Reeder. Reviews

by Floridian Kiwi

Let’s get one thing out of the way: the subscription model is fine. Let’s reward great developers with a real living and with enough revenue to continue building great things.

This new this app is not a great thing. It’s half-baked and solves problems that don’t exist while creating new ones. Take a step back and look at what this app was (and this app Classic continues to be): a beautiful, smart, simple way to organize and consume news in almost any form.

Now this this app rolls along, and … just chucks that out the window. If you use something other than Apple products sometimes, too bad. The new this app forces your backend to be Apple-only, so no more common newsfeed with your other devices. If you’ve spent years curating a newsfeed with a service you trust (or self-host), too bad. Everything goes into this app now and you’re going to lose all your organization. If you like to scroll your content to see what you want to read, too bad. this app’s read state is tied to scrolling now, so no more perusing.

This is, collectively, a baffling miss from a developer who made (and continues to support) one of the finest, most user-friendly pieces of software I’ve had the pleasure of using.

by Nbostic

I’ve been an outspoken fan and purchaser of every version of this app. This newest this app is absolute garbage as an RSS reader. Worse, the developer follows the trend of subscription model greed. If you’ve been a loyal customer needing a great Google Reader replacement for your RSS feed collection, save time and disappointment by skipping Reeder.

by Alexs_13

In a world of endless algorithmic newsfeeds seeking for attention, this app was a jewel allowing me to control my news consumption. Unfortunately this update misses the point entirely by removing the one thing that made this app unique: being able to reach the end of the feed!

This updates is incomprehensible to me: it has all the ingredients to be a fantastic app yet fails spectacularly!

The new UI is gorgeous, the ability to centralize RSS, social feeds, podcasts and bookmarks is all I’ve wanted for many years, but not being able to mark items/feeds as read defeats the entire purpose of Reeder !

Please give people an option to decide whether they want an infinite feed or a “classical” feed. I wouldn’t have to stay on this app Classic and would happily pay the yearly subscription.

Aside from this, I wish there would be more customization options, notably for the article list layout + reading XP. I hope previous settings like image previews, display favicons, text preview will come back in future updates.

It would also be great to allow importing read-later items from this app 4 into this app 5, and provide a global setting to set the preferred mode of reading (eg. reader mode for all feeds, vs. going one by one).

by I<3miabear

Preface: I am Silvio's biggest fan and have purchased every piece of software he's made.

That said, I tried a 1 month sub for Reeder and thoroughly dislike it. It's trying to create a problem that doesn't exist with this app classic.

I get this app 5 is not going anywhere, but it's absolutely heartbreaking to know my precious app I use every day will not be in focus anymore :(

Too many problems with Reeder (new this app) to list, but here's some:

1. No external RSS support - this actually doesn't bother me as much as others. I was hoping to move to iCloud sync in the future.

2. No folder

3. No feeds management

4. No unread number on folders

5. No unread markers? Silvio you're driving me lazy! This adds a tremendous amount of mental friction to my day!

6. Uses this app's title even though it's nothing like the previous this app classic app.

7. A fraction of the old settings and features I came to rely on in the old this app classic app.

So many more. I am canceling the sub for now, but will be watching Reeder closely.

In my opinion, the better direction would have been adding these features like youtube & audio to the EXISTING this app Classic app!

by Ericdano

I’m a LONG time this app user. This version seems to be a step BACKWARDS. While I think the idea of having everything in one place is a great idea, like your YouTube channels, Mastodon, BlueSky, whatever. BUT the CORE functionality, RSS reading, is pretty much gutted. Where is the support for RSS Aggregate services like NewsBlur? I don’t see it. Since that is 99% of what I need this app to do, I’m going to skip this until it gets that support.

by Rzw

I’ve been a fan of this app for years, as the obvious best app for RSS on iOS. Now the developer has decided to archive that app as this app Classic and pursue a completely different idea that isn’t even about reading RSS. Not to mention that it’s a utility that does not provide its own service, yet for some reason charges a subscription to use it. Ridiculous.

by LucaAAA1

Unfortunately, things have not been working out well for me with this new version:
- There are way less ways to customize the reading experience of “regular”, text-rich content.
- Both video and podcast players are nowhere near the quality and feature-set of any dedicated apps
- Folders were introduced with a recent update, and those made the navigation a bit better. Still, that sense of “getting lost” remains.
- While the “no-badges” philosophy works for media I actually care very little about, it does not pair well with the content I actually love. I’m concerned of losing track of it in this big ocean of timelines that goes into oblivion after a scroll.

by Russty

This is a huge step back from this app Classic. If you like this app Classic, you should stay with the classic. Just my opinion. When I started using classic, it just worked, easy to organize feeds and set the reader view on all the feeds. The in app viewing of feed items immediately failed for the first few feed items I checked.

by Amberlovexo

I really wanted to like Reeder! I’ve used this app since the very first version and use it everyday. I would gladly pay a monthly subscription to support the developer. But Reeder just doesn’t work for me. I use Feedbin and have a carefully curated feed list, folders, and starred items that goes back a decade. And I love unread and starred counts! I don’t read my feeds in order. I dip in to particular folders organized by topic, quickly glance at articles, and star the ones I want to read later. Reeder just doesn’t work like that. So unless Reeder add support for these features, I’ll stick with Classic for as long as it continues to work (or a better app comes along).

by BillyOK

I get the philosophy behind Reeder — we can’t read everything we want to read, so just toss it in a feed and forget about unread counts.

But this approach is so sloppy. No read/unread indicator — even third-party Twitter apps had that, and for good reason. If you don’t bookmark an entry (one of two ways for some reason — later or bookmark), good luck finding it again. Folders are finally here, but that’s not enough. This feels WAY more unwieldy than this app Classic ever did, and I’m only sampling this with 4 feeds instead of the 50+ I have in Classic.

Good luck, hope it works out for you, but I’m uninstalling.

by XMattForever

The problem with the new version is there is no default full article mode like this app 5 had and you still can’t adjust the font size of an article’s preview inside the home section. They should’ve offered all the same customizable features this app 5 had and simply added new features. But instead they took away features. Also since this was advertized as built from scratch … I was expecting that the developer would add push notifications similar to what NetNewsWire has but nope. The developer seems to determined not to offer that option. In closing Reeder not worth a yearly subscription and it won’t be until it offers everything this app 5/this app Classic has and more and yet that includes offering push notifications.

by Twmills

I am a long time subscriber, but the lack of settings to increase font size is a deal breaker for me. Apps focused on reading should include accessibility options by default.

Hopefully this is a temporary oversight, but I am happily using the old version until then.

by Kaznovac

App feels polished and smooth, but leaves a lot to be desired. Folders are missing, and there are no Pocket, Instapaper, Inoreader clients...

It is reasonably priced, but without these features it's a step back from classic to me

by CHI3F

As a long time silent user of Reeder, this update really rubs me wrong and I feel like I need to speak up.

First off, why make a radical update, list it as a new app, and then charge users for OPML import? I had to manually import every feed. Feels kinda scummy… Second, while the “RSS as a timeline” concept has definite merit, this update is going too far in that direction without offering customization options as a middle ground. Getting rid of the read/unread marker completely was a bad decision. Also, no option to customize how large the preview is… this app was always an app about consuming my feeds the way I want to, but this update goes against that philosophy.

Consider working on a middle ground to not alienate your long time users by forcing your new ideas on them. Until then, I’m out. Best of luck.

by Gplawhorn

The new this app (I’m all for new) adds the ability to track a number of sources like YouTube. It takes away the ability to see what particular source has been updated (no counts on what has changed). That’s a feature (it is claimed) so that you just go through your timeline. But I follow specific RSS sites to keep up with THEM, and I don’t want to have to scroll through everything. I would give this app. five stars if it brought back counts AND allowed the creation of groups to arrange feeds. I’m staying with this app Classic.

by F_O_J

Like some of the other reviewers, I really wanted to like the new this app. And I think it’s almost there. I LOVE the ability to have many other feeds collected, however I really need the ability to remove them from my queue, I don’t care about unread counts. If we had that ability this would be a 4 star app, if we had more customization options; 5 stars. Hoping for these improvements.

by Gank!

Just for anyone wondering what's going on, seems the developer changed the entire design or purpose of Reeder to now make it just a feed of your news and stuff, as opposed to a true RSS Reader App. WOuld have ben MUCH beeter if they just named the old one this app RSS or something to clarify. Again, This is NOT an RSS Reader app. It looks to be nearly identicle to Tapestry, although with different UI & customization options. I do like being able to open links directly in an In-App Browser, but that would be useful in the actual this app RSS app. I mean, I still LIKE Reeder? But it's just not a replacement for this app. this app is dead. Long live this app.

by Mark Bober

I want to love it. I'm a long long time this app user. I like the pattern of [un]read stories, even though I often just mark a large swath of them as read. But I'd try the new paradigm if and only if I could still organize my feeds into folders for things like News, Tech, Local, etc. If you can ship this feature, I'll resubscribe and give it a real try. Dipping back over to this app Classic for now.

by Wcrtr

I love supporting independent developers, and subscribed to this right away after using the previous version of this app (.)

The design / performance is great. I like the macOS support.

But the lack of read/unread is making me unable to use it with my workflow, and have been falling back to the previous app.

While I like the idea of bookmarking stuff that's interesting, my whole usage of Reeder is based on running down feeds like an inbox, marking as read, and moving on.

I would love to keep the bookmarking support mixed with read/unread. As it stands it's just not working for my use case.

The other thing I miss is the ability to swipe down / up to access feed items without having to tap through each of them.

Anyway, lovely app, maybe my use case is just kind of a weirdo way of approaching feeds... I'll probably keep checking features as they're added but will likely not use this much moving forward even though I was *really* excited about it!

by MutantSquid

As a long time this app user, I was eager to see the new version of one of my most used programs, and right now, I think this app 5 (or this app Classic) is a better fit for me as I use it for RSS only. The new version however, may be a great solution for those that follow content in a variety of formats or services.

The developer has already shared that there are features coming that will greatly add to the expierence, like folders.

The unified timeline approach is interesting, but I really wish it had a setting or way to hide or visually dim old or previously viewed content.

While I'm not a fan of subscriptions, I really hope that the change to a subscription model means that we'll see active development on this version.

by Bohnjennett

Reeder is beautiful. I also completely understand why the developer left the old this app app fully functioning. Reeder is nothing like that one. Which is fine. But not for me. I’m gonna stick to the Classic app for the foreseeable future. At the very least i want to be able to sort my RSS feeds in folders like in the past apps. Don’t seem to be able to do any kind of sorting here past alphabetical. Maybe Reeder will get better in time.

by Nickdaze

I write this with nothing but love for this developer. I have bought and used daily every version of this app that has ever existed.

The opinionated experiments in this new version are thoughtfully implemented, well designed, and well built. But I just deleted Reeder . This new approach completely breaks 15 years of workflow and muscle memory for me. I will continue using this app Classic for as long as it works, and I would even pay good money for a major update to the this app Classic approach.

But this just isn’t working for me.

by Its_bmo_time

The home feed displays oldest first, but then not all in the correct order. Sometimes it’s right then other times it displays a huge chunk from a single feed going back over 5 years. Makes it unusable. There are no options currently to change the ordering - which seems odd. And then… how do you clear your home feed? There is no option to do so and there doesn’t seem to be a read / not read option. It just saves your scroll position in the feed. Maybe that’s a purposeful decision to make something that’s ‘not an RSS reader’ and I can respect that. Maybe it’s just not for me. Or maybe I need a few more quality of life type features to use it.

by Musicguru13

Coming from this app 5, there are two items that are holding me back from making the switch. Beyond that I think Reeder has a good start at simplifying the way information is consumed. It also adds some capabilities that were missing in this app 5 that for me were much needed. The first thing that Reeder is missing is some indication that a new article is available to read. I get the need to not show a count but something like bolding the folder or feed source title would make all the difference. If you are looking for ideas you could make the title glow yellow to play off of the cool new lightening app icon. The second item is that there is no way to easily transition from one feed or folder into another. this app 5 allows you pull past the last article in the feed to move to the next feed or folder. That was really slick and kept you in the flow of reading content. Looking forward to updates in the future. Keep up the great work.

by Cgclack

I’ve been looking for a universal hub for all my media, and this app delivers exactly that. I love how quickly I was able to import my feeds from this app Classic, and connecting to my Mastodon and Bluesky accounts was a breeze. Adding podcasts and subreddits is just as easy. The sync across devices works flawlessly. What’s even better is that if this version isn’t for you, this app Classic is still available. But this isn’t just another sequel—it’s something new, offering more than its predecessor ever did.

by Velgor

So how do Feedbin users set this up? OPML is not an answer. Want to support, but this is a non-starter.

Update: having read posts about this new release, I understand the changes. Honestly, not for me. Really hope the now Classic app remains updated. Otherwise I'll have to migrate.

by Crusader97b

Like the new features. Please Please bring back mark as read so I can only see the articles I haven't read. Filtering by tag instead of feed type would be nice too. Looking forward to more regular updates.

by Towardzero

Been using this app for almost as long as it’s been available. Happy to pay the sub and support the dev but not going to stop using classic for now, too many missing features, some of which are critical to my expectations for a feed app.

To list a few:
- Mark as read is missing, this alone makes Reeder almost unusable
- folders or any manual organization options
- option to display more compact list views, in fact there are almost no view options

Really excited for the future of this app but doesn’t feel right to give a more positive recommendation as it is now.

by Nico Cropp

Unlike the previous this app, it does not support integration with third party RSS servers. I’m unable to use my FreshRSS instance without exporting/importing OPML(renders FreshRSS useless, paywalled feature) or generating a RSS link for every category on my own server, but this means I can’t subscribe to new feeds from this app. I love the idea, being able to read a bunch of sources inside one app, but I’m not dumping my centralized RSS server for this. No sell.

by Sbg2

Unread counts, mark as read on scroll, and feed sorting options (oldest to newest) seem like important things that are not in this new version of this app. The new UI is nice though

by Axomus

I beta tested Reeder for a couple months, and although it took some getting used to, this approach to feeds makes sense. I do wish X profiles could be pulled in (not Silvio's fault) and there are certain RSS feeds that work in this app Classic, but not in this new this app, which is a bit annoying. It would be nice if the default reader view could be set from Reeder level, and not have to be changed for each individual feed (or at least have a default setting).

I will be sticking with it. I am disappointed it's a subscription. I would gladly do paid upgrades, and having yet another subscription was almost a deal breaker for me.

by James Baxter

I was ready to hate this reimagining of this app when I first installed it. Then I actually used it and I really appreciate what the developer is going for. It’s a sleeker, less compartmentalized experience than previous iterations of Reeder .

I do think the developer could have done more to set expectations so users wouldn’t have such a polarized response. I also wish Reeder had launched with more of the customization options that we’re used to. The fact that there are no typography settings beyond font size is a proper oversight.

But I do like this new app. I’ve already subscribed. A buck a month or ten bucks a year is very reasonable. I also like that it syncs via iCloud instead of expecting us to sign up for some lame third-party service. Once you set it up, it’s seamless across iOS, iPadOS and macOS. No logins, no fuss.

It feels like the future. But yeah, better typographic options please.

by Tb4apps

The new this app app is great, and I appreciate you still supporting the old, now this app Classic app. I have purchased every version of this app and appreciate all the work put into Reeder . The only thing I’m hoping you could add is for those of us who don’t care for subscriptions, can you add a lifetime onetime purchase? I’m not trying to be a jerk, but subscription fatigue is real. A lifetime onetime purchase option would make this a 5 star app. Other then that awesome job on Reeder .

by Jcoleatf

It seems that everything is close to perfect. Except for the video media system, there is currently only the YouTube platform. Using feed to add other video platforms will not be recognized in the video media. Really look forward to supporting more video platforms in the future, or automatically identifying the media types of feed streams.

by KIrkDouglasSD

First and foremost, Great work!! I am a long time user of this app (I think something like 10 years or more, however long it’s been out) and I was really looking forward to this update which does not disappoint. First what I like: Clean, simple interface and reasonable pricing allowing me to import my feedbin XML with a pro membership. Worked like a charm and even pulled out a handful of broken feeds for me, great. The one thing I miss right away however, is the “endless scroll.” I used to love just tapping the first this app link and viewing the text here in Reeder and scrolling endlessly until I found an article that really grabbed my attention. I’d like to see that come back in some fashion down the line. I’ll save any other feedback for after I’ve used it a bit more but great start right away!!

by Tagliasteel

I have been going back and forth between this app and Unread for years, and I was expecting to dislike this new approach. I was surprised to see that I actually enjoy the experience and might adopt it. I was able to import all my feeds with no issues, even the folders have been maintained.

The main problem for me is the lack of bulk actions. I have some folders that I read separately from the main timeline: being able to exclude them from the Home view is great, but it takes forever if a folder contains a lot of feeds. It would be great to have the option to exclude an entire folder in one shot.

There is also another issue, which I think (hope) is because I am following many feeds and some synced later than others. The issue here is that my feed has been “taken over” a couple of times by hundreds of very old posts, from a single feed. I’d assume that, now that everything is synced, this won’t happen again.

Anyway, kudos to Silvio for having the courage to try something new and to put it out there!

by Docpete

Ok. That four stars is really for me. Reeder is completely solid, super fast. Makes me eager to cancel a subscription to a feed service, in fact, it's so fast in syncing with iCloud. It's just great. It's everything I could ask for in a reading multitool...

I wish there were keyboard shortcuts for Later and Favorite. I haven't been able to figure that out. And....

Good God do I miss read/unread. This is a massive mental shift and changes the way I interact with my incoming sources. This mentality of just syncing timeline location has been incredibly difficult.

I'm far from giving up on it and I subscribed annually right away. But... whew... this is a big ask for a heavy feed reader!

by Skisulli

When I heard about the changes to Reeder , I wasn’t sure, but after giving it an honest shot, I’m sold. I love not worrying about if a post is unread or read, the social style feed works so well. The syncing it rock solid and pretty fast, what’s there just works and works well.

There are feature missing though that keep me from giving it 5 stars. Thankfully most of the missing features are on the coming soon list. Once I have text options and keyboard shortcuts, this becomes a 5 star review.

by Elvis Ex Machina

I love the idea and the execution. Please, please bring back CMD-Click to load stories into your default browser in the background like this app 5 does. Looking forward to the updates.

by Geoffrey's F

I'm a long-time user of this app and have paid for every version of Reeder . I think the new version looks great and is useful, but it's far from perfect. For example, I really need the ability to change the font and adjust the font size, especially on the Mac, where the text is too small! Also, it would be great if the new version could incorporate the features of the old version so I wouldn't have to keep both apps.

by ME

I’ve been trying a lot of read it later services and I just wanted an app that I could store links and stories in that would make it easy to organize and view them without being soloed or having unread notifications causing anxiety to make sure I didn’t miss anything. I love the home feed and the fact it syncs the position. There are some quirks in that sometimes the order of stories varies between devices. Overall though, it works pretty well. I love the new folders and the ability to add from so many sources. Keep up the great work. I am looking forward to what comes next.

by Devon Tivona

Such a great way to stay up-to-date with your favorite publications in a beautiful and easy-to-use interface. Love that there are still people creating boutique apps with attention to detail, including great UX and beautiful animations.

To power users of old this app leaving negative reviews: just use the old version and stop complaining about something that wasn't built for you. It's still supported by the dev.

Also, I'm more than happy to pay a subscription fee for an app that continues to receive love and attention from the dev. It's incredibly generous that the dev even shipped improvements for the old app that was a one-time purchase. How would you like it if you were paid a salary for one year, and then we all got mad that you didn't work for free for the next 10 years?

But seriously, if you care about good apps from developers who care, this is an essential utility for consuming content on the increasingly fragmented and messy internet.

by Cchelberg

I like this new version of this app. It just came out, so I don’t have a ton to say, but I’m enjoying the design a lot and also it was easy to get set up with my feeds from this app Classic - just export the OPML file and then I was good to go (some feeds were dead or changed so I double checked those to add them back if the site hadn’t died or moved - not the apps fault). Looks like an app I’ll be working to get settled into.

Only thing it’s taking me a while to absorb (it’s day one) is the read statuses on articles. I know I’ll get it, but that’s a big change.

by Mr. F Reviewer

It took me a few days to get past the differences from this app Classic (which I’ve been using for years!) but then it suddenly clicked, not having read/unread states is liberating. I can still “mark something unread” by saving it in Later. Being able to follow different media types and have my own personal internet feed is excellent!

by Jomaca9

Being an All-In-One app for your most used sources of content (rss,podcast,Mastodon,YouTube,Reddit, BlueSky…), plus your Links/ReadLater hub… Is like putting all your eggs in a single basket.
Great for consuming, bad for your time! LoL
In a serious note, it’s great. UI is simple and clean. Once it is setup, is a bless! Hope to see more customization related to background colors (I would love white). Keep it up!

by Davidcalhoun2

I’ve long used what is now this app Classic as my RSS feed app due to its beautiful design and focus on simplicity. This new iteration of this app is really intriguing with its support for various media formats and social feeds, as well as its tracking of scroll position instead of read status. Cool ideas!

I look forward to future features, particularly personalization of content presentation — type size, type faces, contrast level, etc.

by Christian Grubbs

But this is getting there. I just purchased it after seeing folder support added, but being unable to arrange folders and feeds is frustrating. But looking at the release notes, I’m guessing it’s on the to-do list. Overall, awesome design and feature set; would love to possibly see podcasts added down the line as well as the ability to import keys from Anthropic/OpenAI to use with system prompts and easily summarize or modify the article content easily. Will continue to use and looking forward to future enhancements. Great job once again!

by Lucky000100

Very goooooood👍

by Dmb6743

I’ve tried a number of RSS apps over the years and none have ever gotten me to feel the need to switch from Feedly…until this one. I love the comics and YouTube feeds. It’s missing a few things like display options, so hopefully those will come in future updates, but for now, this has immediately become my default RSS reader.

by Swanksteak

I’ve been using this app for years. It took a while to get used to this new app, especially the lack of read/unread indicators. But, honestly, it’s like a breath of fresh air! Editing this review because the developer has added font size and line height adjustments for the reading view. Very happy this has been added (along with other improvements)! Looks like the developer is listening and rolling out changes based on feedback. Great support!

by Astronomical Force

New paradigms are often difficult to get right but this app presents a great experience out of the gate. It goes far beyond the scope of a canonical reader app while retaining a level of craft and polish that is delightful.