When comparing Pocket vs Relay for reddit, the Slant community recommends Relay for reddit for most people. In the question“What are the best Material Design apps?” Relay for reddit is ranked 4th while Pocket is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Relay for reddit is:
A great feature of Relay is the UX for swiping between the post and the reddit comments. It's very fast to go back and forth between the views.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Available on the web and mobile devices
Pocket is available on iOS, Android, Kobo eReader and on the web.
Pro Allows reading saved content in offline mode
Instead of only saving the link, the content is saved for offline use.
Pro Well-finished GUI and UX
Pro The Pocket plugin for Google Chrome is very stable
Pro Allows tagging bookmarks
Bookmarks can be tagged for search accuracy later on.
Pro Included in Firefox
Pocket is now integrated into the Firefox web browser, and you can login using your firefox/mozilla login, instead of having to create a separate account. This login method can even be used natively on their website, regardless what browser is being used.
Pro Integrates with over 500 apps
A key advantage of Pocket is that it is integrated in over 500 apps as a way to save the link, including Twitter, Flipboard, Pulse and Zite.
Pro Works well across Google Chrome on macOS and iOS
Pro Highlighting available on iOS
Pro Ability to filter by content type
Pro Easy to flip between content & comments
A great feature of Relay is the UX for swiping between the post and the reddit comments. It's very fast to go back and forth between the views.
Pro Excellent material design UI
Relay uses screen space efficiently and can be navigated quickly. It is mostly designed for viewing a single subreddit at a time and making that experience as pleasurable as possible, with easy access to a subs from a dropdown menu at the top.
Pro Tons of features and functionality
With support for multiple accounts, interface themes, and inline picture previews, Relay for reddit offers a large amount of features for any power reddit user.
There are also many unique functionalities that set Relay apart from the competition.
●It has a 'Remove unread' option to swipe away all read threads. This is especially useful when it's a large and busy subreddit with tons and tons of submissions, to the point where it can get overwhelming. This a convenient option for making your reddit-browsing experience a little easier.
●It offers compatability with the Multi-Window feature which is present on Samsung & L.G phones (soon to be present AndroidOS-wide). This greatly enhances multi-tasking.
●It offers an excellent Spoiler tag support and an AMA mode (conspicuously missing from its biggest competitor).
Pro Allows you to view a parent comment
To keep a better context of the conversation, Relay doesn't hide the parent comment while browsing.
Pro Animations make for more pleasurable usage
The abundant animations make browsing more enjoyable because it transitions so nicely.
Pro Fast GIF loading
GIFs are automatically converted to gfycat format; they therefore load much faster than on other apps.
Pro Clutter-free and well thought-out UI
The moment the user opens Relay for reddit and begins exploring all of its ins and outs, it becomes quite clear how wonderfully designed this app is. There is excellent UX for redditors who prefer discussions and news, rather than pictures, videos, and gifs.
● You can alternate between a cards and a lists UI with a compact list view optional.
● A drop-down menu of all your subreddits is present at the top for quick and easy access. If the user is adequately familiarized with the list, he/she can simply swipe on the banner so to quickly switch between subreddits.
●The comment format option is situated right next to the drop-down menu.
It's an all around wonderful application with many Material Design elements employed.
Pro Automatically loads optimized images based on screen size
The app will automatically load a lower resolution image that is a closer match to your screen size to save bandwidth, with a button to load the original image if you need more detail.
Pro Easily save battery with night time theme
The available night time theme allows the background to be dark with light colored text, which uses less battery on AMOLED screens.
Pro Easily moderate from the app
Moderators on Reddit are allowed more functions over a normal user on Reddit, which is possible to be used in Pro for Relay. With these features included in the app it's possible to approve comments, check modque, and get specifically labelled moderator messages.
Pro Colour coded collapsible comments
Pro Smooth as butter
Opening links, animations, and transitions, as well as scrolling, all work well with no glitches or missed frames. The app feels extremely smooth thanks to the attention to detail in all of its inner workings.
Cons
Con Only the paid version allows to search by tag
Con Correct and open export of bookmarks and tags are not possible
This means that Pocket is (currently) a total lock-in.
This is very sad, unfortunate and creates a no go decision for any seasoned user.
Too many bookmarking and tagging companies have stopped or have gone bankrupt these last years (e.g. Kippt, Spingpad, Delicious (to some extent), etc...). So, if you are going to invest a lot of your personal time and energy in curating your Internet findings (i.e. your bookmarks and tags), it is essential that a total, fair and open export (including all tags) functionality is provided. Personally tested the export "feature" and the resulting .html file that Pocket generates currently included only the URLs themselves, i.e. no save dates nor any of your personally curated tags, nor any other useful meta-data.
This is deplorable, because otherwise, Pocket is a very polished and well-functioning piece of multi-platform and multi-device software/app/web service, with a very easy and well-designed and implemented user interface...
Please fix this, Pocket !
These days of open and inter-operable web services, users are only attracted by valuable functionality, clean UX design and no lockins.
Con Search function in Pro version does not follow the proper date sequence
Although the pro version lets us search by tags, the search results unfortunately does not follow the time sequence of the saving of articles. Search results may show some old articles first, then a bunch of new articles, and then again old articles. It's so random and frustating.
I have been using Pocket pro for quite a long time primarily because it lets me have the permanent copy of a news (this feature is really useful in journalism). However, when I search tag wise for the old references, the absence of time-sequencing the search results really frustates me.
Con Can't rename the title of links
If the page title isn't correct/good for a link, there is no way for you to fix it.
Con Not really a bookmark tool but a tool to save webpages for later reading
A real bookmark tool has editable fields like title, url, folder, tags, notes. This saves webpages.
Con Deleted or edited tags do not go away from tag suggestions
For example, imagine you accidentally created a tag "US" instead of "USA," and saved some articles under "US." The unfortunate part is even if you edit the tag and rename it "USA" , the previous tag name will always appear in the suggested tags: so when saving an article, if you type US in the tag box, you will see two suggestions "US" and "USA."
Con Chrome addon doesn't let you open your library without saving current page first
Con Can't import Firefox bookmark tags
When importing bookmarks from Firefox, Pocket doesn't include the tags.
Con Chrome addon doesn't allow you to add tags with keyboard only (have to use mouse) while saving page
Con Can not up/downvote comments
Con Can't disable sliding animations
Sliding animations are baked in & can't be disabled, as some don't like animations.
Con Non native image uploading
All images need to be loaded externally when wanting to view full screen, this means another app will need to be loaded, which can be slow and consumes RAM.
Con Poor feedback for network errors
Sometimes comment submission will fail silently and it isn't clear whether it went through.
Con Not open source
Accessing your reddit acount with proprietary software might not be safe.
Con No gallery swipe view
There is no way to swipe through a gallery of posts pics, which means each pic has to be individually clicked on and loaded, which takes time.
Con Sharing link/comment options buried too deep
At present, the sharing menu is buried deep inside: swipe an article > Click More > Swipe again > then Share.