# xkcd: Open Source — user reviews > 52 indexed App Store user reviews of xkcd by Michael Amaral, rated 4.90/5 from 4,070 ratings. - Source: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/xkcd-open-source/id995811425/reviews - App overview in markdown: https://appshunter.io/ios/app/xkcd-open-source/id995811425.md - Rating breakdown: 5★ 3,787 · 4★ 236 · 3★ 28 · 2★ 6 · 1★ 13 ## What do users think of xkcd? Overall sentiment: positive **Pros** - 👍 Reliable and easy to use - 🚀 Fast and efficient - 💡 Helpful features like Alt and Explain - 🔒 Ad-free and open source **Cons** - 🐛 Issues with interactive content and comics not loading - 🔍 Difficulty searching for specific comics - 📱 Lack of offline support and local image storage **Commonly reported bugs** - Comics not updating for some users - Crashes when trying to save comics - Inconsistent behavior with interactive comics **Most requested features** - Ability to sort and view unread comics - Support for more XKCD features like What If and Blag - Improved comic navigation and bookmarking - Dark mode option ## Newest reviews (11 of 52) ### 5/5 — Amazing App *2019-08-05, version 2.5* I love this app and use it almost every day. I’ve recommended it to my friends as well. I do believe that the disappearing comic from 8/4 may have broken the updates ### 5/5 — Read More XKCD *2019-07-16, version 2.5* Fantastic open source app for reading XKCD. Beautiful look, easy to use, and still being updated. Glad to have found. ### 5/5 — Amazing app. *2019-04-11, version 2.5* Overall, this is an amazing app. It is already awesome, but It would be good to add 2 things: Searching for keywords in comics -If you could search for a word in the comic instead of the title, that would make finding them much easier. JS Support -Things such as the “emojic 8-ball” don’t currently have functionality in the app. However, don’t get me wrong. This is a great app, and definitely recommend it. ### 5/5 — This app is so amazing *2018-06-29, version 2.5* For the longest time, I haven’t found a good app for xkcd on iPhone. Just did. I like that it’s open source, though I don’t have a Mac so it doesn’t matter much. Reading the comics is so easy and the link to explain is great if I don’t understand references. When I get iOS 12 I’ll even be able to see how much time I waste with webcomics. It would be cool if others (Dinosaur Comics) would be added, but I understand how much work that would be. Again, open source though so not nearly as hard as other clients could make it. ### 5/5 — One key bug in this Otherwise great app *2018-06-25, version 2.5* There’s a bug in this app, it doesn’t load any of the recent comics, it stops at number 2007. This is the case for all of my devices, and a friend has reported the same problem. It still gives notifications for newer comics, but doesn’t show them in the app. My friend says his older iPhone (5c) doesn’t have this problem. Hopefully this can be fixed soon! **Developer response:** Thank you very much, that was a great idea! ### 5/5 — Broken *2018-06-22, version 2.5* New comics have not been added for a week, despite getting notifications for the new comics being available. Love the app, will go back to five stars when fixed. ### 5/5 — Great app, no longer working *2018-06-20, version 2.5* Awesome up until you become dependent on it for viewing XKCD and it refuses to load the new ones. I cleared the cache and now it just reports a connection error. ### 5/5 — Great app for browsing XKCD *2018-05-07, version 2.5* Finally, a great app to browse your favorite web comic! Or at least mine. I'm only mad that I didn't know about this months ago. Only recommendation to the developer would be to allow a 3D touch to pop up the alt text on each comic, if feasible. Great job and being ad free makes this 5 stars regardless. ### 5/5 — Thanks for saving me from eating my time. *2018-02-20, version 2.5* I've had this xkcd reader app in my head for some time. I had some pretty good features lined up too. Then I switched to iOS and stumbled upon this app and realized I'd never be able to catch up to this masterpiece. Thanks for this app! ### 4/5 — Almost Excellent *2018-01-05, version 2.5* I’m going to point out the one thing that this app doesn’t do well. Everything not mentioned immediately below can be assumed to be excellent. Comic Search isn’t great. You can search by title or number. You must search for words in the title and any extraneous words will not be ignored. Simply put, searching for comics, where it might be simpler to remember a key phrase or word in the comic itself, is difficult to impossible, depending on your willingness to memorize nearly two thousand comic titles. Simply put, I usually go to Google to find the comic I want, then return to the app with the correct title. Allow for context searching, and this review will become a perfect review. ### 5/5 — Fun for hours! *2017-12-08, version 2.5* Well, a couple hours. Actually now that I think about it I can’t really read this for hours continuously. Unless I reread them several times each. Hmm. ## Most critical reviews (10 lowest-rated) ### 3/5 — Pretty good, could be better *2022-12-08, version 2.5* Wish I had a way to sort by old and view all the unread ones from there. Also you can’t swipe between comics unless if you access them from the unread section. Still shows all the xkcds, though, so it’s pretty good ### 3/5 — Eh... *2018-06-22, version 2.5* I read the comics all the time but it suddenly stopped loading the new comics (still got the notifications). Ended up uninstalling and reinstalling to get the new ones to load. We’ll see if that was a permanent fix or not... ### 3/5 — I’m having the same problem as JuanKindaGuy *2018-06-21, version 2.5* I love this app, but the comics haven’t updated since last Friday. (The push notification badges show up on time, but I can’t see any newer comic.) I hesitate to clear the cache, because I don’t want to lose my Favorites. Any ideas on how to fix this? ### 3/5 — Aggressive first-run experience *2017-11-24, version 2.4* This looks like a really great app, but I had a hard time getting past the experience of launching it. The very first thing I saw was a request to send notifications (what for?). This was followed almost immediately by a request for a review - and not using the iOS review request control. I maybe had time to read one comic in between. I may settle into this app as I keep using it, but it’s been a rocky start. **Developer response:** Thanks for the feedback! We send push notifications whenever new comics become available - that's why we prompt you. Also, the version app you installed was created a few months before the cool new iOS system rating prompt was introduced, so there was no system request control at the time for us to use, hence the custom prompt. You're right, we might have come on a bit too hard asking for a review that early - we'll look into fixing that! Hope the experience of a free app without ads has improved after that initial rocky start! ### 4/5 — Still has problems with interactive features *2024-04-10* Like the content, but the app still doesn’t work with interactive content Also, the content hasn’t updated in nearly a week. The app has yet to catch up to the website. ### 4/5 — Best xkcd reader on iOS *2019-11-19, version 2.5* The only thing that would improve this app would be an option to store the images locally, for browsing offline. Other than that, it’s perfect. ### 4/5 — Great App! One thing to fix would make it 5 stars *2019-01-23, version 2.5* I love how easy it is to read xkcd comments on this app. The only thing keeping me from rating it five stars is that every time I try to save a comic as an image (to share with a friend for example) the app crashes. Other than that this app is superb! ### 4/5 — Works pretty well, the save comic button doesn’t work *2018-11-30, version 2.5* The button just freezes the app, I can just screenshot some comics but I would like to be able to save the really big ones. ### 4/5 — Still has problems with interactive features *2018-11-21, version 2.5* Like the content, but the app still doesn’t work with interactive content ### 4/5 — Great but missing next and previous comic buttons *2018-08-19, version 2.5* This was perfect for me, it had bookmarks and favoriting and a way to remember which comics you’ve already read. However, in the newest update, they’ve removed the arrows that let you move one comic more recent or one comic less recent and it makes the transition between each comic less fluid. 5 stars if only the arrows come back ## Most praised reviews (10 highest-rated) ### 5/5 — Almost perfect *2023-09-25* There’s a bunch of XKCD apps in the app store and numerous ways to read it online. This is the version I need, largely because it has Alt and Explain. Handy, but not necessary for me is rolling a die to go to a random strip, and the favorite heart is good for collectors. In case you aren’t clued in to the charming extras Alt and Explain, Alt is simply the sub or alternate title you’d see online by hovering over the strip and Explain links to the XKCD wiki. I really felt like I was missing out when I used apps that didn’t include everything, even Alt. Before you get your hopes up too high about the wiki, be forewarned that it’s both the wiki and discussion. Unless you’re a rare newbie, you know how well discussions can work, especially when there are, surprisingly, in this forum, members who are dumb as a stump. At least the conversations can be entertaining now and then and get me out of my bubble. I said this is almost perfect. What’s missing is something I’ve been seeing too often lately and that’s the opportunity to link to anything outside the app. ### 5/5 — Most hilarious app ever *2022-12-07, version 2.5* Great use of time. Makes my days better. Only app I am willing to take time to review, it’s that good! ### 5/5 — Best XKCD browser *2022-09-05, version 2.5* As the title says. (Comics #827 and #1721 link to the same comic though, Randal changed the former's name after releasing the second because he named them the same, just change #827 to "My business Idea" to fix it) ### 5/5 — Totally works *2021-11-03, version 2.5* Works reliably, and includes any features I would want without any ads or nonsense. ### 5/5 — Pure simple joy *2021-11-01, version 2.5* I’ve enjoyed this app now for years. It reliably serves up the XKCD comic in a phone friendly format that’s easy to share. ### 5/5 — So intelligently done *2021-01-18, version 2.5* and hilarious. I Loved Pl having the words “Help! I’m trapping in a Universe Factory.” I may have the wording off. The use of the word factory next should normally be considered an entirely different sport is brilliant and deeply funny. Thank you! ### 5/5 — Great *2020-06-13, version 2.5* I would like to see certain comics given support for, specifically 1608 (Hoverboard), 1975 (Right Click) and 1110 (Click and Drag), but aside from that, this app works a charm on my iPhone 7. ### 5/5 — Great app! *2020-06-07, version 2.5* This is a great app that I use almost every day. Everything is very well done and all the features are spot-on. The only thing I would like fixed would be zooming into a comic, it cuts out the bottom. Maybe you could allow a tap to hide the ribbon? Other than that, well done! ### 5/5 — Simple and amazing. Dark theme? *2020-05-14, version 2.5* This is a great app. Simple and effective. I hope the developers add a dark theme so I can read these at night without a white background behind the images. ### 5/5 — Excellent! *2019-10-01, version 2.5* Amazing design and delivers exactly what I want. Its not overly complex and the comics are updated daily. Honestly I don’t with anything else in the app besides maybe adding the what-if section. But I’m not complaining. This app is one of my daily apps! Good job! --- *Data collected daily from the US App Store and indexed by [AppsHunter](https://appshunter.io/). User reviews are verbatim App Store reviews. Ratings, prices and chart positions refresh continuously; this snapshot is from 2026-06-10.*