experience, it doesn't always work as well as other apps at stripping and presenting articles, but as far as design configurability goes, it's the most powerful of the three.

Readability

Readability has always been a big name in making web articles more readable, but it's way behind the times on the bookmark service and mobile apps. Still, while it may not be as mature and feature-filled as its cousins, its simplicity may win over people who just want to get reading.

Price: Free

Supported Devices: Readability supports iOS, Android, and Kindle devices, and it has extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Safari, plus the usual bookmarklets and add-by-email features.

Supported Apps: Readability doesn't have a lot of app integration, though it does work with a few popular ones, like Pulse, Reeder, Flipboard, Tweetbot, Longofm, and iCab Mobile. Check out Readability's apps page for more info.

Interface & Features: Readability looks pretty similar to Instapaper, but with fewer options. We think it looks a little nicer and its gestures and animations really make its interface nice, but it isn't nearly as feature-filled as the other apps. With it, you can:

• Navigate the app with a number of handy gestures
• Tag articles for easier browsing
• See what other people are reading with the "Top Reads" list, which is an awesome way to find new articles
• Choose from two views on the home screen: a tiled "card" view and a traditional list view.
• Choose from five different fonts, five text sizes, five settings for column width, and two color palletes (light and dark).

Who Should Use It: Readability is probably the prettiest in our opinion, both in interface design, gestures, and animations, but it doesn't have a ton of features or support a lot of apps. If you just want something simple, Readability will work fine, but otherwise, we'd recommend skipping it in favor of Pocket or Instapaper.

Read Later" Apps Compared: Pocket vs. Instapaper vs. Readability