My Quest for the Perfect RSS App

21 Mar, 2025

I remember the first time I learned about RSS. I was young, curious, and taking my first steps on the internet, exploring (mostly) tech blogs. I had this ritual: whenever I sat down at the desktop PC in the living room of my parents’ house, I’d move my mouse to the toolbar with my bookmarked websites and open them up, tab after tab, just to check each one for new content.

So when I discovered a technology that could get rid of this Sisyphean ritual, gathering all my favorite reads into one place and ensuring I’d never miss a thing? Mind blown.

I’ve been hooked on RSS for over a decade now. My first reader app—the one that got me started—was the beautiful Reeder. I grabbed it for my iPod Touch, and it just felt right.

I stuck with Reeder for years, but eventually, I got curious about other options. No big reason—I just like reevaluating my tech choices now and then (especially on Black Friday). That’s when I tried Unread. I loved it—tons of free features, large text, and a clean look, especially on my iPad, where I do most of my reading.

After a couple of years, I started thinking, “Is this still the best?” Unread was solid, but the design wasn’t doing it for me anymore. I wanted more control—different layouts, maybe another font—and, honestly, I just like trying new apps.

So I began hunting for my perfect RSS app. Here’s what I was looking for:

• It had to be an iOS app (a macOS version would be a bonus but wasn’t required)—I don’t like web apps; I like the native feel and also prefer using separate apps for separate tasks.
• It needed to retrieve full text from sites that don’t include it in their RSS feeds—I subscribe to a few of these, and while I try to visit indie blogs directly, for larger sites I want to be able to read without leaving the reader.
• It had to be beautiful—I love apps where design reflects thought and effort; it makes my experience much better.
• It should be a classic reader, not a timeline reader—I’m not sold on chronological “personalized” timelines. I prefer reading feeds blog-by-blog, not sorted by date and also want to make sure i'm not missing anything because I scrolled without paying attention.

Alongside Unread, my current choice at the time, I settled on three other contenders:

• Reeder Classic—my first love, now “classic” since the new Reeder went timeline-style.

1. News Explorer—At first glance, it’s a powerful app (with features like pre-filtering articles to avoid unwanted content—goodbye, bad news!), polished but not as stunning as Reeder.
2. lire—A middle ground, it felt like a modern take on Reeder, actively developed, with strong full-text retrieval support.

I also briefly tried the famous, free, and open-source(!) NetNewsWire, but its design didn’t click for me, so I passed on it.

To test them, I exported my feeds from Unread and imported them into each app. First, there was lire—I tried to import the feeds, but it seemed to almost freeze. The import was really slow, and the interface wasn’t responding. I couldn’t even finish the process. Sorry, lire—you’re out.

Next up: News Explorer. I really wanted to love it, but its endless customization options backfired—I wanted a relatively simple RSS reader, not something I had to tweak endlessly to feel right. I gave it a few days, but I just couldn’t adjust.

So, back to Reeder Classic? I’ll admit I was a bit worried about its maintenance, given the focus on the new timeline Reeder app, but if it works, it works. I started using it again, and the polished interface and design felt amazing. I’ve been on it for a few weeks with just one issue. But it’s a big one.

The sync speed. Oh boy, it’s slow. I use iCloud for syncing across all these apps—I see no reason to pay for an external service. I’m not sure if Reeder itself or iCloud was the bottleneck, but it was painful (and a quick search showed I’m not alone in this frustration). I told myself it was fine, that I’d adapt, but today I admitted it’s not enough. I’d open the app and wait a minute or two for my feeds to load. That’s not the experience I want.

Back to the drawing board—I revisited News Explorer and lire. News Explorer felt the same, but lire? Something had changed—maybe a bug fix?—because syncing was now blazing fast, and I finally got to explore its interface. It’s well-designed, and I loved features like Calm Feeds (for low-frequency-posting feeds) and author categorization. It offers enough customization (switching fonts!) without overwhelming me. For now, it looks like I’ll stick with lire (until the next adventure).

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