PagewingThe best web highlighter and notes extensions for Chrome
Pick Glasp if you want a free highlighter that also covers PDFs, YouTube and Kindle and you don't mind highlights being public by default. Pick Hypothesis if you annotate with a class or a reading group, or want a free tool with private groups. Pick Weava if you're a student organizing highlights from pages and PDFs into folders with citations. Pick Pagewing if you want private notes, clipped quotes and citations next to the page, highlights in five colors, and one subscription that also covers a PDF editor, screenshots and short links. Google Keep's extension is enough for saving a page with a line of text.
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Glasp
Best for: readers who highlight across articles, PDFs and videos and like sharing what they find
A social highlighter for web pages, PDFs, YouTube videos and Kindle, with AI summaries and chat over everything you've saved. Highlights are public by default, and you can see what other readers marked on the same page.
- Price
- Free plan; Pro $15 a month billed monthly ($150 a year); Unlimited $360 a year
- Free plan
- Public highlights with no cap, basic AI limits; private highlights need Pro
- Runs on
- Chrome, Safari, Edge and Firefox extensions, iOS and Android apps
- Free with no cap on highlights
- PDFs, YouTube and Kindle highlights in one place
- Exports to Notion, Obsidian, Markdown, CSV and more
- Highlights are public unless you pay for Pro
- The AI features are metered by credits
- A lot of product for someone who only wants a highlighter
- 2
Hypothesis
Best for: classes, reading groups and researchers who discuss what they read
An annotation layer for the web and online PDFs: highlight, comment and reply in threads, publicly, in private groups or for yourself. It's free for personal use and widely used in classrooms through learning platforms.
- Price
- Free for personal use; school and institution plans priced per student on request
- Free plan
- Yes
- Runs on
- Chrome and other Chromium browsers; a bookmarklet for Firefox and Safari
- Free, with private groups
- Threaded discussion on any page or PDF
- Works inside Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle and D2L
- Built for conversation, not for organizing a personal notebook
- School and institution plans are priced per student, on request
- No folders or citations for your own notes
- 3
Weava
Best for: students and researchers collecting sources for a paper
A research highlighter for web pages and PDFs that files highlights into folders, generates citations in one click and lets you share folders with a team.
- Price
- Free plan; Premium $3.99 a month
- Free plan
- Highlights and notes with no cap, 100 MB of storage; new sub-folders need Premium
- Runs on
- Chrome extension, iOS app and a web dashboard
- Folders and citations built for schoolwork
- Highlights PDFs as well as pages
- Inexpensive Premium
- Free plan caps storage and sub-folders
- Collaboration and more highlight colors need Premium
- Fewer export options than Glasp
- 4This site
Pagewing
Best for: readers who want private notes, highlights and citations in one subscription with their other browser tools
Private notes in the Chrome side panel for the page or site you're on: clip selected text as a quote with its link, write in Markdown with checklists, and cite the page in APA, MLA or Chicago. Its Read later tool highlights any page in five colors, and the website has the full editor with folders, tags, search and exports to Obsidian and Notion.
- Price
- Free plan; Premium and Pro remove the limits for every tool at once
- Free plan
- 50 notes, highlights, citations and Markdown exports free
- Runs on
- Chrome, with the full editor on the Pagewing website
- Notes stay in your browser unless you turn on sync
- Citations and bibliographies for school, free
- One subscription also covers a PDF editor, screenshots and short links
- Chrome only, no mobile app
- No PDF, YouTube or Kindle highlights
- A young product; the free plan caps notes at 50
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Liner
Best for: people who want AI research answers more than a notebook of highlights
Started as a web highlighter and is now sold as an AI search and research assistant with the highlighter inside it: highlight pages, then ask questions and get answers with sources.
- Price
- Free plan; Pro $17.99 a month billed monthly; Max $35.99 a month billed monthly
- Free plan
- Limited AI credits, one file upload a day, with ads
- Runs on
- Chrome and Edge extensions, iOS, Android, Mac and Windows apps, and a web app
- AI answers with sources on top of your highlights
- Apps for every platform
- The highlighter is still in the extension
- Priced as an AI product, not a highlighter
- The free plan shows ads and meters AI use
- The highlighter has become a small part of the app
- 6
Google Keep
Best for: people already keeping lists and reminders in Keep who want to save pages there too
Google's free notes app, with a Chrome extension that saves the page you're on, a selected passage or an image to a note with labels. Notes you make in the extension are finished at keep.google.com.
- Price
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
- Runs on
- Chrome extension, Android and iOS apps and the web
- Free, with Google account sync
- Labels, reminders and checklists
- Works on your phone
- No on-page highlighting
- Since December 2022, notes made in the extension don't save automatically
- No Markdown, folders or citations
Prices and features as read on each app's own site in October 2026, billed monthly in US dollars unless said otherwise. They change: check there before you decide.
Pagewing against each web highlighter and notes tool
Every feature in a table, where the other app does more, and what your whole stack costs.
Questions
Something else? Write to us from the Support link below.
Is Glasp free?
Yes. Glasp's free plan has no cap on public highlights and includes basic AI limits. Keeping highlights private, and higher AI limits, need its Pro plan at $15 a month billed monthly.
Which web highlighter keeps my highlights private?
Hypothesis lets you annotate for yourself or in a private group for free. Weava's and Pagewing's notes and highlights are private by default, and Pagewing's notes stay in your browser unless you turn on sync. Glasp's highlights are public unless you pay for Pro.
Can I export my highlights to Obsidian or Notion?
Glasp exports to Notion, Obsidian, Roam and Markdown, with a daily Notion sync. Pagewing sends a note to your Obsidian vault in one click, exports a CSV Notion imports as a database, and exports Markdown on every plan, with a .zip of Markdown files on Premium. Weava exports to Word, Excel, text and CSV.
Which one highlights PDFs?
Glasp, Hypothesis and Weava highlight online PDFs in the browser. Pagewing's highlights are for web pages; PDFs open in its PDF editor, which annotates and marks them up but doesn't collect highlights into a notebook.
Can I move my notes from Google Keep?
Pagewing imports a Google Keep export from Google Takeout on Premium, keeping each note's text, labels and dates. The other extensions here don't read Keep's export.
Is Pagewing free?
Yes. Every tool works on the free plan, with a few limits. Premium removes the limits and adds features like share links, PDF signatures and cloud storage, for every tool at once. Pro adds Office conversions, bookmark cleanups and AI summaries and branding for recordings on top. You only add a card if you decide to upgrade.
The best extensions for other jobs
Each list weighs the leading apps the same way, with Pagewing among them.
Try Pagewing next to what you use now.
Every tool works on the free plan, so run it alongside the app you have, then keep whichever you still need.
Add to Chrome, freeThe other apps named here are trademarks of their owners, who aren't affiliated with or endorsing Pagewing. We name them only to compare.