Glasp

Description

Glasp is a free social web highlighter that allows users to capture, organize, and share their favorite quotes and ideas from web articles and YouTube videos. It fosters 'learning in public' by connecting users with shared interests.

Glasp serves as a digital knowledge capture and sharing platform, primarily through its browser extension. Users can highlight specific text passages on any webpage or timestamped segments in YouTube videos. These highlights are then automatically saved to a personal profile, complete with original source links, tags, and personal notes. A core feature is its social dimension, enabling users to discover and follow others' highlights, thereby cultivating a collaborative learning environment. It integrates seamlessly with popular knowledge management tools like Notion, Obsidian, and Readwise for extended utility.

Key Applications

Knowledge Curation: Systematically collecting and organizing valuable insights from across the web.
Collaborative Learning: Discovering and sharing key information with a community of learners and thinkers.
Research & Study: Efficiently extracting and categorizing important data points and quotes for academic or professional projects.
Personal Knowledge Management: Centralizing highlighted content and notes for future reference and synthesis.

Who It’s For

Glasp is ideal for lifelong learners, researchers, students, writers, and knowledge workers who frequently consume online content and wish to capture, organize, and share their insights effectively. It particularly appeals to those interested in social learning and building a public knowledge repository.

Pros & Cons

Pros	Cons
✔️ Deep control over scripts/styles to remove bloat.	✖️ No built-in caching; needs to pair with a caching plugin.
✔️ Many performance tweaks beyond basic caching (lazy load, preload, remove defaults).	✖️ Some features require careful testing, may break theme/plugins if misconfigured.
✔️ Lightweight, minimal overhead, good UI with one-click toggles.	✖️ Premium plugin; no free version to try all features.

Pros	Cons
✔ Very beginner-friendly	✖ Limited backlink data compared to Ahrefs
✔ Clean interface	✖ Less feature depth than Semrush
✔ Helpful community and resources	✖ Can feel slower at scale

How It Compares

Versus Instapaper/Pocket: While Instapaper and Pocket focus on 'read-it-later' functionality, Glasp prioritizes active highlighting and social sharing of specific text snippets, rather than saving entire articles.
Versus Hypothesis: Hypothesis offers more robust annotation capabilities for collaborative academic research, including per-paragraph commenting. Glasp focuses more on personal highlight collection and public discovery of insights across a broader range of web content and YouTube.
Versus Readwise: Readwise aggregates highlights from various sources (Kindle, Instapaper, etc.). Glasp acts as a primary source for web/YouTube highlights, and can feed into Readwise, offering a more direct capture method for these specific content types.

Bullet Point Features

Social Web Highlighter: Highlight text on any webpage and specific moments in YouTube videos.
Personal Knowledge Dashboard: Automatically save and organize all highlights with tags and notes.
Public Highlight Feed: Discover and follow highlights from other users and thought leaders.
Integration Ecosystem: Seamlessly export highlights to Notion, Obsidian, Readwise, and other tools.
Content Search & Discovery: Easily search through personal highlights and explore publicly shared knowledge.
Quote & Snippet Sharing: Effortlessly share curated insights across social media or other platforms.

Try It Now

Disclosure

All product names, logos and brands are property of their respective owners. Use is for educational and informational purposes only and does not imply endorsement. Links are to third-party sites not affiliated with Barndoor AI. Please see our Terms & Conditions for additional information.

Reviews from Our Users

8.07.2021

"Overall, I like the core features, but the mobile UI still feels a bit clunky. Hope they fix this in future updates."

Tom W.

Marketing Manager

06/10/2025

"Their support team actually listens to feedback! I’ve seen new features added within weeks. That’s impressive.''

Alex Carter

Freelancer

03/09/2025

"Some advanced options take a bit of time to understand, but once you get the hang of it, it’s incredibly powerful."

Ryan Blake

SaaS Consultant

12/08/2025

"I’ve tried several similar tools, but this one stands out for its clean interface and automation features. Totally worth the subscription."

Sarah Mitchell

GrowthWave Agency