karakeep

Karakeep

Karakeep is a self-hosted bookmark and read-later manager. You save a URL, and Karakeep fetches the page content, takes a screenshot via headless Chrome, and stores everything locally — no third-party sync service involved. It supports full-text search (powered by Meilisearch), AI-assisted automatic tagging (optional, via OpenAI), lists, highlights, and a browser extension for one-click saving.

When to use it: You want a private alternative to Pocket, Instapaper, or Raindrop.io where your reading list and saved content never leave your own infrastructure.

Architecture

Browser / Extension
        │
        ▼
   Traefik (HTTPS, lan-only)
        │
        ▼
   karakeep :3000          ← Next.js web app + API
        │
        ├──► meilisearch :7700   ← full-text search index
        └──► chrome.localhost :9222 ← headless Chromium for screenshots & content fetch

All three containers share an internal karakeep bridge network. Only karakeep is attached to the traefik network — chrome and meilisearch have no external exposure.

The Chrome sidecar is reachable through the chrome.localhost network alias. Chrome's DevTools endpoint rejects some requests whose Host header is a plain Docker service name such as chrome; using a *.localhost alias keeps the endpoint internal while satisfying Chrome's host validation.

Data is persisted to two bind-mounted directories on the host:

• /mnt/SSD/Containers/karakeep/data — bookmarks, attachments, user data
• /mnt/SSD/Containers/karakeep/meilisearch — search index

Prerequisites

Create the host directories before first run:

mkdir -p /mnt/SSD/Containers/karakeep/data
mkdir -p /mnt/SSD/Containers/karakeep/meilisearch

The traefik external network must exist (deploy Traefik first).

Quick Start

cp example.env .env
# Edit .env — fill in secrets and domain
docker compose up -d

Access at https://<KARAKEEP_DOMAIN>. Create your account on first visit.

Environment Variables

Variable	Required	Description
KARAKEEP_VERSION	yes	Image tag — release for latest stable, or pin e.g. 0.10.0
KARAKEEP_DOMAIN	yes	Domain Traefik routes to this service
NEXTAUTH_SECRET	yes	Random secret for session signing — openssl rand -base64 36
MEILISEARCH_MASTER_KEY	yes	Master key for Meilisearch — openssl rand -base64 36
OPENAI_API_KEY	no	Enables AI automatic tagging on saved bookmarks

Updates

Pinned version — bump KARAKEEP_VERSION in .env, then:

docker compose pull && docker compose up -d

Rolling release tag:

docker compose up --pull always -d

Browser Extension

Karakeep has a browser extension for Chrome/Firefox that lets you save the current page with one click. Find it in the Karakeep web UI under Settings → Browser Extension.