Perma.cc

Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Perma.cc

A curated collection of the 1 best self hosted alternatives to Perma.cc.

Perma.cc is a web-archiving service that captures and stores immutable snapshots of web pages and provides stable, citable Perma Links to those records to prevent link rot in scholarly, legal, and published citations.

Alternatives List

#1
ArchiveBox

ArchiveBox

Self-hosted tool to collect and preserve webpages, media, and bookmarks in durable formats (HTML, PDF, WARC, MP4) with a CLI, web UI, and search.

ArchiveBox screenshot

ArchiveBox is a self-hosted, open-source web archiving application that captures and preserves web pages and associated media in durable formats for long-term access. It can ingest URLs, browser history, bookmarks, RSS feeds, and other sources and produces redundant snapshot outputs for offline viewing and analysis. (archivebox.io)

Key Features

  • Multiple import sources: URLs, browser history, bookmarks, Pocket/Pinboard, RSS and more. (archivebox.io)
  • Saves snapshots in redundant, portable formats: original HTML+CSS+JS, singlefile HTML, screenshot PNG, PDF, WARC, JSON, MP3/MP4, and SQLite index. (github.com)
  • Web UI + CLI + Python API: manage collections via a self-hosted web app, a command-line interface, or the Python library. (github.com)
  • Search & indexing options: SQLite FTS or external search backends (e.g., Sonic) for fast full-text queries. (docs.archivebox.io)
  • Extensible extractors: integrates with standard tools (chromium/chrome, yt-dlp, singlefile, readability) and can be configured to run optional extractors. (docs.archivebox.io)

Use Cases

  • Journalists and researchers preserving cited pages and social media posts for reproducibility and evidence. (archivebox.io)
  • Legal and compliance teams capturing time-stamped snapshots for records and audits. (archivebox.io)
  • Individuals or organizations creating offline archives of bookmarks, blogs, or multimedia collections. (github.com)

Limitations and Considerations

  • Storage and disk usage can grow quickly (especially when archiving video/audio); careful tuning of extractor settings and filesystem choice is recommended. (docs.archivebox.io)
  • Several high-fidelity extractors rely on external system packages (Chromium/Chrome, Node, ffmpeg, yt-dlp); installing the full feature set requires additional runtime dependencies. (docs.archivebox.io)

ArchiveBox is intended for users who need durable, self-hosted preservation of web content and provides multiple interfaces and storage-friendly outputs to support long-term access and programmatic workflows. (archivebox.io)

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Why choose an open source alternative?

  • Data ownership: Keep your data on your own servers
  • No vendor lock-in: Freedom to switch or modify at any time
  • Cost savings: Reduce or eliminate subscription fees
  • Transparency: Audit the code and know exactly what's running