My specific need is I like to reference articles I've read later, quickly. I was using Pocket to track links to articles I've read, keeping them categorized with tags. It's been a mediocre solution for this need (e.g. I'd like to add more metadata, such as notes), but I haven't found too many apps/products that serve this use case.

What's nice about Pocket is that I can do this from any browser on any device, since it has integrations and an app for mobile devices. Trying to do this with a note taking app is much more clunky and frictional. Especially when trying to quickly find an article I had saved.

Anyway, if anyone knows something that fits this use case better, it looks like I'm in the market for it now

Have you looked at larder.io?

Browser integrations, tags and search works fine, but the notes functionality (“Description”) is very limited.