Ten Open Source RSS News Readers for Smartphones
I've been looking for a good open source RSS news reader application for a while, but each time I tried some out, I would feel frustrated by limitations and overwhelmed by the different apps available on the F-Droid app store.
This article is a review of ten open source news reader applications. I've ranked them in order, with the app Feeder taking first place...for now. I'll explain more below.
I was able to test these apps systematically, because I was traveling. Being away for a month gave me ample opportunity to thoroughly test and compare these ten readers, taking detailed notes.
I hope that the work I have put into this benefits you. Keep in mind that elements like layout, filtering, customisation and whether or not you can read the text inside the application mainly come down to personal preference. In the review below you will find my take.
Note: I only tested news readers that do not require other online feed services.
About RSS
RSS is a format for creating a specific news feeds—all the Technology articles posted by the BBC, for example. Readers can collect these different feeds in an RSS aggregator, or news reading app, which enables one to scan a huge range of headlines from different sources at a glance, while easily dipping into specific articles for more careful reading and possibly saving.
I prefer curating my own feed of news and blog posts, rather than depend on an algorithm. In trying out these different readers, I was looking for something akin to the excellent experience I have had with my podcast app, Antennapod, which also works with RSS feeds.
One hurdle to overcome with RSS readers is that they work best when you have the specific URL you need. For example, the RSS feed for BBC articles about Technology looks like this:
https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/technology/rss.xml
I was able to find that because BBC provides a useful overview of their news feeds. In other cases, you may need to scroll down to the bottom of the home page and look for an 'RSS feed' link, or this symbol:
Sometimes it is just not possible to find the specific URL the reading app needs. If this happens, you'll want a reader that can help you find it.
Update cycle
I began with 11 readers, all downloaded from the F-Droid app store. F-droid works just like the Google Play Store, but has open source applications.
Eleven different open source news reader applications
Some applications are kept up-to-date, while others appear to be forgotten. This was an important first piece of data, so here they are, ranked by most recent update when downloaded:
2024
- Capy Reader—(4.6MB)—7/24 (month/year)
- Feeder—(33.7MB)—7/24
- Nunti—(55MB)—6/24
- Read You—(6.3MB)—6/24
- Thud—(107MB)—5/24
- News Reader—(2.9MB)—3/24
2023
- News Provider—(6.1MB)—6/23
- News—(22.6MB)—5/23
2021 or older
- Reeder—(6MB)—10/21
- NiceFeed—(5MB)—7/21
- Readify—(2.8MB)—5/20
I assume that an actively developed and updated application is a safer bet than an abandoned one, but I tested all of the above nonetheless.
Adding new feeds
I attempted to add six feeds to all the readers: The New Oil blog, BBC World News, EFF blog, NOYB's blog, and two hobby fish tank feeds. I did not have full URLS for the RSS feeds for every news source.
These four readers caused problems:
Nunti—Feed adding tool buried in settings menu, which you then remain stuck in. Couldn't find some of the blog feeds; didn't warn me when a feed I added wasn't going to work. (See update below article)
News Reader—I couldn't delete a preset feed (Business Insider); lots of preset feeds I didn't want; you can't combine your feeds into one main stream; you must select a category ('Entertainment' or 'News') first before reading.
Reeder—No settings at all(?); only option is 'Delete'; no pull down to update; can't customise feeds (for example: choose not to include thumbnails).
Readify—I had to drop this one. While I was able to add the feed for The New Oil, there were no articles. I also received warnings this application was built for an older version of Android.
Ranking the readers
This left me with ten readers to test out over a period of several weeks.
During this time, I discovered I prefer news readers that pull the texts of the articles into the application. I don't want a list of hyperlinks to external websites; instead, I want to stay in one app to read and organise all my feeds there.
I will rank the remaining RSS readers in order of good user experience, subdivided into in three categories: readers that allow in-app reading, ones that don't, and finally readers with limitations.
I: News readers with in-app reading tools
- Feeder (7/24)
Feeder is my first choice for an open source news reader.
Pros: Feeder is reliable and fully customisable. You can change the format and appearance of the news headline cards, and you can swipe these to mark them as read. Filtering (read/unread/recently read) is effective. Tags are useful, as is the feature 'mark all below as read', for when you fall behind with your reading and want to start with a clean slate.
Cons: Icons for text tools in upper right-hand corner of the screen are not convenient for one-handed reading. I don't love the busy appearance bold titles in the headline cards. The text-to-speech tool never worked.
Most news readers have three menus: the overview of headlines, the headline and blurb of a specific article, and the full text of the article. My main issue with Feeder is that, once I am in blurb reading mode, I have to return to the headlines menu to select the next article. I would prefer to be able to swipe to the next article in blurb mode. This is done much better in my runner-up choice, Read You.
- Read You (6/24)
Read You was my number one choice, until I discovered a strange bug. The BBC World News feed was only showing me a selection of news articles, with a strange preference for news about the US elections (lots happened there in July!).
I got in touch with the developer, who acknowledged this was due to a time-zone bug preventing feed updates. The developer promises a fix soon.
Pros: Read You has a spacious and calm layout. I liked its layout the best of all ten readers I tested. Read You's layout makes you feel in control of your news feeds, rather than overwhelmed. What's more, Read You's in-app text reader does enable swiping to the next article, which automatically adds the last-read article to the 'read' category. This feels so much more efficient than Feeder's constant back-and-forth approach. Also, Read You's text tool icons are positioned at the bottom of the screen, which feels intuitive.
Cons: There is a double tick icon at the top—presumably for filtering—,but I couldn't figure out how I was meant to use it. The customisation menu is hidden under 'Accounts'. Then there is the unreliable BBC news feed, as described above.
- Nunti (6/24)
Pros: Nunti is in the third position because it has a good in-app reader. It is also regularly updated. I liked the fun bird icon.
Cons: I had problems adding new feeds. The feed settings menu is buried within the settings menu, which was an unclear menu to boot. There are two main tabs at the top of your home page: 'By preferences' and 'By date'. While By date is always on, By preferences cannot be selected and remains greyed out. Also, articles aren't removed from the main feed after reading; you have to manually decide whether you want to keep or delete the headline card in your feed.
Update: After publication, the Nunti developers reached out, addressing some of the issues above. I will add their comments below the article.
II: News readers that only hyperlink to external websites
- News (5/23)
Pros: Logical, practical settings. Good filtering system. Easy to add feeds. News has a simple, clear layout and uses swipe to archive headline cards. Read articles disappear automatically.
Cons: To read full articles, News opens your default browser. This means jumping between two applications. News was last updated in 2023.
- Thud (5/24)
Thud is the odd one out in terms of headline card layout. The reader shows you all your individual feeds, with the headline cards positioned on a horizontal bar underneath each feed title.
Pros: The horizontal layout gives an overview of a lot more headlines at a glance. If efficiency is your preference, then Thud might be right for you.
Cons: I couldn't get customisation tools to work for me. For example, I tried to automate the archiving of read articles, but couldn't. The BBC feed only showed the blurb in the reader; for full articles, I had to read in my browser. On the other hand, The New Oil's blog articles could be read in the app.
- Capy Reader (7/24)
Pros: Capy Reader does away with a separate icon to read the full text; you just tap the title instead, which is quicker. There is a circle icon above each article for marking it unread (saving it).
Cons: Very limited settings and customisation! I couldn't find a filter that would show only unread articles, which is essential in a news reader.
- NiceFeed (7/21)
Pros: Clear layout, with some useful customisation and settings features. Has a filter for all/unread but this didn't always work as expected.
Cons: Certain settings don't deliver (for example 'read entries in app' doesn't give you the full text). Last updated in 2021. The developer writes on Github:
Sorry about all the unaddressed issues, but due to more important commitments this project is no longer being maintained. I started this as a casual personal project while learning to code, and I'm grateful for your interest and contributions.
III: News readers with limitations
- News Reader (3/24)
Pros: Preselected feeds per category can be a good way to get started, but it's not for everyone. News Reader felt fast and convenient.
Cons: News Read only allows reading of one feed at a time. To read BBC world news, I have to select the News category and then scroll past the preselected news feeds to find the BBC feed I manually added, at the bottom of the list.
Category must be selected first each time
If you prefer reading all articles from an individual source, then News Reader might be a good fit for you.
- Reeder (10/21)
Pros: Reeder is a no frills, no customisation, basic reader.
Cons: Extremely limited options: 'delete feed' is it. No settings, no filters. Unread articles remain in your feed.
- News Provider (6/23)
News Provider's cards do not show sources!
Pros: Good filter for toggling unread/all. Has 'one hand mode' for thumb-only controls.
Cons: Headline cards don't show the source of the articles. You only get the title and some text, which is especially confusing when combining feeds. Settings are very basic.
Conclusions
While time-consuming, testing out ten different news readers was fun to do away from home. I'll keep Feeder for now and delete the other news apps that are cluttering up my home screen.
I've learned that smartphones are a much better platform for catching up on the news than RSS aggregators in browsers or desktop applications. The flip side is that I ended up developing a smartphone addiction within weeks.
When I returned, I was honestly relieved to swap my SIM card back into my Light Phone and leave the smartphone at home again. I'm not sure if I will continue reading news on my smartphone, or go back to an RSS aggregator on my desktop, or just watch the news on TV. I may do a similar comparison of RSS readers for desktop in future.
If you are looking for a good open source news reader, I do recommend checking the development update cycle to see if the app is actively maintained. Beyond that, I would consider how important the following features are for you:
- ease of adding feeds (and automated feed discovery)
- categories and tags
- customisation vs basic reader
- the ability to combine different feeds into one master feed
- how articles are marked as read, and how read articles are filtered
- feed layout/business of home screen (Thud does horizontal cards)
- whether the news app pulls articles in or takes you to a browser for reading
Documentation
Electronic Frontier Foundation RSS feeds
None of Your Business home page (scroll down for RSS symbol at bottom of page, or here)
- Feeder
- Read You
- Nunti
- News
- Thud
- Capy Reader
- NiceFeed
- News Reader
- Reeder (only on Droid-ify) & on Github
- News Provider
Updates
From the developers of Nunti (one day after publication, with permission):
We would like to address some of the things you disliked about Nunti, as we believe that most of them were misunderstandings:
- adding RSS feeds
Nunti does check if a feed works by checking if there are any articles. If there aren't, the feed will not be added. What may have happened is that some articles existed, but they were too old, so they were cut by the filter later on during loading. You can modify the maximum article age in the advanced settings.
The last attempted download state is also tracked, so if a feed starts acting up, the number of failures will be displayed in the feed details screen.
- Preference learning
Nunti is special in that it has an offline preference learning built-in. The reason why the "by preferences" button is greyed out is that 50 articles need to be rated, as mentioned in the setup wizard. It seems to be a bit confusing, so we'll be adding a popup when pressing the disabled button.
This leads to the "marking as read" functionality. Swiping left or right is required (and marks the article as read) to specify if the article is something that interested you or not. This data is then used to (optionally) sort the loaded articles.
Thanks for including Nunti in your review, we appreciate it.
Have a great one, Nunti devs, Richard and Ondřej
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