Unread vs Lirum

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/

Lirum requires a Lirum Premium auto-renewing subscription. No algorithm. No feed. Just your content. Every major platform optimizes for engagement — not for you. The result is always the same: outrage, slop, and an endless scroll designed to keep you watching, not reading. It doesn't matter what the product looks like today; if the incentives are the same, it converges to the same place. RSS is different. It's open, it's simple, and nobody sits between you and the writers you follow. You subscribe. They publish. That's it. Lirum is built around that idea: combine RSS feed reading and read-it-later saving in one focused app, and make the reading experience worth your attention. No account required. No tracking. No analytics. Your reading habits stay on your devices. Distraction-Free Reader: Articles are automatically cleaned of ads, popups, and clutter, leaving just the content. Choose between a beautifully formatted reader view or the original page. Customize your reading with three font families (including Atkinson Hyperlegible for accessibility), adjustable text size, and tunable line spacing. Select a passage and share it as a beautifully formatted quote via iMessage, complete with a link back to the source. Your River of News: Subscribe to RSS and Atom feeds and browse them in the River — a flowing inbox where items archive as you scroll past. Swipe to save what catches your eye. Pull to refresh, or let background sync keep everything current. No ranking, no suppression — everything your sources publish, in the order they published it. Save From Anywhere: Use the Share Sheet to save articles from Safari, social media, or any app. Lirum extracts the full article text for offline reading and caches images so your library is always available — even without a connection. Listen to Articles: Turn any article into audio with premium system voices and full playback controls: play, pause, skip by paragraph, and adjust speed. A mini player keeps you in control while browsing. Works with lock screen Now Playing controls. Stay Organized: Library -Your saved articles, searchable and filterable River - Unread feed items in a unified stream Reference - An archive of everything you've read Filter by source or media type, sort by date, search across your collection Video Support: YouTube videos and other video content are detected and played inline — no need to leave the app. Sync Everywhere: iCloud keeps your library, feeds, and reading progress in sync across iPhone, iPad, and Mac. No account to create, no email to hand over — just sign in to iCloud and go. Private by Design: Lirum has no server. There's no account, no telemetry, no analytics, and no way for us to see what you read. Your data syncs through your private iCloud container and lives on your devices. That's it. Import & Export: Bring your feeds from another reader with OPML import, or back up your full library to JSON. Your data is always yours. Built for Apple Platforms: A native SwiftUI app designed for iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/