Comparison

Unread vs GoodLinks

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

Head to head
About

Unread

This app is a beautifully designed RSS reader that focuses on a clean reading experience with customizable typography and themes. It offers seamless syncing across devices and integrates with various read-later services, allowing for offline access to cached content.

Highlights
  • Gesture-based navigation
  • Customizable color themes
  • Cross-device syncing
  • Automatic webpage text display
  • Offline access with caching
  • Integration with read-later services
  • Widgets for unread counts
Features
Read full description

Rediscover the joy of reading your favorite writers and publications with Unread. Unread is an RSS reader with beautiful typography, comfortable gesture-based navigation, and a variety of color themes. Unread is available for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Unread won the MacStories Selects 2025 Lifetime Achievement Award. Capabilities include: SYNCING: Our free Unread Cloud service keeps your devices in sync. Unread also syncs with Feedbin, Feedly, Fever, FreshRSS, Gobbler, Inkwell, Inoreader, Miniflux, and NewsBlur. AUTOMATIC WEBPAGE TEXT: For feeds that contain only article summaries, Unread will display the full article text from the webpage. Easily switch between feed text and webpage text for any article, and change the default for individual feeds. WEBSITE ACCOUNTS: For news websites that require an account, sign in and get full webpage text. SUBSCRIBE IN UNREAD: This share sheet extension lets you subscribe to a website’s feeds while visiting that website from Safari or any other web browser. SAVE TO UNREAD: This share sheet extension creates an article in Unread with the contents of the webpage you are visiting from Safari or any other web browser. (Subscription required.) COLOR THEMES: Unread provides a variety of color themes. Choose one theme for light mode and another for dark mode. CACHING: Unread caches webpage text and images for instant loading and offline access. (Subscription required.) READ-LATER SERVICES: Unread can save articles to Anybox, Flyleaf, GoodLinks, Instapaper, Matter, Pinboard, Plinky, Raindrop.io, Readwise, Safari Reading List, and wallabag. On a device with a hardware keyboard, assign a custom keyboard shortcut to each. (Subscription required.) SHORTCUTS: Perform shortcuts on articles and links inside articles. On a device with a hardware keyboard, assign a custom keyboard shortcut to each. (Subscription required.) --- “Most importantly, I should stress again how refreshing it feels to have such a great native experience with Unread. The app is really fast, even when it’s loaded up with hundreds of feeds.” — Niléane Dorffer, MacStories “It’s an RSS reader made with taste. It has great typography, themes, search, and compatibility with the usual suspects. I love having this app on my Mac.” — David Sparks, MacSparky “Unread is focused on eliminating chrome — it is a pure reading app. It’s like reader mode all the time, and the assortment of color themes is nicely curated.” – John Gruber, Daring Fireball --- Unread has full VoiceOver coverage. Every screen and every feature is available to users with vision impairments: • From any screen you can perform a magic tap, a two-finger double tap, to open a menu of options available for that screen. • When on an article list, there are actions available for each article in the list. After selecting an article, invoke the accessibility rotor and then select “Actions”. There is an action to mark the article read or unread, an action to share the article, and many others. • Use the VoiceOver escape gesture, a two-finger “Z”, to back out of the current screen. --- UNREAD SUBSCRIPTION Unread is a free app. Additional functionality is available with a $29.99 (USD)/year auto-renewing subscription: • Article actions for sending articles directly to supported bookmarking and read later services, and for sharing via email or iMessage. • Ability to execute shortcuts on articles and links. • Caching of webpage text and images. • Widget customization options. • Save to Unread share sheet extension. • Custom app icons. • Premium support. A subscription automatically renews unless it is canceled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account will be charged for renewal within 24 hours prior to the end of the current period. You can manage and cancel your subscriptions by going to your account settings on the App Store after purchase. Unread’s Terms of Use are available at: https://www.goldenhillsoftware.com/unread/terms-of-use/

About

GoodLinks

Save articles and links for later reading, with a clean, ad-free experience. Organize, highlight, and take notes on your saved content across all your devices. Enjoy a private and customizable way to manage your reading list.

Highlights
  • Save links and articles
  • Ad-free reading experience
  • Cross-device syncing
  • Highlight and take notes
  • Organize with tags and stars
  • Customizable interface
  • Private and secure
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Save links effortlessly. View them later, from anywhere, on all your devices. Sync, organize, and share your links—privately, without ever creating an account. GoodLinks is a powerful bookmarking app with a sleek reading experience. Save the content of the link while eliminating the ads and other clutter. Adding and viewing links is super simple and lightning fast. If you want to dig deeper, GoodLinks can be fully customized. No account. No ads. No creepy spying. GoodLinks just works. KEY FEATURES • Universal App :: GoodLinks is a single app that works on all of your iOS and macOS devices, so you can access your articles anywhere. • No Account :: Sync links, tags, and reading position without needing another web service account. iCloud Sync means all you have to do is install the app. • Simple :: Save articles from anywhere with a powerful Share Sheet extension. GoodLinks is so easy it feels like part of the operating system. • Readability :: Put the emphasis where it belongs—on the article you want to read. GoodLinks extracts the article text and removes web advertisements and other distractions to provide a wonderful reading experience. Pick the perfect font, spacing, and size. • Highlight & Note :: Highlight important information within articles and add notes to them, making it easier for you to remember key passages. • Organize :: Tame a large list with tags and starred articles, so you can always find what you need. You can also search based on title, author, and description. • Actions :: Actions help you manage and share links. You can add article to Starred, share to other apps, export to PDF, plain text or Markdown... Build your own actions to export and share your saved links. • Customize :: Adjust how your links and lists look, change swipe behavior, and more. Tailor GoodLinks to fit your style. • Themes :: Switch between beautiful themes: Light and Sepia for light mode, Dark and Night for dark mode. • Siri Shortcuts :: Deep support of iOS Shortcuts. Save a new link, query links, open a specific view, and more. • Log in to Sites :: Log in to paywalled sites to get full access to their content. • Widgets :: Get quick access to a list, or open a random unread link from your home screen. • Summarization :: Get a summary of any article with Apple Intelligence or external LLM services using your own API keys. • Archive :: The full rich text of each article gets saved in GoodLinks, and your reading history provides a natural archive if you need it. Save as many links as you want. • Private :: Your reading history and favorite articles should only be private by default. GoodLinks doesn’t track you or your information, and nothing is shared online unless you choose to share it. • VoiceOver :: GoodLinks is fully accessible via VoiceOver. GOODLINKS PREMIUM When you purchase GoodLinks today, you will get *permanent* access to all the current features, including any new ones released one year from your date of purchase. After your one year of feature upgrades is up, any new features introduced will require the GoodLinks Premium subscription to unlock. Once unlocked, those features are yours to keep *forever*, even if you choose to unsubscribe right after subscribing. Terms: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://goodlinks.app/privacy/

Screenshots

Unread4 screens
GoodLinks4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Unread at Free against GoodLinks's $9.99. GoodLinks's advantage is chart position (#1 vs unranked). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence 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

Unread is free to download; GoodLinks costs $9.99 up front. Unread sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and GoodLinks sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.6 for Unread against 4.7 for GoodLinks. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 442 and 633 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 72% of Unread's written reviews are positive against 79% of GoodLinks's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Unread ships an update every 8 days, GoodLinks every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 21, 2026 and September 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 9 level
Unread versus GoodLinks: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterUnreadGoodLinks
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating4.6 (442 ratings)4.7 (633 ratings) — better
Positive reviews72.4% of reviews79.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings442633 — better
Update frequencyEvery 8 days — betterEvery 2 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#1 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS18.017.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size39 MB223 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperGolden Hill SoftwareNgoc Luu

Customer experience

Unread

All ratings442 ratings
Positive89.8%
Neutral2.7%
Negative7.5%
Written reviews170 reviews
Positive72.4%
Neutral8.2%
Negative19.4%

GoodLinks

All ratings633 ratings
Positive93.4%
Neutral2.4%
Negative4.3%
Written reviews462 reviews
Positive79.4%
Neutral8.4%
Negative12.1%

User reviews

Unread

From 442 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Elegant and intuitive UI
  • 🚀 Fast and responsive
  • 🔒 Secure login integration
  • 📚 Excellent article formatting and readability
  • 💡 Automated full-text article retrieval

Room to improve

  • 💰 Subscription model seen as too expensive
  • 🔀 Inconsistent experience between iOS and iPad versions
  • 🔍 Difficult to discover certain features
  • 🔠 Lack of customization options (e.g., font, theme)

GoodLinks

From 633 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast and responsive
  • 🔒 Respects privacy
  • 👍 Clean and intuitive UI
  • 💡 Useful tagging and organization features
  • 👍 Seamless sync across devices

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Syncing issues between devices
  • 🐛 Inconsistent article rendering
  • 🐛 Crashes and bugs reported
  • 💡 Lack of annotation/highlighting features
  • 💡 Missing folder organization option

Bugs and requests

Unread

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Occasional article duplication
  • Issues with 'Keep Unread' feature
  • Text formatting problems in dark mode

Requested features

4 requests
  • Add support for more RSS providers (e.g., Miniflux, FreshRSS)
  • Implement keyboard shortcuts and power-user features
  • Improve information density on iPad layout
  • Introduce a one-time purchase option

GoodLinks

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Syncing problems between devices
  • Crashes and freezes reported
  • Inconsistent article rendering

Requested features

5 requests
  • Annotation and highlighting support
  • Folder-based organization
  • Improved search and filtering
  • PDF export and annotation
  • RSS feed integration

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Unread

Subscriptions4
  • Unread Monthly Subscription$4.991 Month
  • Unread Annual Subscription$29.991 Year
  • Unread: Free first year$29.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Unread: Discounted first year$29.991 Year
6 purchases

GoodLinks

Subscriptions1
  • Annual Feature Upgrade$4.991 Year
One-time5
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Nice Tip$2.99
  • Generous Tip$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Massive Tip$9.99
  • Amazing Tip$19.99

Questions

Is Unread free?
Unread is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is GoodLinks free?
GoodLinks costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Unread or GoodLinks?
GoodLinks is rated higher. Unread averages 4.6 out of 5 from 442 ratings, while GoodLinks averages 4.7 from 633 ratings.
Do Unread or GoodLinks have ads?
Neither Unread nor GoodLinks shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Unread or GoodLinks?
Unread ships an update every 8 days, and GoodLinks every 2 weeks. Most recently, Unread was updated on September 21, 2026 and GoodLinks on September 25, 2026.

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