[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":413},["ShallowReactive",2],{"i-lucide:monitor":3,"i-lucide:heart":8,"blog-session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager":10,"blog-tag-counts":409},{"left":4,"top":4,"width":5,"height":5,"rotate":4,"vFlip":6,"hFlip":6,"body":7},0,24,false,"\u003Cg fill=\"none\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" stroke-width=\"2\">\u003Crect width=\"20\" height=\"14\" x=\"2\" y=\"3\" rx=\"2\"/>\u003Cpath d=\"M8 21h8m-4-4v4\"/>\u003C/g>",{"left":4,"top":4,"width":5,"height":5,"rotate":4,"vFlip":6,"hFlip":6,"body":9},"\u003Cpath fill=\"none\" stroke=\"currentColor\" stroke-linecap=\"round\" stroke-linejoin=\"round\" stroke-width=\"2\" d=\"M2 9.5a5.5 5.5 0 0 1 9.591-3.676a.56.56 0 0 0 .818 0A5.49 5.49 0 0 1 22 9.5c0 2.29-1.5 4-3 5.5l-5.492 5.313a2 2 0 0 1-3 .019L5 15c-1.5-1.5-3-3.2-3-5.5\"/>",{"id":11,"title":12,"author":13,"body":14,"canonical":13,"cover":350,"coverAlt":351,"date":352,"description":353,"extension":354,"heroImage":355,"meta":356,"metaDescription":357,"navigation":358,"path":359,"readingTime":360,"seo":361,"sources":362,"sourcesExempt":13,"stem":401,"tags":402,"thumb":13,"thumbAlt":13,"updated":13,"__hash__":408},"blog/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager.md","Session Buddy vs Tab Session Manager: Polished or Open",null,{"type":15,"value":16,"toc":338},"minimark",[17,21,26,29,128,132,135,138,146,149,157,161,164,175,190,197,201,208,211,214,217,220,227,231,234,247,259,263,269,274,280,287,291,294,297,304,321,328,332,335],[18,19,20],"p",{},"Two names come up again and again when people want to stop losing browser sessions: Session Buddy and Tab Session Manager. They do the same core job, they are both free, and a feature-by-feature table barely tells them apart. What actually tells them apart is not something either store page puts in front of you. It is also the thing that should decide which one you install.",[22,23,25],"h2",{"id":24},"what-is-the-real-difference-between-session-buddy-and-tab-session-manager","What is the real difference between Session Buddy and Tab Session Manager?",[18,27,28],{},"Session Buddy is a finished product. Tab Session Manager is an open workshop. Session Buddy runs on Chrome only, its code is not published, and it has a million users and a fifteen-year track record behind a polished console. Tab Session Manager's full source is on GitHub under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, it ships builds for Chrome, Firefox and Edge from that one tree, it lets you set the auto-save interval and sync through a Google Drive folder you own, and it is rougher and smaller. Everything below follows from that split.",[30,31,32,48],"table",{},[33,34,35],"thead",{},[36,37,38,42,45],"tr",{},[39,40,41],"th",{},"What you are comparing",[39,43,44],{},"Session Buddy",[39,46,47],{},"Tab Session Manager",[49,50,51,63,74,85,96,107,117],"tbody",{},[36,52,53,57,60],{},[54,55,56],"td",{},"Browsers",[54,58,59],{},"Chrome only",[54,61,62],{},"Chrome, Firefox, Edge",[36,64,65,68,71],{},[54,66,67],{},"Source code",[54,69,70],{},"Not published",[54,72,73],{},"Public on GitHub, Mozilla Public License 2.0",[36,75,76,79,82],{},[54,77,78],{},"Users",[54,80,81],{},"Around 1,000,000, rated 4.7",[54,83,84],{},"Around 100,000 on Chrome and 150,000 on Firefox, rated 3.5 and 4.2",[36,86,87,90,93],{},[54,88,89],{},"Automatic saving",[54,91,92],{},"On, on its own schedule, plus a running History",[54,94,95],{},"Off until you turn it on: on window close, or on a timer you set",[36,97,98,101,104],{},[54,99,100],{},"Cross-device sync",[54,102,103],{},"None. Listed as the most-requested feature, not shipped",[54,105,106],{},"Optional, into your own Google Drive App Folder",[36,108,109,112,115],{},[54,110,111],{},"Cost",[54,113,114],{},"Free, no paid tier",[54,116,114],{},[36,118,119,122,125],{},[54,120,121],{},"How it feels",[54,123,124],{},"A management console",[54,126,127],{},"A utility with a settings screen",[22,129,131],{"id":130},"how-does-each-one-save-your-sessions","How does each one save your sessions?",[18,133,134],{},"Session Buddy saves in one click and also keeps a History on its own. Tab Session Manager saves in one click too, and then gives you two switches for doing it automatically: save when a window closes, and save every so many minutes on a timer. The difference is who decides when a snapshot happens.",[18,136,137],{},"Session Buddy's automatic side is a feature called History. It records how your open windows and tabs change over time so you can \"travel back\" to a specific moment and restore exactly what was there. You do not configure it and you do not schedule it; it is simply on, the same way a word processor keeps an undo stack. For most people that is the right default, because the moment you need it is the moment you forgot to save.",[18,139,140,141,145],{},"Tab Session Manager makes you ask for it. In its settings you turn on auto-save on window close, or auto-save on an interval, or both, and you pick the interval. There is a floor. The minimum is half a minute, raised from six seconds in version 7.0.0 because a Manifest V3 service worker cannot be kept awake to fire that often. ",[142,143],"cite-ref",{"n":144},"6"," If you want a snapshot every two minutes while you work and nothing the rest of the time, Tab Session Manager will do that and Session Buddy does not give you the knob.",[18,147,148],{},"Session Buddy suits people who would rather never think about it. Tab Session Manager suits people who have a rhythm in mind and want the tool to match it.",[18,150,151],{},[152,153],"img",{"alt":154,"src":155,"title":156},"Diagram contrasting Session Buddy as one polished closed Chrome app you trust as a whole, with Tab Session Manager as readable code shipping to three browsers that you can check","/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager/finished-product-versus-open-workshop-diagram.svg","Both answer the crash question the same way. The fork is what you are being asked to trust, and it is not a feature you can add later by switching a setting.",[22,158,160],{"id":159},"where-do-session-buddy-and-tab-session-manager-store-your-data","Where do Session Buddy and Tab Session Manager store your data?",[18,162,163],{},"Both keep your sessions in local browser storage by default, with nothing sent to a server. Session Buddy has no cloud option at all. Tab Session Manager has an optional one that puts the data in a Google Drive folder only it can write to.",[18,165,166,167,170,171,174],{},"Session Buddy's site is direct about it: bookmarks and tab history are \"stored securely on your device, never on any server\", no signup, no login. ",[142,168],{"n":169},"2"," There is no Session Buddy account because there is no Session Buddy server. The cost of that arrangement is that cross-device sync does not exist. The FAQ lists it as the most-requested feature rather than a shipped one, ",[142,172],{"n":173},"4"," so if you need the same sessions on a second machine today, Session Buddy cannot do it and you would be exporting a file and importing it by hand.",[18,176,177,178,181,182,186,187,189],{},"Tab Session Manager is local by default in the same way, and its privacy policy says settings never leave the machine and session data does not either \"unless cloud sync is enabled\". ",[142,179],{"n":180},"8"," Turn cloud sync on and it authenticates with Google, keeps your login email in local storage, and writes sessions to the Google Drive ",[183,184,185],"strong",{},"App Folder"," - a private area of your own Drive that, in the policy's words, \"cannot be accessed by other apps or us\". ",[142,188],{"n":180}," The developer never sees the data; Google holds it, in your account, and you can revoke the access from your Google settings. It is sync without a company in the middle building a copy of your browsing.",[18,191,192,193,196],{},"One line in Session Buddy's Chrome Web Store data disclosure looks worse than it is. It declares that the extension handles personally identifiable information, authentication information and web history. ",[142,194],{"n":195},"1"," For something billed as privacy-first that reads badly, but those categories describe what any session manager has to touch. Your open URLs are web history. A saved login page is authentication information. The same listing and the same site both say the data stays on your device, so the disclosure is about what the extension can see, not about anything it sends.",[22,198,200],{"id":199},"can-you-read-what-each-one-actually-does","Can you read what each one actually does?",[18,202,203,204,207],{},"Tab Session Manager's entire source is on GitHub, and has been since 2017. ",[142,205],{"n":206},"5"," Session Buddy's is not published anywhere.",[18,209,210],{},"For a developer this is simple: one of these you can audit, fork or patch, and the other you take on trust. For everyone else the payoff is less direct but still real. Open code means someone who is not the developer can check what the extension does with your sessions, and people do. It means the Firefox and Edge builds come off the same reviewed tree as the Chrome one rather than being separate ports. And it means the project can outlive its author, because anyone can pick it up.",[18,212,213],{},"A closed extension with a million users and a long history, which is what Session Buddy is, buys a different kind of confidence: scale, longevity, a company with a reputation to protect. That is real, but it is confidence in the vendor, not in anything you or a third party can look at.",[18,215,216],{},"Neither kind of trust is the right one in the abstract. They fail differently. A closed product fails if the company loses interest or makes a call you cannot argue with. An open project fails if the one maintainer walks away and nobody takes over, which for a small tool is a live risk.",[18,218,219],{},"Both tools take the same snapshot. The choice is what you are willing to trust: a polished app you cannot see inside, or rougher code you can.",[18,221,222],{},[152,223],{"alt":224,"src":225,"title":226},"Quote card reading: both tools take the same snapshot, so the choice is what you are willing to trust, a polished app you cannot see inside or rougher code that you or someone else can check","/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager/what-you-are-willing-to-trust.png","This is the sentence to decide on. The feature tables move a lot less than it looks like they do.",[22,228,230],{"id":229},"which-one-came-through-the-manifest-v3-cutover-better","Which one came through the Manifest V3 cutover better?",[18,232,233],{},"Both took damage from it, and you can still see it in each. For Session Buddy it was a full rewrite that dropped features on the way. For Tab Session Manager it was smaller, a timing limit it had to live with.",[18,235,236,237,240,241,243,244,246],{},"Chrome's move to Manifest V3 forced Session Buddy into \"a complete application rewrite\", shipped as v4 in March 2024, which also changed the storage engine from Web SQL to IndexedDB. ",[142,238],{"n":239},"3"," That first v4 release \"left behind a handful of v3 features\", a cut the team attributes to \"time pressure imposed by impending Chrome deprecations\", with most of the missing functionality restored in the releases since. ",[142,242],{"n":173}," There is a sharper edge for anyone upgrading late: automatic migration of old v3 data works up to a point, but \"those upgrading after Chrome 124 must transfer data manually\", because the database technology it lived in was removed from Chrome. ",[142,245],{"n":173}," If you have an old Session Buddy install you have not opened in a year, check your saved collections survived before you rely on them.",[18,248,249,250,252,253,258],{},"Tab Session Manager's Manifest V3 story is one line in a changelog. Version 7.0.0 \"changed the minimum interval for regularly autosave from 0.1 minutes to 0.5 minutes\" because a Manifest V3 service worker cannot be kept alive to fire every six seconds. ",[142,251],{"n":144}," If you want the full account of why background extensions behave differently now - the sleeping service worker, the capped blocking API, the ban on remote code - ",[254,255,257],"a",{"href":256},"/blog/manifest-v3-what-changed","what Manifest V3 changed for the extensions you use"," covers all three.",[22,260,262],{"id":261},"which-one-should-you-use","Which one should you use?",[18,264,265,266,268],{},"Use ",[183,267,44],{}," if you are on Chrome, you want the most-proven option with the least fuss, and you do not need the code to be open or the extension to run anywhere else. Its console is the more finished piece of software, its History gives you point-in-time recovery without a single setting, and a million users is its own kind of assurance. You are accepting no cross-device sync and a closed binary.",[18,270,265,271,273],{},[183,272,47],{}," if any one of these is true: you are on Firefox or Edge, where Session Buddy does not exist; you want automatic snapshots on a schedule you set; you want cross-device sync that goes through your own Google Drive rather than a company's server; or you want to be able to read, or have someone read, what the extension does. You are accepting a rougher interface, a smaller user base, and a project that leans on one maintainer.",[18,275,276,277],{},"If you cannot decide, the tie-breaker is the browser question. Session Buddy is a Chrome tool. The moment a second browser is in the picture, Tab Session Manager is the one that follows you there, and it can import a Session Buddy export directly if you start on one and move. ",[142,278],{"n":279},"7",[18,281,282],{},[152,283],{"alt":284,"src":285,"title":286},"Checklist card titled \"Which one to install\": Session Buddy for a proven Chrome-only tool that just works, Tab Session Manager for cross-browser, a scheduled auto-save, self-owned sync, or readable code","/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager/which-one-to-install.png","Any single line under Tab Session Manager is enough to pick it. Session Buddy wins when none of them apply and you are on Chrome.",[22,288,290],{"id":289},"what-if-you-do-not-actually-want-a-session-manager","What if you do not actually want a session manager?",[18,292,293],{},"Session Buddy and Tab Session Manager both snapshot whole browser windows and restore them together, with positions and pinned tabs intact. That is the right tool if your problem is losing a working set to a crash or a restart. It is more machinery than you need if your problem is just that forty tabs are open and you want them gone without losing the links.",[18,295,296],{},"That second problem belongs to a different category, the list collapser: one button flattens every open tab into a dated list you can raid later, and there is no window layout or session to restore as a set.",[298,299,301],"article-disclosure",{"kind":300},"ownership",[18,302,303],{},"Our own extension, TheTab, is a list collapser, so treat this section as an interested party drawing a category line rather than recommending a product.",[18,305,306,310,311,315,316,320],{},[254,307,309],{"href":308},"/blog/what-is-a-tab-manager","What a tab manager actually is, and the four kinds"," sorts the whole field, and ",[254,312,314],{"href":313},"/blog/best-onetab-alternatives","the OneTab alternatives roundup"," covers the list collapsers alongside Session Buddy and Tab Session Manager in one table. If you are weighing a list tool specifically, ",[254,317,319],{"href":318},"/blog/toby-vs-onetab-comparison","Toby vs OneTab"," is the closest head-to-head. All of these tools, session managers included, can export to a file and read one back, so trying one costs an afternoon rather than a commitment.",[18,322,323],{},[152,324],{"alt":325,"src":326,"title":327},"TheTab saved tabs page with the Import button highlighted and the dated list of saved tab groups boxed","/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager/list-collapser-not-a-session-snapshot.png","A list collapser saves individual groups by date, not a window layout you restore whole. It is a different shape of tool from either one compared above.",[22,329,331],{"id":330},"how-do-you-decide-in-one-question","How do you decide in one question?",[18,333,334],{},"Ask whether you need this on more than one browser, or need to trust the code rather than the vendor. If either is a yes, it is Tab Session Manager, and you accept a rougher tool for it. If you are on Chrome, want the most-proven option, and are content to trust a closed app that a million people already run, it is Session Buddy.",[18,336,337],{},"Whichever you pick, save a session, export it, and open the file once. Every one of these tools can lose your data under some failure mode, and a backup you have never opened is not a backup yet.",{"title":339,"searchDepth":340,"depth":340,"links":341},"",2,[342,343,344,345,346,347,348,349],{"id":24,"depth":340,"text":25},{"id":130,"depth":340,"text":131},{"id":159,"depth":340,"text":160},{"id":199,"depth":340,"text":200},{"id":229,"depth":340,"text":230},{"id":261,"depth":340,"text":262},{"id":289,"depth":340,"text":290},{"id":330,"depth":340,"text":331},"/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager-hero.png","Title card reading \"Session Buddy vs Tab Session Manager: Polished or Open\"","2026-09-03T00:00:00.000Z","Both take a snapshot of every open window so a crash cannot cost you your tabs. Session Buddy is a polished, Chrome-only, closed app with a million users. Tab Session Manager is open source, runs on Firefox and Edge too, lets you set the auto-save interval, and can sync through your own Google Drive. Compared on storage, automation, what you can read, and how each one came through the Manifest V3 cutover.","md","/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager/hero-bg.webp",{},"Session Buddy is polished, Chrome-only and closed. Tab Session Manager is open source and cross-browser. Compared on storage, sync, and recovery.",true,"/blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager",8,{"title":12,"description":353},[363,370,373,378,382,387,391,396],{"title":364,"url":365,"publisher":366,"date":367,"tier":368,"supports":369},"Session Buddy - Tab & Bookmark Manager","https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/session-buddy/edacconmaakjimmfgnblocblbcdcpbko","Chrome Web Store","2026-09-03",1,"Session Buddy's Chrome Web Store listing shows version 4.1.2, last updated 28 April 2026, 1,000,000 users and a 4.7 rating from 25.1K reviews, with a Featured badge and no in-app-purchases badge. The listing describes the extension as automatically saving sessions and keeping a history \"that shows your windows and tabs exactly as they were at a specific moment in time\", and offers import and export in \"15+ formats\". The data-collection disclosure lists personally identifiable information, financial and payment information, authentication information and web history, and states the data is not sold and not used for unrelated purposes.",{"title":44,"url":371,"publisher":44,"date":367,"tier":368,"supports":372},"https://sessionbuddy.com/","Session Buddy's own site states that \"your bookmarks and tab history are stored securely on your device, never on any server\", that \"no signup\" is required and it can be used \"for as long as you want without a login\", and that it has been \"trusted by millions for over 15 years\". The only install link is to the Chrome Web Store; no Firefox or Edge build is listed.",{"title":374,"url":375,"publisher":44,"date":376,"tier":368,"supports":377},"What's New in Session Buddy v4","https://sessionbuddy.com/v4/","2024-03-13","Session Buddy describes v4, dated 13 March 2024, as \"a complete application rewrite focused on replacing outdated technologies, ensuring continued browser compliance\". It lists the renamings the rewrite brought: a Saved Session became a Collection, saved windows became Folders, saved tabs became Links, and Previous Sessions were replaced by a History feature. The rewrite moved storage from Web SQL Database to IndexedDB and brought full Manifest V3 compliance.",{"title":379,"url":380,"publisher":44,"date":367,"tier":368,"supports":381},"Session Buddy v4 FAQ","https://sessionbuddy.com/v4-faq/","Session Buddy's FAQ states that \"the initial release of Session Buddy v4 left behind a handful of v3 features\" and that \"these omissions were a strategic decision driven by time pressure imposed by impending Chrome deprecations\", with \"multiple follow-up releases reinstating most of the missing functionality\" since. It states that automatic v3-to-v4 data migration worked for most users but that \"those upgrading after Chrome 124 must transfer data manually due to Chrome deprecations\". It describes cloud sync as \"our most-requested feature\", not as a shipped one.",{"title":383,"url":384,"publisher":385,"date":367,"tier":368,"supports":386},"sienori/Tab-Session-Manager","https://github.com/sienori/Tab-Session-Manager","sienori","Tab Session Manager's source is published in full on GitHub under the Mozilla Public License 2.0 (the repository's LICENSE file). The repository was created in October 2017 and was last pushed to in August 2026. The README describes the extension as saving and restoring \"the state of browser windows and tabs\" with support for automatic saving, and links to Chrome, Firefox and Edge store builds plus a Session Compressor utility.",{"title":388,"url":389,"publisher":366,"date":367,"tier":368,"supports":390},"Tab Session Manager - Chrome Web Store","https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/tab-session-manager/iaiomicjabeggjcfkbimgmglanimpnae","Tab Session Manager's Chrome Web Store listing shows version 7.4.0, last updated 18 July 2026, 100,000 users and a 3.5 rating from 443 reviews, with a Featured badge. The feature list names saving and restoring windows and tabs, managing sessions with a name and tags, auto save when a window is closed, auto save at regular intervals, switching workspaces, import and export, cloud sync, tab-group support and an \"Import Session Buddy\" option. The changelog states that version 7.0.0 \"changed the minimum interval for regularly autosave from 0.1 minutes to 0.5 minutes\" due to Manifest V3 limitations.",{"title":392,"url":393,"publisher":394,"date":367,"tier":368,"supports":395},"Tab Session Manager - Firefox Add-ons","https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-manager/","Mozilla Add-ons","Mozilla's listing shows Tab Session Manager at version 7.4.0, roughly 151,878 Firefox users, a 4.2 rating, and the licence as \"Mozilla Public License 2.0\". The description names automatic saving and cloud sync, and the feature list includes \"Import Session Buddy\" and compatibility with the Chrome build.",{"title":397,"url":398,"publisher":385,"date":399,"tier":368,"supports":400},"Privacy Policy - Tab Session Manager","https://tab-session-manager.sienori.com/privacy-policy","2020-03-31","Tab Session Manager's privacy policy states that session data \"is stored only on local storage and never sent to an external server\" unless cloud sync is enabled, and that settings are always local only. With cloud sync on, the extension stores the user's Google login email on local storage and writes session data to the Google Drive App Folder, where \"this data cannot be accessed by other apps or us\". The policy names no analytics or telemetry.","blog/session-buddy-vs-tab-session-manager",[403,404,405,406,407],"onetab-alternative","tab-management","browser-extensions","privacy","productivity","wHJ5scHKFTlSWcWEj29qAlbz8J0g4Hla1pKeD6CfQU8",[407,404,405,410,411,406,403,412],"browser-performance","focus","browser-comparison",1788413693966]