abode vs Cosmos
Cosmos is a beautiful place to collect and discover visual inspiration, with a community feed of other people's taste. abode is about your own things — images, but also links, tweets and notes — kept private by default, searchable, and open source.
the short answer
choose Cosmos if you want visual discovery and a community feed of other people's taste.
choose abode if you want a calm, private archive of your own finds — no feed, no shop, no ads.
side by side
- pricing
abode · hosted: invite-only early access. self-hosted: free
Cosmos · free. premium is $8/mo or $72/yr in the iOS app
- open source
abode · yes — AGPL-3.0, every line on github
Cosmos · no
- self-hostable
abode · yes — Postgres + Supabase is all it needs
Cosmos · no
- how you organise
abode · no folders or filing — search, plus rooms (hand-picked or auto-filled by filters)
Cosmos · an archive of everything you save, plus collections and subcollections
- AI & search
abode · AI titles, descriptions, tags and OCR; full-text + semantic search; similar images
Cosmos · keyword, colour and image search; find similar; AI-researched image captions
- what you can save
abode · links, images, articles, tweets, instagram posts, videos, products, books, notes
Cosmos · images, carousels, video and GIFs, notes, links, articles, products
- sharing
abode · public profile and public rooms, share links for single items
Cosmos · public profile and collections, following, a community feed; collaborators on premium
- ads & feeds
abode · no ads, no feed, no algorithm
Cosmos · a personalised “for you” feed and a shop tab; privacy policy allows interest-based ads
- apps
abode · web (installable); browser extension coming soon
Cosmos · web, iOS, android; chrome and safari extensions
- getting your data out
abode · one-click export of everything — coming soon. self-hosted, the database is yours; API + personal access tokens
Cosmos · premium only, per collection, images only — text and links aren't included
| feature | abode | Cosmos |
|---|---|---|
| pricing | hosted: invite-only early access. self-hosted: free | free. premium is $8/mo or $72/yr in the iOS app |
| open source | yes — AGPL-3.0, every line on github | no |
| self-hostable | yes — Postgres + Supabase is all it needs | no |
| how you organise | no folders or filing — search, plus rooms (hand-picked or auto-filled by filters) | an archive of everything you save, plus collections and subcollections |
| AI & search | AI titles, descriptions, tags and OCR; full-text + semantic search; similar images | keyword, colour and image search; find similar; AI-researched image captions |
| what you can save | links, images, articles, tweets, instagram posts, videos, products, books, notes | images, carousels, video and GIFs, notes, links, articles, products |
| sharing | public profile and public rooms, share links for single items | public profile and collections, following, a community feed; collaborators on premium |
| ads & feeds | no ads, no feed, no algorithm | a personalised “for you” feed and a shop tab; privacy policy allows interest-based ads |
| apps | web (installable); browser extension coming soon | web, iOS, android; chrome and safari extensions |
| getting your data out | one-click export of everything — coming soon. self-hosted, the database is yours; API + personal access tokens | premium only, per collection, images only — text and links aren't included |
where Cosmos shines
- visual discovery — search colour, images and keywords across everyone's saves, not just yours
- a high-taste creative community, with image attribution and AI-content filtering
- a lovely, free mobile-first app, with importers from Pinterest, Are.na and Tumblr
where abode fits better
- you want a calm archive of your own finds — no feed, no shop, no ads
- you save more than images: links, tweets, articles and notes are first-class
- you want the code open and your data fully under your control
questions
- does abode have a feed?
- no. there's no feed, no algorithm and no shop — just the things you've saved. you can still share a public profile and public rooms.
- can I bring my Cosmos library to abode?
- not yet — a Cosmos importer is next on the roadmap. for now, you save things one by one.
- is abode free?
- self-hosting is free, forever — the code is AGPL-3.0 on github. the hosted version is in invite-only early access: join the waitlist to get in.
- can I run abode myself?
- yes. it needs Postgres and Supabase; everything else, like AI descriptions and image search, lights up when you add its key. the self-hosting docs are still evolving.
- is what I save private?
- yes, unless you choose otherwise: things are private until you put them in a public room or share them, and public pages stay out of search engines unless you opt in. to improve abode we record how it's used, tied to your account, but what you save (text, images, links, tags, searches and your room names) is masked before it leaves your browser.