Defuddle, an HTML-to-Markdown alternative to Readability
Defuddle is an open-source JS library I built to parse and extract the main content and metadata from web pages. It can also return the content as Markdown. I built Defuddle while working on Obsidian Web Clipper[1] (also MIT-licensed) because Mozilla's Readability[2] appears to be mostly abandoned, and didn't work well for many sites. It's still very much a work in progress, but I thought I'd share it today, in light of the announcement that Mozilla is shutting down Pocket. This library could be helpful to anyone building a read-it-later app. Defuddle is also available as a CLI:…
Defuddle, an HTML-to-Markdown alternative to Readability launched on May 22, 2025 with 418 votes, #48 of 7,905 launches that month and more than 99% of that year's launches. The site was still online in September 2026, 1 year on.
In plain words
Defuddle is an open-source JavaScript library that extracts main content and metadata from web pages, with the option to convert output to Markdown. Built as an alternative to Mozilla's Readability, it is designed to work reliably across many websites. The library is intended for developers building read-it-later applications and other web clipping tools. It is available both as a library and as a command-line tool.
written from the facts on this page · September 2026
From the sources
Get the main content of any page as Markdown. Contribute to kepano/defuddle development by creating an account on GitHub.
In the maker’s words, at launch
Defuddle is an open-source JS library I built to parse and extract the main content and metadata from web pages. It can also return the content as Markdown. I built Defuddle while working on Obsidian Web Clipper[1] (also MIT-licensed) because Mozilla's Readability[2] appears to be mostly abandoned, and didn't work…
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