Unread vs Doomscroll News
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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/
Doomscroll News
Stay informed with a curated selection of approximately 10 world news items daily. Designed for quick consumption, this app helps you get essential updates without the overwhelming 24-hour news cycle. Easily track your progress through the daily news list.
- Daily curated news selection
- Limited news items per day
- Focus on world news
- Completionist indicator
- Designed for quick use
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**Note: Doomscroll is NOT FREE. There’s a 7-day free trial, though.** Doomscroll is a news reader app that helps you stay informed without feeling overwhelmed. It shows you about 10 curated news items each day. You are supposed to open the app, spend a minute browsing through the news, and then get back to your day. Doomscroll shows you “world news,” which are mostly bad news that are mostly irrelevant to you. This way, you can use your RSS reader for tech news (or finance, or politics) and get your general news from Doomscroll. If you are a completionist, good news for you because it’s easy to scroll through the whole list. There’s a very obvious indicator at the end of the list. If you’re tired of the constant flood of news and want a simpler way to stay informed, Doomscroll is for you. It’s designed to be used for just a few minutes each day, helping you stay updated without getting sucked into the 24-hour news cycle. I hope you find Doomscroll helpful. - - - By using Doomscroll, you agree to the standard Apple Terms of Use: (https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/).
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is monetization model: Unread at free with in-app purchases against Doomscroll News's subscription. Unread also leads on ratings volume (442 vs 2) and device support (3 vs 1). Doomscroll News's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.6) and review sentiment (100% vs 72%). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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
Both are free to download. Unread sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per month and Doomscroll News sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $3.00 per year. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Doomscroll News holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Unread has 442 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 72% of Unread's written reviews are positive against 100% of Doomscroll News's.
Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly every 8 days. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 4, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Unread | Doomscroll News |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (442 ratings) | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 72.4% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 442 — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 days | Every 8 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases — better | Subscription |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 39 MB | 15 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Golden Hill Software | And a Dinosaur |
Customer experience
Unread
Doomscroll News
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
Doomscroll News
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Unread
- Unread Monthly Subscription$4.991 Month
- Unread Annual Subscription$29.991 Year
- Unread: Free first year$29.991 Year
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- Unread: Discounted first year$29.991 Year
Doomscroll News
- Yearly Subscription7 Days trial$3.001 Year









