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.