I’d like an up-to-date sense of how many Mac and iPhone users still use Pinboard, given the abundance of bookmarking and “read-it-later” apps. I still use it (with Pins app) alongside Hookmark (disclosure: our app). Hookmark doesn’t cache full pages yet, but it can add new bookmarks to Pinboard (and several other bookmarking tools). We’re considering tighter integration with Pinboard—e.g., two-way syncing of tags and descriptions for URLs that exist in both Hookmark and Pinboard—and we also expect to deepen our bookmarking integration with GoodLinks and DEVONthink.
If you’re not using Pinboard, what do you use for similar functionality? If you switched away from Pinboard, why did you switch?
I noticed a few older threads on this forum about Pinboard, but nothing recent.
I used to, and loved it, but Majcej doesn’t support Pinboard the way he used to. I’d say DEVONthink performs the archival role of Pinboard for me. GoodLinks and OmniFocus hold most links that need read or handled relatively soon.
I have switched to Raindrop for the exact same reason.
I am using the website and the native apps. The free version is sufficient for me. The free version is sufficient for me. I am considering paying for the pro version in order to support the developer.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about Raindrop. If it had AppleScript or x-callback-url automation to get the name and URL of the currently selected item, per the Manifesto for Ubiquitous Linking (which is co-signed by David Sparks), we would integrate it with Hookmark as we did for the other bookmarking apps and services (Instapaper, linkding, GoodLinks, and Pinboard so far). That would enable users to link the Raindrop content to just about anything, as they can for GoodLinks etc…
Agreed. I don’t think the software’s been updated functionality wise for years. I read a year or two ago (?) that he was adding server capacity to Pinboard however. It’s a Pitty he doesn’t put more love into the software. He (Maciej Ceglowski) is sitting on a little gold mine, particularly with Pocket being out of the game. I emailed him several times in the last few years [wanting him to add Hookmark to the Pinboard Resources page] but I have not gotten a reply back.
Having said that, Pinboard does most of what I need already. Pinboard is vaunted as being private and secure – hard to test that. I should switch to Goodlinks for caching webpages as that would be even more secure.
I know he’s active politically (he went to Hong Kong during the riots in support of them), but I don’t know more than that. He used to be active on Twitter but I think he’s dormant on X now.
I use Hookmark but hadn’t thought of hooking to my bookmark app for some reason.
I switched from Pinboard to Raindrop and switched again to Anybox, which I have been using for a few years. I switched away from Pinboard to Raindrop bcz I liked the interface and from Raindrop to Anybox bcz Anybox is a one time purchase.
However, I hadn’t thought of making Hookmark automatically add bookmarks to Anybox, as Hookmark can for Pinboard, GoodLinks, Instapaper and Linkding (and will soon do for DEVONthink). I’ve added Anybox link syncing to our product road map. (The upcoming 6.12 release will have lots of bookmarking enhancements.)
Readwise seems to be quite a useful app – I’ve heard great things about it.
It’s not link-friendly yet. So we’ve asked the developers of ReadWise to support automated linking. Hopefully they will oblige.
I signed up for Pinboard in May 2023. I decided it wasn’t for me, so requested a refund within the 7 days cooling off period that is advertised.
I did get a reply to my email (on the third attempt) and my refund, but in February 2024!
I wasn’t given an explanation. Obviously life happens, and maybe there were good reasons for the delay, but it wouldn’t encourage me to use the service in the future.
I paid for a lifetime Pinboard account back in 2011 and used it heavily for a few years. But two things pushed me away: reliability issues and other tools came along. When I ran into reliability problems, I contacted the developer but only got intermittent, sometimes dismissive replies. That experience undermined my confidence in the service, and I’ve seen similar stories echoed in other comments here.
My workflow has evolved over the past few years: DEVONthink for archiving, Anybox (an underrated app, I think) for bookmarking, and Readwise for reading and annotating. And yes, I use Hookmark to tie everything together.
Yeah, I normally avoid SaaS too. I made an exception for Pinboard because GoodLinks was not yet available. I should have switched after GoodLinks came out.
I’m switching over to GoodLinks for caching pages. I currently use a LaunchBar custom search template to search Pinboard items by tag: https://pinboard.in/u:<myUserName>/t:* . Is there anything similar for searching GoodLinks? ChatGPT says:
GoodLinks supports goodlinks:// URLs. For example:
goodlinks://search?query=tag:reading
will open GoodLinks and show items tagged reading.
goodlinks://search?query=apple
will show all links matching “apple.”
That’s the closest equivalent to your Pinboard LaunchBar template. You can make a LaunchBar (or Alfred, Raycast, etc.) custom search like:
goodlinks://search?query=*
Then typing your tag after the * will open GoodLinks at that filtered view.
but I haven’t gotten that to work. Otherwise, it seems I can use Shortcuts.
