Toby
The fundamental difference
Toby's collections are saved groups of URLs. When you open a collection, Toby creates fresh tabs from those URLs — the same behavior as clicking a folder of bookmarks with "open all." When you "park" a tab into a collection (Toby's own word for it), the tab closes. The URL is saved, but the tab is gone.
This means every context switch in Toby destroys and recreates tabs. Your Gmail draft, Notion page state, video position, active ChatGPT session, and WebSocket connections don't survive. You're not switching workspaces — you're reopening a saved list of pages.
Duotang doesn't close tabs. The tabs you opened this morning are still there this afternoon. Switching workspaces moves you, not the tabs.
When you'll feel the difference
For static research tabs — articles you want to read later, reference pages, saved links — Toby works well. The pages load fresh each time, which is fine for content that doesn't change.
Where it breaks down is with apps that live in JavaScript memory rather than a URL: Notion documents, Linear boards, Figma files, ChatGPT conversations, Gmail drafts, Slack threads, GitHub pull requests. Recreating any of these from a URL gives you a fresh page load — the comment you were writing, the thread you had open, the AI response that was streaming — all gone. For anyone who lives in these tools throughout the day, the destroy-and-recreate cycle is a constant source of lost work.
Pricing
Toby's free tier caps saved tabs at 60. The Productivity plan at $4.50/month removes the cap and adds advanced search and duplicate removal. Team features are $8/user/month. An account is required for all tiers.
Duotang is free with no tab or workspace cap and no account.
When Toby is the right choice
- You want to save and revisit sets of pages — research, reading lists, reference tabs
- You need team collection sharing — Toby's Team plan supports this, Duotang doesn't
- You want cross-device sync for your saved collections
- Your tabs are mostly static pages where a fresh load is fine
When Duotang is the right choice
- You want context switches that don't lose your work — drafts, scroll position, active sessions
- You work in SPAs — Notion, Gmail, ChatGPT, Linear, Figma — where a fresh load means starting over
- You want a free, no-account solution with no tab cap
- You want your tabs to always be current without a manual save step
Tabs that stay alive — no reloads, no lost work, no account.
Install Duotang