When comparing Twitter (Official) vs NewsBlur, the Slant community recommends NewsBlur for most people. In the question“What are the best news readers?” NewsBlur is ranked 4th while Twitter (Official) is ranked 40th. 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 Gets the latest API updates
Twitter is slightly infamous for making changes to the API. At least with the official client, you stay ahead of this.
Pro Clean & Functional UI design
Pro Officially sponsored
So you know it will always be supported and won't be randomly shut down.
Pro App experience similar to web experience
If you're switching from using the web client, this app will be quickly understandable to you.
Pro Inline photos
Pro Multiple account support
Allows easy switching of accounts withing the app.
Pro Supports login verification
The official Twitter app is perhaps the only app to support two factor authentication or login verification, thus providing a necessary additional layer of security to your Twitter accounts
Pro Photo editing tools
The app has filters, automatic level balancing and ability to crop built in the app.
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 Forced inside Twitter's annoying ecosystem
Con "In case you missed" feature, showing tweets other users liked in your timeline
Features (can't be turned off) that disrupt chronological timeline and/or show sames tweets repeatedly.
Con Promoted tweets
AKA ads.
Con Too many permissions
Asking a lot more permissions than most third party apps.
Con No widget
Recently took away the widget for whatever reason and that's not cool.
Con Pretty heavy
If you're on a "available-space" budget, the official twitter app is pretty bulky and you'll be better-off with a more lightweight alternative.
Con Lack of ability to view tweets in a proper timeline
Con Terrible cellular data management
If you have a limited data plan for your phone, don't be surprised if you find a whopping 800 MB consumption at the end of the month. The app really, really wants to download absolutely everything, even if you don't want to see or play anything.
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.