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Best Productivity ResourcesBy Shushant LakhyaniVerified creator

Web App

Are.na

A calm, ad-free platform for collecting and connecting ideas into channels.

Visit Are.na4.6

  • Rating

    4.6 / 5

  • Pricing

    Freemium

  • Difficulty

    Beginner

  • Works on

    Web, iOS, Android

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What is Are.na?

Are.na lets you save links, images, text and files as blocks and organise them into channels you can share, connect and collaborate on. It is ad-free and community-supported: the free plan holds up to 200 blocks, and Premium removes the limit and adds advanced search, table view and private extras.

Pros: what Are.na does well

  • No ads or algorithmic feed
  • Flexible channels for any topic
  • Thoughtful creative community

Cons: where it falls short

  • Free plan is limited to 200 blocks
  • Less structured than a notes app

Who Are.na is for

Designers, artists and researchers who want a quiet place to gather references and ideas.

Who can skip it

People who need tasks, documents or a structured database.

Are.na alternatives

Not sold on Are.na? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

All Knowledge Management resources

Raindrop.io

Focus: read later and search. Shares bookmarks and collections with Are.na. Adds Firefox, Safari and macOS. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFree planWeb, Chrome
4.6Visit

ArchiveBox

Focus: web archive, self-hosted and offline copies. Shares bookmarks with Are.na. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Adds macOS and Linux. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFreeWeb, macOS
4.6Visit

NotebookLMEditor's pick, verified

Focus: citations, summaries and study. Shares research with Are.na. Same 4.6 rating.

Web AppFree planWeb, iOS
4.6Visit

Open Knowledge Maps

Focus: academic search, open access and literature review. Shares research with Are.na. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Are.na: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb
4.5Visit

PageIndex

Focus: ai search, documents and citations. Shares research with Are.na. An AI tool, not a web app. Rated 4.5 (Are.na: 4.6).

AI ToolFree planWeb
4.5Visit

PixelRAG

Focus: rag, retrieval and vision. Shares research with Are.na. An AI tool, not a web app. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Are.na: 4.6).

AI ToolFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.5Visit

Free alternatives to Are.na

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

Obsidian Web Clipper

Focus: clipper and markdown. Shares research with Are.na. A browser extension, not a web app. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Adds Firefox and Safari. Rated 4.4 (Are.na: 4.6).

Browser ExtensionFreeChrome, Firefox
4.4Visit

ClearAI

Focus: ontology, knowledge graph and epistemic loop. Shares research with Are.na. An AI tool, not a web app. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Rated 4.3 (Are.na: 4.6).

AI ToolFreeCross-Platform
4.3Visit

OpenAlex

Focus: academic search, scholarly papers and open data. Also in Research and Knowledge Management, like Are.na. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Are.na: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb
4.5Visit

RAWGraphs

Focus: data visualisation, charts and svg. Also in Research and Brainstorming, like Are.na. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Rated 4.5 (Are.na: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb
4.5Visit

Datasette

Focus: data exploration, sqlite and open data. Also in Research and Knowledge Management, like Are.na. Free (Are.na: Freemium). Rated 4.4 (Are.na: 4.6).

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.4Visit
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