Reading a lot of blogs can be tough to manage without an RSS news reader, which consolidates everything you read in one place. While there are plenty of news readers on the Mac, Reeder wins our hearts thanks to its beautiful and simple interface, thorough integration with social features, and fantastic customizability.
Feedly is a very popular RSS reader client on iOS and now it has an app for Mac too. It is the only app in this list which is present on multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, and Android. So, if you own multiple devices and want to sync your articles across them, Feedly is for you.
- For those of us who consume content en masse, finding the right RSS reader is critical. The best RSS readers should be efficient, readable, and convenient to use. We have already discussed how to add and read RSS feeds on Firefox for Android. On Linux, you can host your own RSS system.
- RSS Menu turns the Mac OS X menu bar into a versatile RSS feed reader that not only displays headlines but also complete stories, lets you group feeds and integrates with both Safari and iTunes.
Reeder
Platform: OS X
Price: $5
Download Page
Features
- Syncs with Google Reader
- Beautiful interface
- Syncs (and fully integrates) with Readability
- Post articles directly to Instapaper, Delicious, or your blog
- Gesture support
- Customizable shortcuts
- Send to QUOTE.fm Read, Instapaper, Pocket (formerly ReadItLater), and Readability
- Save to Pinboard, Delicious, Zootool, and Evernote
- Post on App.net, Twitter, Facebook (posting on Facebook requires OS X 10.8.2)
- Open articles with Instapaper Mobilizer and Google Mobilizer
- You can disable Flash (and other plug-ins) if you want
- Support for retina displays
Where It Excels
Reeder first entices you with its beautiful and simple interface but keeps you around with its solid list of features. Despite Reeder's simplicity, the app manages to pack in quite a bit. One of the biggest highlights is that Readability—the service that converts web pages into more readable pages of text—is a part of the app. If a news feed contains an article that needs a little touching up, you can click the Readability button and make it a lot cleaner. Reeder also provides tons of ways to share and save articles you find in your feeds. It integrates with several services, such as Instapaper and Pocket. You can also pin articles to Pinterist, save them to Evernote, share them on Twitter or Facebook, and much more. A very comprehensive preferences pane allows you to customize your entire experience, from shortcuts to gestures to the app's appearance. Reeder offers solid performance on its own, but you can make it run exactly the way you want with a few simple tweaks.
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Where It Falls Short
Reeder offers few downsides, but it does lack subfolders. Rather than displaying any subfolders you may have in your Google Reader account, Reeder simply lists them without any hierarchy (i.e. it displays 'News — Finance' instead of listing Finance below the News category). If you don't have a ton of feeds, this isn't a big deal. If you do, however, you'll find it a little annoying and wasteful. Reeder also costs money. While $5 is a pretty fair price for a really great news reader, its primary competition—NetNewsWire—costs nothing. While we like Reeder better, if you're frugal you're simply not going to choose it when an app that's nearly as good costs absolutely nothing.
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The Competition
NetNewsWire (Free) was once our top pick, but over time it has come to feel a bit outdated. That said, it's still a remarkably powerful news reader with lots of great features. It's also free, so if you don't want to cough up $5 for Reeder you can get yourself a great alternative at no cost.
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Cream ($4) offers a more compact experience than Reeder's default view and costs a little less. Reeder, however, can shrink down to the same size. Cream is fairly new and still has a ways to go before it's truly a serious competitor, but it's definitely a news reader to watch.
Pulp ($10) costs more than anything on this list and doesn't offer a ton of advantages. That said, if you'd like to read your news feeds in a traditional newspaper format you'll want to check it out. It offers a very different interface from all the other apps and seeks to show you news you'll actually like rather than just everything (by default).
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Gruml is another free RSS news reader much like NetNewsWire, but in my few months of use I found it wasn't quite as stable. On the positive side, it does have greater support for external services (like ReadItLater). It may have features that are important to you, and if so it may be worth trying, but despite being a pretty solid app it just doesn't measure up when you're actually using it.
There are a lot of other news readers for Mac but these three offer the most notable, worthwhile differences. If you have a favorite that was pass over or overlooked, please mention it in the comments.
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Lifehacker's App Directory is a new and growing directory of recommendations for the best applications and tools in a number of given categories. This week, we're focusing on news reader applications.
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If you love to read information from a variety of websites and blogs online, you can customize and streamline your entire reading experience with the help of a good online RSS reader. This saves you the time and energy of having to visit each site individually.
All you need to do is choose an RSS reader that best fits your style and use it to subscribe to the RSS feeds of the sites you love reading. The reader will automatically pull recently updated posts from those sites that you can read directly in the reader or optionally on the source website by clicking the post link provided.
Feedly
What We Like
Free to use.
Feeds are shareable.
Variety of layouts available.
Offers feeds based on interest.
What We Don't Like
Many advanced features are not free.
Difficult to sort or organize feeds.
Requires third party account.
Feedly is probably the most popular reader in use today, offering a beautiful reading experience (with images) for more than just simple RSS subscriptions. You can also use it to keep up with your YouTube channel subscriptions, receive keyword alerts directly from Google Alerts, create collections to organize to make lengthy information easier to get through and even use it to access your company's private business portals.
NewsBlur
What We Like
Available for web and mobile.
Free plan available.
Affordable premium plan.
Quality user interface.
What We Don't Like
Free plan is limited to 64 sites.
Interface can get cluttered.
Complicated to customize.
NewsBlur is another popular RSS reader that aims to bring your articles from your favorite sites while maintaining the style of the original site. Easily organize your stories with categories and tags, hide stories you don't like and highlight stories you do like. You can also take a look at some of the third-party apps NewsBlur can be integrated with for even more versatility.
Inoreader
What We Like
Best Free Rss Reader For Windows 10
Easy to use.
Effective search feature.
Available mobile apps.
Automate tagging and organizing.
What We Don't Like
Advanced features are not free.
Free version has ads.
If you're really stressed for time and need a reader that's built for scanning and consuming information quickly, Inoreader is worth checking out. The mobile apps are designed with visual appeal in mind, so you don't waste your time reading through too much text. You can also use Inoreader to track specific keywords, save web pages for later and even subscribe to specific social feeds.
The Old Reader
News Readers For Mac
What We Like
Simple to use.
Straightforward interface.
Beautiful reader pane.
Integrated social sharing.
What We Don't Like
No mobile app.
Not as customizable as other apps.
Limited features.
The Old Reader is another great reader that has a slick and minimal look. It's free to use for up to 100 RSS feeds, and if you decide to connect your Facebook or Google account, you can see if any of your friends are using it too so you can follow them.
G2Reader
What We Like
Free Rss Reader
Free to use.
Supports multiple languages.
Modern interface.
Includes sharing feature.
What We Don't Like
Mobile only available for Android.
Performance can be slow at times.
For those who love the minimal luck but also love visual content, G2Reader delivers. Like The Older Reader, you can connect your Facebook or Google account to sign up and start subscribing to feeds. And although there only seems to be an Android app at the moment, the web version is completely responsive so iOS users can get away with simply adding a shortcut to their home screens.
Best Free Rss Readers
Feeder
What We Like
Recommends feeds by interest.
Easy to use.
Embedded browser.
Folder-based organization.
Rss Reader
What We Don't Like
Free version includes ads.
Free version only updates every 2 hours.
Limited features.
Free Rss Reader For Mac
Feeder is an RSS reader that has been praised for its easy reading experience. It also comes in the form of a Google Chrome extension and a Safari extension so you can subscribe and access feeds directly while you're browsing the web. It's also enhanced for mobile with a dedicated iOS app and a responsive web version for Android or Windows Phone users.
