Shaarli Hosting

How Shaarli works

Shaarli stores links as “Shaares” with an editable title, URL, description, tags, timestamp, and public or private state. Search covers the saved fields, tag views group related material, and unique permalinks make individual entries referenceable. A text-only Shaare can also act as a note, short post, clipboard item, or compact knowledge entry.

RSS and Atom feeds can expose public links, including filtered feeds and a daily digest. A bookmarklet, import and export tools, plugins, themes, and a REST API extend the basic workflow. The upstream project is deliberately personal and single-user rather than a team bookmark database with separate seats and permissions.

Key Shaarli features

The catalogue persists Shaarli’s data directory, where the file-based datastore and configuration live. The catalogue lists the relational-database requirement as Not required. HTML bookmark exports preserve link information and public or private status, providing an application-level route for moving or restoring the collection in addition to the hosting backup process.

Public entries can be read by visitors, while private entries require the Shaarli login. Choosing the right state matters because RSS feeds, permalink sharing, and public pages are publishing functions rather than merely personal organisation. Optional plug-ins and external social integrations are not reviewed or bundled by the hosting package.

Shaarli vs Raindrop.io

Shaarli centres on one self-hosted account, a compact file datastore, tags, feeds, notes, imports, exports, and an API. Raindrop.io is a provider-operated bookmark service with cloud synchronisation, collections across devices, browser extensions and applications, and a Pro tier that adds full-text search, permanent copies, extra upload space, and library-cleaning tools.

Raindrop.io may be preferable for people who want maintained native clients, vendor storage, cross-device account management, and content preservation without operating a server. Shaarli fits users who value a small personal service, direct control of the installation, and portable HTML exports more than a broader commercial ecosystem.

Who uses Shaarli

Researchers collect references and tag them by topic, developers maintain links and snippets, and readers keep a personal queue that is available from several devices. A public Shaarli can become a curated link log, while private entries can hold reminders, notes, and material that should not appear in feeds.

Teams requiring multiple identities, granular group permissions, managed mobile applications, collaborative annotation, or vendor-operated page preservation should choose a different product. Shaarli’s strength is its narrow single-user model rather than organisation-wide knowledge management.

Self-hosting Shaarli: requirements and cost

Resource demand is influenced by link count, thumbnails, searches, feed readers, imports, API clients, plugins, and simultaneous visitors to public pages. The catalogue records PostgreSQL and MariaDB as Not required and persists the Shaarli data directory, so the file datastore, configuration, and generated assets must remain together during recovery.

On AvaHost, Shaarli uses Plan 1 at €2. The hosted Shaarli package includes one-click deployment, a custom domain with automated HTTPS, automatic application updates, and scheduled backups. The hosted package includes the Shaarli application but not third-party themes, plugins, browser extensions, social-network accounts, or page-preservation services. Application email is disabled, though Shaarli’s core personal bookmark workflow does not depend on outbound mail. Set a strong administrator password and review which entries are public.