Burkmak vs Gistory

Burkmak is a free, MIT-licensed, self-hosted read-it-later application for saving links, reading articles, highlighting passages, syncing with Kobo, and exporting notes to Obsidian. Its reader extracts articles into a clean view with highlights and notes, while tags, read states, favorites, and search organize per-user libraries. Links can be captured through the web app, Android share sheet, or desktop browser bookmarklet. Kobo support provides an OPDS catalog for EPUB and KEPUB downloads plus native store-protocol synchronization that writes reading state back. An Obsidian plugin transfers article notes, highlights, and metadata through Burkmak’s export API. Docker Compose deployment includes backend and web containers, a data volume, and amd64 and arm64 images; the volume stores the SQLite database, cached articles, images, and EPUBs. Product requirements state that server-fetched content remains on the self-hosted instance and no third-party analytics are used. Native Kobo synchronization requires HTTPS, physical-device support remains pending, and the architecture targets one instance rather than horizontal scaling or high availability.

Gistory is an article-saving app that creates AI summaries when a reader saves an article. Its TL;DR includes three key points and key insights, with a longer summary as an option. Summaries are available in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, and Hindi. Readers can use distraction-free reading, dark mode, full-text search, and offline access. Articles can be saved from its mobile apps or Chrome and Firefox extensions, and the library syncs across platforms. Gistory is available on web, iOS, Android, and as an extension. The free tier includes unlimited article saves, 90 days of history, and 10 AI summaries per month. Premium costs $7.99 a month and adds unlimited summaries and history, plus Notion and Obsidian integrations. Gistory says it does not bypass paywalls; for paywalled articles it saves the URL, title, and any available preview. It says it uses industry-standard encryption, does not sell personal information, and allows users to export or delete their data. A seven-day trial is listed.