Slant community chat on DiscourseNews readers aggregate information from various sources.
A modern news reader will allow pulling information from RSS feeds, social networks, and even news sites and blogs that lack RSS functionality. Good news readers will allow grouping and organizing sources and offer a choice of how information is presented.
| 33 Recommended Products | Recommendations | Platforms | Search | Subscriptions in Free Plan |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 Inoreader· · · | 82 | 2 | Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone | Yes | unlimited |
| #2 Feedly· · · | 97 | 17 | Web, iOS, Android, Kindle | Yes | 100 |
| #3 Tiny Tiny RSS· · · | 22 | 1 | Web, Android, iOS | Yes | unlimited |
| #4 NewsBlur· · · | 26 | 6 | Web, iOS, Android | – | – |
| #5 The Old Reader· · · | 15 | 1 | Web | – | 100 |
| #6 Flipboard· · · | 25 | 9 | Android, iOS, BlackBerry, Windows, Web | – | – |
Pro Free unlimited feeds
Unlike most other news reader services, Inoreader does not restrict the amount of sources you can subscribe to in the free version.
Pro Easy to overview the list of articles so you can quickly find articles that interest you
All the feeds are easily accessible, allowing for a quick access to the most relevant articles, thanks to the interface’s design: minimal and free of distracting, unnecessary elements.
Pro Loads really fast
The lightweight UI allows Inoreader to display feeds quickly.
Con Ads in free version
Ads appear in both mobile apps and the web version.
Con Limits free users
While Inoreader's basic functions are still available for free users, many of the options involving customization and search options are limited to paying users.
Con Can't have unread items older than a month
If you don't read items older than 1 month they are automatically marked as read, with no possibility to "unread" them.
Pro Clean, easy to overview UI
Feedly has an easy to overview interface. While this interface is clean and simple, it is still full of bright colors. A great feature that adds to the clean feel is "eliminate clutter", which keeps only the text of the desired topic.
Pro Seamless Google Reader migration
Feedly have made it especially easy to navigate away from Google Reader.
Con No keyword filtering
Feedly has no ability to filter a feed by keyword like a lot of other RSS readers do.
Con Long list of paid-only features
Free features are pretty basic. It seems like all the new development goes into paid-only features. Paid features include sharing and saving options, alerts, backup, support or integrations with collaborative tools.
Pro Highly customizable via plugins
The main way to customize Tiny Tiny RSS is via functionality plugins. Some come with the basic installation, but many additional ones are available from third parties. Users can also change the way information is shown, create themes or skins using CSS or download ones created by the community. All...
Pro Full control of the service
Since this reader is open-source and self-hosted, users can have full control of the service and its data when used on a private server. This means they don’t need to rely on a third party service that can be discontinued anytime. It also ensures the cost for using the reader will not increase and...
Con Has to be set up manually, tech-savviness and patience required
Using Tiny Tiny RSS is not as simple as creating an account on another service. Merely completing the installation procedure will take at least a few hours. Main requirements include a physical server or a web host supporting PHP and MySQL. The know-how’s also needed, but there are several guides...
Pro Recommended articles that improves over time
NewsBlur has a discovery algorithm that users can "train" to show stories they are interested in and hide ones they don't care about.
Pro Keyboard shortcuts for fast navigation
By default arrow keys and spacebar are used to quickly navigate stories, but they can be rebound for premium accounts.
Con Freemium
This service is free, but can cost up to $24 per year for premium users.
Con Can't have unread items older than a 14 days/month
This is a premium feature.
Pro Great UI
A clean, easy to use interface.
Pro Social
People from Facebook or Google can be found on The Old Reader so posts can be shared and discussed.
Con Not free/libre
This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified, freely distributed, or trusted to be secure. Also, if the developer abandons it again, there will be no way for others to continue to update it.
Con No mobile app
Lacks an official native mobile app, but the mobile version of the site is quite usable and there are apps which support syncing with The Old Reader. However, users have created many apps for a variety of platforms using The Old Reader API. You can check them out here.
Pro Personalized magazines
Magazines is a features by Flipboard that can allow anyone to create their own personalized magazine by collecting the content from various websites and collate them into a magazine that can also be shared to other readers. Magazines can be set to either public or private access and anyone can foll...
Pro Very polished UI that is organized like a magazine
This app has a very polished, magazine-style layout, that is flipped through by swiping. Because of its layout, Flipboard is especially nice on tablets.
Con Excessive ads with no way to remove them
Flipboard doesn’t offer subscription plans, having only the completely free full version. However, it does feature ads that appear between articles and there’s no way of removing this function.
Con Needs better organization of topics, mags, users followed
When you follow 3-5 magazines per topic (sometimes more) it would be nice to be able to group some of these together in a way that constricts the 'fire hose' of content.
Pro Clean interface
Digg Reader takes a minimalistic approach to the UI, identifying the essential and eliminating the rest.
Pro Simple so it's fast to navigate
Digg Reader is meant to be as simple as possible in order to promote speed and usability.
Con No search feature
Digg Reader is currently working on a search feature in order to find information more quickly.
Pro Clean UI
Uncluttered and intuitive to use.
Pro Classy interface
The web interface is nice, and the apps give a great native experience regardless of what platform you're on.
Con There is no free plan
One of the few news readers that does not offer a free plan. They have a 14 day trial, after that a subscription is $3/month.
Pro Works offline
Once articles are synced, all of the information is cached and can be viewed while offline.
Pro Lots of integrations
Works as a front-end for Feedly, Feedbin, Fever or Feed Wrangler.
Con Unreliable after being installed a while
After about a week, this app stops working as intended. Features like syncing and caching are the most common features to break.
Con Lack of updates may cause compatibility issues
The last update to the Google Play Store was January 2014. It looks like it's been abandoned, so will likely have increasing issues with bugs and compatibility concerns with newer Android versions.
Pro Makes it effortless to stay on top of the news
Circa lets users follow a selected story and get alerts to breaking news.
Pro Beautifully designed
Everything displayed on Circa News is meant to be clear, concise, and easy to navigate.
Con No web version yet
Circa News is not available on the web, but this feature is coming soon.
Pro Combines news from free and paid blogs, print magazines and websites in one app
The app makes it easy to select from a variety of different news sources.
Pro Offers a comfortable reading experience for print media
There is a huge selection of print media available to you (some sources are free, some are paid). They layout makes it very easy to browse through and read.
Con Inability to mute sources
While it may be desirable for Newsstand to blend both paid and free news sources, it means that their curated headlines are only partially accessible for those who do not have subscriptions for all the various paid sources.
Pro Beautiful UI design
Great look and feel to the app as you swipe though stories or scroll down on a headline to read more details. Most stories come with custom designed graphs tailored for the story.
Pro Great for a casual reader of the News
Rather than give you full articles, the app creates "Atoms". It's a short summary of the news event, generated from a variety of different sources. It provides infographs, images, videos and more to help you quickly understand the news event. This means you are able to read through a...
Con No customization of news headlines or categories
You only get the top 8-10 headlines of the day regardless of news category or source.
Con Meager sharing options
You can share any article in the digest, but it doesn't give many options for tailoring the message that is sent.
Pro Smart
It finds the best stories in the feeds.
Pro Combination of design and functionality
Design is beautiful and really easy to use. Options to save and read later, to add any rss url, to follow by #.
Pro Podcast support
You are able to download or stream podcasts.
Pro Offline reading
Offline Reading allows you to read you news without having internet connection. Download your content at home and read them while going to work with the subway. It is very easy to setup offline reading so that offline content is always available when you need them.
Con Can be buggy/unreliable
Many bugs have been noted such as pages disappearing, articles freezing, and not being able to stop youtube videos from playing.
Pro Looks really good
In a recent update, 3 new themes were added. All the theme options are well designed.
Pro Free API
API can be used by developers for free.
Con Marks old stories as new
There is a bug that causes stories from exactly one month ago to be marked as unread and new.
Pro Syncs your news and read status via iCloud
News Explorer syncs RSS, JSON, Atom and Twitter subscriptions, folder setup, news items, read statuses and favorites across all your Apple devices via iCloud.
Pro Available on all Apple platforms
News Explorer has native apps for Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV.
Con No Feedly support
News Explorer relies on iCloud synchronisation and doesn't offer support for other synchronisation solutions.
Know any negative aspects of this option?
Con Appears abandoned
Buggy to the point where it is no longer functional, and there is no response from the developer.
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