Raindrop.io
Raindrop.io
Role
The source of truth for the family's linkroll — the curated list
of links published at blog.oriz.in/links. Bookmarks are added in
the Raindrop.io UI / browser extension; the blog site fetches the
public collection at deploy time and renders a static /links page.
Per decisions/architecture/linkroll-raindrop-to-links-page.md:
no Worker call per pageview, no client-side fetch — the data is
pulled at build time, cached at the Cloudflare edge with a 1-hour
TTL on the build artifact, and re-pulled on the next deploy or the
next periodic build trigger.
Free tier
- Unlimited bookmarks + unlimited collections.
- REST API — 50 requests / minute, no daily cap; way above the one-call-per-deploy + one-call-per-hour-cron load.
- Public collections expose a read-only API endpoint without auth
(we use the authenticated endpoint via
RAINDROP_TOKENfor richer metadata + private-link visibility on demand). - Browser extensions (Chrome / Firefox / Edge / Safari) free.
- Mobile apps free.
Card / subscription required?
NO. Raindrop.io's "Pro" tier exists ($28/yr at time of writing) but is not used by the family — the free tier covers every feature the linkroll needs (collections, tags, REST API, public sharing).
How sites consume it
// sites/oriz-blog-site/src/pages/links.astro (sketch — Astro build-time)
const res = await fetch(
'https://api.raindrop.io/rest/v1/raindrops/<collection-id>?perpage=200',
{ headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${import.meta.env.RAINDROP_TOKEN}` } },
);
const { items } = await res.json();
The RAINDROP_TOKEN lives in
Doppler. The build runs on
Cloudflare Pages; a nightly
GitHub Actions schedule trigger
re-builds the site so additions show up without a manual deploy.
Alternatives
- Pinboard — bookmarking SaaS, $22 one-time. Acceptable but paid-up-front. Deferred unless Raindrop disappears.
- Self-hosted Linkding — OSS, fits no-self-host policy poorly (need to host it somewhere).
- GitHub stars — free but tag taxonomy is weak (no nested collections, no notes per item).
- Plain Markdown file in repo — simplest, but loses the browser-extension capture flow and the cross-device sync.
Swap cost
Low — the linkroll page is a thin transform from a JSON list to
HTML. Swapping to Pinboard or Linkding is changing the fetch URL +
adapting the field names. No content is locked into Raindrop because
the canonical bookmarks are exported regularly via
GET /rest/v1/raindrops/<id> to a JSON file checked into
oriz-me-data as a backup.
Why this is our pick
- Free unlimited. Every other no-card bookmark SaaS caps either bookmark count or feature set; Raindrop free has neither limit on the path that matters.
- Public-collection API is well-documented and stable.
- Browser extension capture keeps the family's "save link" ergonomics sane across Chrome / Firefox / Edge.
- Pairs cleanly with the
s.oriz.in shortener —
every linkroll item gets a memorable
s.oriz.in/<slug>mint at build time, which is the URLoriz-omnipostcross-posts to link-aggregator platforms.