Raindrop vs. Web Highlights: Which Bookmark & Annotation Tool Is Better?
Discover the key differences between Raindrop and Web Highlights, two powerful tools for bookmarking, annotating, and organizing online content.
Let’s face it - we all save way too many articles and websites these days.
If you’re drowning in digital content, you need a good tool to save and organize everything. Raindrop and Web Highlights are two popular options, and I’ve spent time with both to help you figure out which one might work better for you.
If you’ve been using Raindrop but are curious about alternatives, Web Highlights might be worth checking out. It offers a clean interface and lots of free features that might suit your needs better.
What’s Raindrop All About?
Raindrop is basically a super-powered bookmark manager. It lets you save pretty much anything from the web - articles, images, videos, PDFs - and organize them in one place.
You can get Raindrop as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and others. They also have apps for your phone and computer.
Who Uses Raindrop?
All kinds of people! Researchers collecting articles, designers saving inspiration, students organizing study materials, or just regular folks who want to keep track of interesting stuff they find online.
What Raindrop Does Well
- Saves anything from the web (articles, photos, videos, PDFs)
- Lets you create collections and add tags to organize stuff
- Sorts your items however you want
- Searches through the full text of saved pages
- Keeps copies of content even if the original disappears
- Works well for teams
- Available on pretty much any device
- Connects with tons of other apps
The Good Stuff
- Really good at managing bookmarks
- Clean, visual interface
- Works on all your devices
- Saves permanent copies of content
- Good for team collaboration
The Not-So-Good Stuff
- Limited options for highlighting and notes
- Not great for detailed annotations
- No flashcard features
- Less focused on academic research
- Can get messy with lots of bookmarks
Raindrop Pricing
- Free: $0/month (with some limitations)
- Pro Monthly: €3.42/month (VAT included)
- Pro Yearly: €31.83/year (VAT included, about €2.65/month)
The Pro plan includes AI suggestions, full-text search, permanent library, reminders, annotations, duplicate finder, daily backups, 10GB monthly file uploads, priority support, and works on all platforms.
Customer Support
- Help center
- Email support
- Community forum
Web Highlights - A Superior Annotation Alternative to Raindrop
Web Highlights focuses more on annotation than just bookmarking. It lets you highlight text, add notes, and organize information across websites. You can also export your notes to tools like Notion or Obsidian.
Right now, it’s available as a Chrome, Edge, and Firefox extension but its integrated cloud sync lets access your highlights across different computers and even from your phone.
Marius Bongarts
Who Uses Web Highlights?
Web Highlights is great for people who need to remember and organize what they read online. Students, researchers, teachers, and professionals who read a lot of online content find it particularly useful.
If you’re studying PDFs, writing papers, or doing research, Web Highlights might be just what you need!
Juliene Ebreo
Elie Khairallah
What Web Highlights Does Well
- Lets you highlight any website or PDF easily
- Uses tags to help you find saved highlights
- Supports formatted highlighting with headings, bullet points, etc.
- Lets you add notes to your highlights
- Works offline for highlighting and bookmarking
- Exports to Notion, Obsidian, and other formats
- Creates flashcards from your highlights
- Gives you daily learning recaps to build reading habits
- Imports your Kindle notes
- Sends email reminders for important notes
- Has keyboard shortcuts for faster work
- Searches through all your content
- Syncs across your devices
- Lets you share research with others
- Works offline for many features
The Good Stuff
- Easy to use
- Multiple highlight colors
- Works across your devices
- Great free version
- Good tagging system
- Works offline
- Exports to many formats
- Great for academic work
The Not-So-Good Stuff
- No folders, just tags
- Can be slow with big PDFs
Pricing
- Basic: Free
- Premium: $3.99/month, $34.99/year, $109.99/lifetime
- Ultimate: $4.99/month, $39.99/year, $119.99/lifetime
You can check current prices on their website.
Customer Support
Why Web Highlights Might Be Better Than Raindrop
1. Better Highlighting
Raindrop is mainly about saving pages, but Web Highlights is all about highlighting and notes.
With Web Highlights, you can highlight text in different colors on both websites and PDFs. Just select the text, pick a color, and you’re done. You can also use the keyboard shortcut “Alt + S” to speed things up.
Raindrop has some basic highlighting, but it’s not as good or easy to use as Web Highlights. If you mainly want to highlight and take notes rather than just save pages, Web Highlights is probably better for you.
Marius Bongarts
2. Formatted Highlighting
Web Highlights lets you format your highlights with different styles (bold, headings, bullet points), which makes organizing information easier.
Raindrop doesn’t have this - you just get basic highlighting. If you need more ways to organize your research, Web Highlights wins here.
Marius Bongarts
3. More Export Options
Web Highlights lets you export to tools like Notion, Obsidian, and Capacities. You can also export to markdown, PDF, or HTML files, which is great for saving offline copies or sharing with others.
Raindrop connects with lots of apps, but its export options for highlights and notes aren’t as good. If you use multiple productivity tools, Web Highlights probably fits better into your workflow.
Marius Bongarts
4. Email Reminders
We all find interesting stuff online and then forget about it.
Web Highlights can send you email reminders about saved highlights and pages, so you don’t forget important information.
Raindrop doesn’t have built-in reminders, so Web Highlights is better if you need prompts to revisit your research.
Marius Bongarts
5. Image Highlights
Web Highlights lets you save and annotate images directly. You can add tags and notes to images, which helps track visual information.
Raindrop is good at saving images as bookmarks, but doesn’t let you annotate them as well. Web Highlights is better for managing both text and images.
Marius Bongarts
6. Learning Tools
Web Highlights has features specifically for learning:
- Creates flashcards from your highlights
- Uses spaced repetition to help you remember
- Gives daily learning recaps
- Integrates with Kindle for studying
These make Web Highlights especially good for students and researchers who need to learn and remember information, not just save it.
Raindrop is mainly a bookmark manager and doesn’t have these learning tools. If education is important to you, Web Highlights offers more.
Marius Bongarts
7. Note-Taking & Organization
Web Highlights lets you add notes directly to your highlights and import notes from other platforms like Kindle.
It uses tags and bookmarks to help organize information. The flashcard feature is particularly useful for students.
Raindrop has good organization with collections, tags, and filters, but its note-taking isn’t as robust. If detailed notes are important to your workflow, Web Highlights is stronger.
Marius Bongarts
8. Offline Features
Web Highlights works offline - you can highlight, add tags, and save bookmarks without internet. Everything syncs when you reconnect.
Raindrop lets you access saved content offline through its apps, but with fewer features than Web Highlights. If you often work without internet, Web Highlights might be better.
9. User Experience
Both tools have clean interfaces, but they focus on different things.
Web Highlights makes highlighting and annotation super easy, with keyboard shortcuts for almost everything. You can customize these shortcuts to your liking.
Raindrop has a nice visual layout for bookmarks. Both are user-friendly, but Web Highlights is better for annotation, while Raindrop is better for visual bookmark management.
10. Security & Privacy
Both take security seriously, but Web Highlights emphasizes protecting your data. They store your highlights and notes securely and have strong data protection.
Web Highlights doesn’t sell user information, making it trustworthy if you’re concerned about privacy. You can read their terms and conditions for more details.
Quick Feature Comparison
| Features | Web Highlights | Raindrop |
|---|---|---|
| Highlights | ✅ | ✅ (Basic) |
| Formatted Highlighting | ✅ | ❌ |
| Flashcards | ✅ | ❌ |
| Notion/Obsidian Export | ✅ | ❌ |
| Kindle spaced repetition learning | ✅ | ❌ |
| Note-taking | ✅ | ✅ (Basic) |
| Email reminders | ✅ | ❌ |
| Intuitive interface | ✅ | ✅ |
| Regular updates | ✅ | ✅ |
| Visual bookmark organization | ✅ | ✅ |
| Team collaboration | ✅ | ✅ |
| Offline access | ✅ | ✅ (Limited) |
| Cross-platform support | ✅ | ✅ |
User Feedback and Reviews
Let's look at what users have to say about Web Highlights and Raindrop.
- Web Highlights has a 4.8-star rating from over 3,200 reviews in the Chrome Web Store. People love how easy it is to use, the highlighting features, and how well it works with other tools.
- Raindrop has a solid 4.1-star rating from over 700 reviews. Users like its clean interface and bookmark management.
Conclusion
Both tools are good, but they shine in different areas.
Raindrop is great if you mainly need to save and organize bookmarks with a nice visual interface. It’s perfect for collecting and accessing content across all your devices.
Web Highlights is better if you need to actively engage with content through highlighting, notes, and learning tools. It’s especially good for students, researchers, and professionals who work with lots of online content.
With its easy interface, powerful annotation features, and learning tools, Web Highlights is probably the better choice if you want to do more than just save bookmarks.
Want to try Web Highlights? Get it for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, or use it with Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera.
FAQs
- What’s the main difference between Web Highlights and Raindrop?Raindrop is mainly for bookmark management and visual organization, while Web Highlights focuses on annotation, highlighting, and learning tools. Web Highlights helps you engage with content, while Raindrop helps you organize bookmarks.
- Can I import my bookmarks from Raindrop to Web Highlights?
Yes, Web Highlights lets you import bookmarks from other services. You can export from Raindrop and import into Web Highlights pretty easily. - Which tool is better for academic research?
Web Highlights is generally better for academic research because of its highlighting, annotation, and learning features. The flashcards, exports to Notion and Obsidian, and focus on retention make it better for serious research. - Does Web Highlights have a free version?
Yes, Web Highlights has a free Basic plan with unlimited highlighting and bookmarking. You can upgrade to Premium or Ultimate for more advanced features like cloud sync and image highlighting. - Can I use Web Highlights on my phone?
Yes, Web Highlights syncs across devices, so you can access your highlights and notes on desktops, tablets, and smartphones through its web app. - Is Raindrop better for visual content?
Raindrop is great at organizing visual content like images and videos with its gallery-style interface. However, Web Highlights lets you annotate images better, adding highlights and notes to visual content.
Marius Bongarts