Tabkeeper vs Session Buddy: a local-only Session Buddy alternative
An honest comparison: what Session Buddy is better at, what Tabkeeper does differently, and how to import a Session Buddy JSON export.
What Session Buddy does better
- Maturity. It has been developed for many years and has had a very large number of users work through the awkward cases. Tabkeeper is new.
- Export formats. It exports in several formats — JSON, a title-and-URL list, Markdown, CSV and HTML — where Tabkeeper exports JSON.
- Crash and previous-session recovery. Session Buddy surfaces the windows and tabs from previous and crashed sessions so you can get them back. Tabkeeper saves what you tell it to save; it does not reconstruct a session you never saved.
- A more developed manager UI after many versions of refinement.
What Tabkeeper does differently
- Local only. Collections live in your browser's IndexedDB; settings in
chrome.storage.local. The extension requests no host permissions and makes no network calls, apart from one license check if you buy Pro. - No account. Nothing to sign up for, nothing to sign in to, nothing to lose access to.
- No cap. Unlimited collections and tabs per collection, on the free tier.
- Open source. The source will be public when it ships, so the claim above can be checked rather than believed.
- Backups you hold. Pro writes encrypted backups to a file you choose, with a passphrase only you know. Free plain-JSON export is always available.
Importing a Session Buddy export
In Session Buddy, open the gear menu, choose Export…, select the collections you want, pick the JSON format and save the file. Then pick that file in Tabkeeper's import box. Tabkeeper reads JSON only, not the Markdown, CSV or HTML variants.
Both generations are supported and verified against real exports: the current collections/folders/links shape, and the older sessions/windows/tabs shape from before 2023, including its legacy window-name field. Window and folder names become collection group titles, and pinned tabs stay marked as pinned.
What Tabkeeper costs
Free for unlimited collections, saving and restoring, search, the importers, and plain JSON export, keyboard shortcuts and tab groups. Pro is $29, one-time and adds encrypted backups with a passphrase (AES-256-GCM) and session history with undo.
Status. Tabkeeper is being prepared for the Chrome Web Store and is not yet listed. There is no download link yet. This page will carry one when the listing is live.
The other comparisons
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