Omnivore got acquired and shut down. Here's what comes next.
ElevenLabs bought Omnivore in late 2024 and killed the service. Screvi gives you a read-it-later app with a real API, full data portability, and a team that's focused on this product, not pivoting to something else.
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What happened to Omnivore
Omnivore was the read-it-later app that developers actually liked. Open-source, self-hostable, with a GraphQL API you could build on. It had a loyal community of power users who ran automations, piped articles into note-taking systems, and contributed to the codebase.
Then in late 2024, ElevenLabs (an AI voice synthesis company) acquired Omnivore. The deal wasn't about the product. ElevenLabs wanted the team. Within weeks, Omnivore's service was shut down, the hosted version went offline, and users were told to export their data.
The open-source code still exists on GitHub, but without active maintainers or a hosted service, it's effectively abandoned. Self-hosting is possible in theory, but nobody's shipping updates or fixing bugs.
Omnivore's timeline
2021
Omnivore launches as an open-source read-it-later app with a GraphQL API.
2022
Gains traction with developers and power users. Self-hosting documentation improves. Community grows on Discord.
2023
Integrations with Obsidian, Logseq, and other tools make Omnivore a favorite in the PKM community.
October 2024
ElevenLabs acquires Omnivore. The team announces the service will be discontinued.
November 2024
Omnivore's hosted service goes offline. Users scramble to export data. The GitHub repo receives its last commits.
Export your Omnivore data if you haven't already
If you still have an Omnivore data export sitting in your downloads folder, now is the time to do something with it. Screvi can import your saved articles so you don't lose your reading history. The longer you wait, the easier it is to forget what you had saved.
What Omnivore users actually cared about, and how Screvi handles it
The people who used Omnivore weren't casual users. They picked it because of specific things most read-it-later apps don't offer. Here's where Screvi stands on each of those:
**API access.** Omnivore had a GraphQL API. Screvi has a public REST API with full Swagger documentation. You can list, create, update, and delete saved items programmatically. If you had automations that saved articles to Omnivore, you can rebuild them against Screvi's API.
**Data portability.** You could always get your data out of Omnivore. Same with Screvi. Full export of your articles, highlights, and notes at any time. Your data belongs to you, not to the platform.
**No vendor lock-in risk.** This is the hard one. Omnivore was open-source, which felt safe, until the maintainers sold the company and walked away. Screvi isn't open-source, but it is independently funded with no outside investors pushing for an exit. The business model is straightforward: you pay for the product, and the product keeps running.
**Integrations.** Omnivore's Obsidian plugin was popular. Screvi's API makes it possible to build similar integrations, and the team ships official integrations based on what users ask for.
Omnivore vs. Screvi
Omnivore's service has been discontinued. Here's how things stand.
Screvi: 7/11 features · Omnivore: 0/11 features
| Feature | Screvi | Omnivore |
|---|---|---|
| Service status | Active | Shut down |
| Public API | REST with Swagger docs | Shut down |
| Save from browser | Shut down | |
| Mobile apps | Shut down | |
| Highlights & annotations | Shut down | |
| Full-text search | Shut down | |
| Newsletter inbox | Shut down | |
| Open source | Abandoned repo | |
| Self-hosting | No maintainers | |
| Data export | Shut down | |
| Labels / collections | Shut down |
What Screvi brings to the table
A real API you can build on
REST API with Swagger documentation. List your saved items, create new ones, manage highlights, all programmatically. Build the workflows you had with Omnivore.
Full data export, always
Export everything (articles, highlights, notes) whenever you want. No waiting for a shutdown announcement to think about your data.
Highlights and notes as first-class features
Select any passage in a saved article and highlight it. Add notes. Search across all your highlights later. This was one of Omnivore's best features, and Screvi does it well.
Newsletter inbox
Forward newsletters to your Screvi inbox and they show up alongside your saved articles. Read everything in one place, in a clean reader view.
Cross-platform sync
Web, iOS, Android, browser extensions. Save something on your phone, pick it up on your laptop. It just works.
Sustainable business model
No VC funding, no acquisition pressure. Screvi makes money from subscriptions. That's it. The incentives are aligned: build a good product, keep it running.
Built to last, not built to sell
Screvi is independently funded, with no venture capital and no board pushing for an acquisition. The product exists because people pay for it, and the team's only job is to make it better. After watching Omnivore disappear overnight, that kind of stability matters.
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