Comparison

Octal for Hacker News vs DevBytes

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

Octal for Hacker News

Access breaking tech news and engage in discussions with a beautifully designed, fast, and user-friendly feed. Vote on stories, submit posts, comment, and manage favorites without ads or subscriptions.

Highlights
  • Vote on stories and comments
  • Submit new posts
  • Engage in threaded discussions
  • Search Hacker News stories
  • Manage favorites
  • Customizable news feed filters
  • Dark Mode support
Features
Read full description

Octal is your go-to news feed for breaking tech news, putting the biggest stories of the day with engaging discussion right in the palm of your hand. Beautifully designed for both iPhone and iPad, Octal focuses on what you care most about: native design, speed, and usability. It's the modern, full-featured Hacker News app you've been looking for. You'll find an unparalleled, community-powered source of stories about anything ranging from self-driving cars to the latest Apple gadgets. Octal has all the features you need, including the ability to vote on stories, submit posts, add comments, and manage favorites. Best of all, it's free of all that annoying stuff, like ads, subscriptions, and tracking. If you want to keep up to date with the latest popular and trending tech headlines, Octal is made for you. • NEWS FOR NERDS: Read and share the most important stories in the tech world, submitted and voted on by Hacker News users. Stories are constantly changing, and often focus on areas like programming, startups, technology industry and companies (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, etc.), and key technology categories such as mobile, computers, internet, design, coding, and security. • ENGAGE AND VOTE: Vote on stories and comments you like and dislike, and report stories with objectionable content. Found something you need to read later? Add it to your favorites! • DISCUSS THE NEWS: Read and engage with stories by viewing their discussions with a fast, fully-threaded, collapsible, buttery smooth comments experience. Add your own comments. If you're a fast reader, you can instantly jump to the next top-level comment thread with a single tap. • SUBMIT LINKS: Got a cool story or news link to share to Hacker News? Submit new posts directly in the app. You can also share links directly to Octal to quickly submit them. • SEARCH STORIES: Search Hacker News stories and sort search results by relevance or date. • JOIN THE COMMUNITY: Log in to Hacker News to easily track your karma, activity and favorites. Browse user profiles, including their karma, about, activity, and favorites. • THEMEABLE: Total Dark Mode support. Turn on 'True Black' to use a pure RGB #000 background color - perfect for devices with OLED displays. • CUSTOMIZE YOUR NEWS FEED: Tap or swipe between story feeds such as 'Top Stories', 'Threads', 'Ask HN', 'Show HN', 'Best Stories', 'New Stories', and 'Jobs'. • ACCESSIBLE: Increase or decrease the text size to one that's comfortable for you, or enable 'Dynamic Type' to use the system's 'Larger Text' font size. And VoiceOver is fully supported! • DEEP LINK SUPPORT: You can open Hacker News links in Octal by sharing them to Octal. You can also use apps like 'Opener'. Most Hacker News links starting with 'octal://' are supported! • READY FOR ANY SCREEN: Octal looks great on iPads with an optional 2-pane interface. Say goodbye to wasted screen real estate. • WEB BROWSER SUPPORT: Open links in your web browser of choice. • AD-FREE, PRIVACY AWARE: No ads, no subscriptions, and no tracking. ABOUT OCTAL PREMIUM: To unlock advanced features, including the ability to submit posts, add comments, manage favorites, switch themes, change app icons, use custom gestures, and more, you can buy Octal Premium via an In-App Purchase. Octal Premium is a one-time payment and there is no subscription. Purchases support the development of Octal, which is developed solely by me! ABOUT HACKER NEWS: Hacker News is a social news website focusing on computer science and entrepreneurship. It is run by Paul Graham's investment fund and startup incubator, Y Combinator. In general, its content can be submitted is defined as "anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity". You can think of Hacker News as reddit for tech. It's the go-to news aggregator for tech. SUPPORT: Found a bug or have a feature request? Create an Issue on Github, or e-mail me: https://github.com/dangwu/Octal/issues

About

DevBytes

Consolidate coding, tech, and AI news into a single, distraction-free feed. Access bite-sized updates, in-depth articles, interactive tutorials, and coding challenges. Features an AI sidekick for code explanation and debugging.

Highlights
  • Bite-sized tech news snippets
  • In-depth articles on senior dev topics
  • Interactive demos and tutorials
  • Coding challenges with solutions
  • AI sidekick for code explanation
  • Distraction-free learning space
Read full description

Fun fact: Developers don’t actually spend all day coding. Half their time is lost juggling 17 browser tabs, one endlessly active chat thread, and a mysterious temp123.py file they barely remember creating. Add Reddit, YouTube tutorials, Medium articles, GitHub repos, Slack threads, and a dozen other random tabs into the mix, and what you get is NOT productivity. It is digital gymnastics. Meet DevBytes, the app that can fix it all Instead of juggling 10 different apps just to stay updated, DevBytes brings everything you need in one clean, fast, and distraction-free space. No clutter. No ads. Just the essentials that make you a sharper, smarter developer. DevBytes can keep you plugged in without the overwhelm, in just 5-7 minutes a day. Here’s what you will get with DevBytes: Lightning-fast updates Quick coding news/updates without the endless scroll. New frameworks, trending GitHub repos, AI breakthroughs: All in minutes. Content that matters Deep dives that make you think like a senior dev. Think system design, architecture patterns, scalability: The stuff that does not fit in a tweet. Learning by doing Tutorials and demos you can actually follow. Watch, learn, and code along. Because sometimes reading is not enough, and Stack Overflow is not a teacher. Skill sharpening Coding challenges that train your brain, not your patience. Real problems, step-by-step solutions, and none of that copy-paste-and-hope-it-works memorization. DevBot Your AI coding sidekick. It explains snippets, debugs, and improves your productivity. Like ChatGPT, but customized for you! Who uses DevBytes? Professional developers: Stay ahead of fast-moving frameworks, libraries, and best practices without wasting hours. Freelancers and Indie hackers: Focus on building and shipping, not hunting down updates. Open-source contributors: Track trending repos, discover useful projects, and sharpen your skills for real-world contributions. Tech enthusiasts: Even if you are not coding full-time, DevBytes keeps you plugged into the innovations shaping the industry. Another fun fact: The average dev spends more time Googling error messages than writing actual code. DevBytes cannot fix all your bugs, but it can make sure the time you spend is productive, smart, and actually useful. We built DevBytes because we were tired of scattered platforms, endless tabs, and ad-heavy feeds that slow you down. Developers deserve a tool that respects their time, their focus, and their love for learning. Great developers are not born knowing everything. They know where to learn efficiently, how to stay ahead, and how to keep improving without burning out. DevBytes is that place. One app. Everything you need. Zero nonsense.

Screenshots

Octal for Hacker News4 screens
DevBytes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: DevBytes at none against Octal for Hacker News's 4. DevBytes also leads on review sentiment (98% vs 74%). Octal for Hacker News's advantage is ads (none vs shown) and ratings volume (2.8K vs 10). On price, rating, update cadence and device support there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Octal for Hacker News sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. DevBytes asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.8 for Octal for Hacker News against 4.9 for DevBytes. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Octal for Hacker News has 2.8K ratings behind it against 10, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 74% of Octal for Hacker News's written reviews are positive against 98% of DevBytes's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Octal for Hacker News ships an update every 11 days, DevBytes weekly. The most recent releases landed on September 23, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Octal for Hacker News versus DevBytes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterOctal for Hacker NewsDevBytes
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (2.8K ratings)4.9 (10 ratings) — better
Positive reviews73.7% of reviews98.2% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.8K — better10
Update frequencyEvery 11 daysWeekly — better
AdsNo — betterYes
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree — betterAd-supported
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.018.0
Further details — not scored
Size8 MB147 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDaniel WuCandela Labs Private Limited

Customer experience

Octal for Hacker News

All ratings2,828 ratings
Positive95.7%
Neutral1.6%
Negative2.8%
Written reviews171 reviews
Positive73.7%
Neutral7.0%
Negative19.3%

DevBytes

All ratings10 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews56 reviews
Positive98.2%
Neutral0.0%
Negative1.8%

Bugs and requests

Octal for Hacker News

Reported bugs

8 issues
  • Login and likes broken on iOS 16.0
  • Restore purchase not working
  • App icon doesn't change
  • Editing a comment works but gives an error
  • Can't collapse comments
Show 3 more
  • Upvoting fails very often
  • Refreshing comments doesn't load new comments
  • Messes up Screen time

Requested features

18 requests
  • Dark mode option
  • Ability to browse history and upvoted stories
  • Markdown highlighting for comments
  • Ability to select text when tap anywhere to collapse comment is enabled
  • Downvote functionality
Show 13 more
  • Ability to export bookmarks/favorites
  • Swipe to collapse whole comment branch
  • Larger upvote button
  • Ability to see points on own comments
  • Swipe to go back
  • Paginated behavior instead of infinite scrolling
  • Ability to filter by post types (Show HN, Ask HN, etc.)
  • Linking back to upvoted comments
  • Auto night mode
  • Larger font size options
  • Ability to see read news in grey
  • Telegram Night Blue color scheme for dark mode
  • Bookmark/offline support

DevBytes

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Octal for Hacker News

One-time4
  • Kind Tip$1.99
  • Generous Tip$4.99
  • Premium$5.99
Show 1 more
  • Extraordinary Tip$9.99
None

DevBytes

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Octal for Hacker News free?
Octal for Hacker News is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is DevBytes free?
DevBytes is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Octal for Hacker News or DevBytes?
DevBytes is rated higher. Octal for Hacker News averages 4.8 out of 5 from 2.8K ratings, while DevBytes averages 4.9 from 10 ratings.
Do Octal for Hacker News or DevBytes have ads?
DevBytes shows ads; Octal for Hacker News does not.
Which is updated more often, Octal for Hacker News or DevBytes?
Octal for Hacker News ships an update every 11 days, and DevBytes weekly. Most recently, Octal for Hacker News was updated on September 23, 2026 and DevBytes on September 21, 2026.

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