Linkwarden — Self-Hosted Collaborative Bookmark Manager

What Linkwarden Does

• Save & Organize: Save links with tags, collections, and descriptions
• Page Preservation: Automatic full-page screenshots and PDF snapshots of every saved link
• Full-Text Search: Search across saved page content, not just titles and URLs
• Collaboration: Share collections with team members, with permission controls
• Browser Extension: One-click save from Chrome, Firefox, and Safari
• Mobile PWA: Progressive web app for mobile bookmark access
• Import/Export: Import from Pocket, Raindrop, browser bookmarks (HTML/JSON)
• RSS Feeds: Subscribe to collections via RSS
• Tags & Collections: Hierarchical organization with nested sub-collections
• Reading List: Mark bookmarks as read/unread with reading progress

Architecture

┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│  Next.js     │────▶│  Next.js API │────▶│  PostgreSQL  │
│  Frontend    │     │  + Prisma    │     │  (Data)      │
└──────────────┘     └──────┬───────┘     └──────────────┘
                            │
                     ┌──────┴───────┐
                     │  Playwright  │
                     │  (Screenshot │
                     │  & Archive)  │
                     └──────────────┘

Self-Hosting

Docker Compose

services:
  linkwarden:
    image: ghcr.io/linkwarden/linkwarden:latest
    ports:
      - "3000:3000"
    environment:
      DATABASE_URL: postgresql://linkwarden:linkwarden@postgres:5432/linkwarden
      NEXTAUTH_SECRET: your-random-secret
      NEXTAUTH_URL: http://localhost:3000
      NEXT_PUBLIC_DISABLE_REGISTRATION: "false"
      ARCHIVAL_METHOD: screenshot,pdf
    depends_on:
      - postgres
    volumes:
      - linkwarden-data:/data/data

  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: linkwarden
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: linkwarden
      POSTGRES_DB: linkwarden
    volumes:
      - pg-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  linkwarden-data:
  pg-data:

Key Features

Page Archival

Every saved link automatically gets:

• Screenshot: Full-page rendered screenshot (like Wayback Machine)
• PDF Snapshot: Complete page saved as PDF
• Readable View: Clean, readable text extraction

This means even if a website goes offline, you still have the content.

Browser Extension

Available for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari:

• Right-click any link to save
• Quick-add popup with tag and collection selector
• Keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+L)

Collaboration

• Create shared collections
• Invite team members with view/edit/admin roles
• Activity feed for shared collections
• Public collections with shareable links

API

# Save a link
curl -X POST http://localhost:3000/api/v1/links 
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" 
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" 
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com", "collection": {"id": 1}, "tags": [{"name": "dev"}]}'

# Search links
curl "http://localhost:3000/api/v1/links?searchQueryString=react&searchByName=true&searchByUrl=true" 
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"

Linkwarden vs Alternatives

FAQ

Q: How much storage do web page snapshots use? A: Each screenshot is about 0.5–2MB (PNG); PDFs about 0.2–1MB. Allocate enough storage if you save a lot of links. In settings, you can choose to save only screenshots or only PDFs.

Q: Can I import browser bookmarks? A: Yes. You can import HTML bookmarks exported from browsers, plus exports from Pocket, Raindrop.io, and Omnivore.

Q: Multi-user support? A: Yes. Each user has their own bookmark space, and you can collaborate through shared collections. Admins control whether registration is open.