When comparing The Old Reader vs NewsBlur, the Slant community recommends NewsBlur for most people. In the question“What are the best news readers?” NewsBlur is ranked 4th while The Old Reader is ranked 6th. The most important reason people chose NewsBlur is:
NewsBlur has a discovery algorithm that users can "train" to show stories they are interested in and hide ones they don't care about.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Social
People from Facebook or Google can be found on The Old Reader so posts can be shared and discussed.
Pro Very similar to the dismissed Google Reader
Ever since Google Reader has ceased to be an option, The Old Reader has grown in popularity.
Pro Great UI
A clean, easy to use interface.
Pro Easy to use
Intuitive, easy to overview service.
Pro OPML import
Allows for easy migration from any service that supports OPML.
Pro Freemium
Free version has a limit of 100 sites, upgrade to unlimited sites costs $25/year. Being freemium is a nice option for those that would like to try the app out without putting down any money first.
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.
Pro Multiple layout & style options
NewsBlur allows users to customize the font size, line spacing, story layout, and type faces.
Pro Fast to use
Very fast to navigate around the UI and load articles.
Pro View content the way it is originally displayed
NewsBlur offers an option of reading articles just like they are displayed on the original site.
Pro Organize feeds into folders
Feeds can be grouped into folders for easier management and to allow users to separate feeds for work, comics, research, etc.
Pro Share stories with comments
Burblog is a simple, customizable website for sharing stories with comments that people can subscribe to.
Pro Aggregates email newsletters
You can forward email newsletters to a user-specific email address to have them aggregated in your feed reader along with your RSS content.
Pro Free / Libre software
NewsBlur is FOSS, so it can be freely modified & redistributed.
Pro Freemium service
Free version has a limit of 64 sites. Upgrading to unlimited sites costs $1/month.
Cons
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.
Con Not very customizable
While the sources can be added or removed, the feed cannot be filtered in any other way. Display options are limited as well, leaving the user with the standard view.
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.