Comparison

Hacker News Tech Reader vs Trending Tech News

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

Head to head
About

Hacker News Tech Reader

This app offers a beautiful and intuitive way to read the latest tech, startup, and STEM news from Hacker News. It features customizable reading options, push notifications, and advanced search capabilities, all without ads or subscriptions.

Highlights
  • Ad-free and subscription-free experience
  • Push notifications for replies
  • Nested comment threads
  • Advanced search with filters
  • Customizable fonts and themes
  • Article sharing and archiving
  • Support for multiple browsers
Features
Read full description

HACK for YC's Hacker News is the most beautiful and easy way to read about the latest tech, startup and STEM news. - No Ads. No subscriptions. - Login or Register your Hacker News account - PUSH NOTIFICATIONS for Hacker News replies to comment or post - Supported on iPhone, iPad, and Mac - Setting to block AI posts on HN. - Comments are presented in nested threads - Tap a comment to collapse that thread - Swipe left or right on stories and comments to upvote and favorite - Ability to submit new posts including drafts - Long press a story, link or comment to share - iPad supports split view - On iPads, you can drag a story / comment / story's image (link) to open it in safari in split view. This is useful for when you are viewing the app in split view / multitasking and like opening the link / story / comment in a browser side by side. - Landscape and Portrait support - 3D touch for peek, pop support - Home screen 3D touch shortcuts - Hide posts from the feed - Tap the bottom button to scroll to the next root comment in the thread. Long press it to go to the previous one - All known hacker news endpoints - News, front page, Ask HN, Show HN, Show HN Newest, classic, active, best stories, best comments, new stories, new comments, noob stories, noob comments, jobs, over 100-500 points - Submit posts, reply, comment using your HN account - Browse top 100 leader accounts - Browse stories from a specific site, user or date - Search in comments and usernames! Search is case and diacritic insensitive and ignores punctuations. Search uses an CONTAINS, OR operation if multiple words are typed. - Can select / highlight the comment/post title text for lookup/copy/translate etc iOS native operations. - Powerful search (powered by Algolia API) - use @date to sort by date, #story to filter for stories, #comments to filter for comments, #author_username to filter by user etc. These tags can be separated by commas. Refer to https://hn.algolia.com/api for more tags. - Dark mode - both pure black and gray mode - Low contrast text mode to make the text not be pure white - Many color choices & color picker for customization - App icons in variety of colours for light and dark mode - Font choices - Ability to change font sizes, padding etc to make the layout as compact as you like! - Threaded comments with color bar to maintain visual orientation - Articles open in Safari view with setting to automatically open in "readability" mode - Tap the domain in a story to see all stories from that site - Tap the username in a story or comment to go to the user profile - Browse your submitted stories and comments, favorited stories and comments, upvoted stories and comments - Archive: View an archive of the post website. archive.is, archive.org & google cache. - Share comment as image - Articles can be opened in built in safari or 3rd party browsers. Supports Brave, Firefox, Firefox Focus, Orion, Opera Touch, Dolphin, DuckDuckGo, iCab Mobile, Microsoft Edge and Chrome. Go to settings > Disable the "Use in-app Safari" setting > tap that row to change the default browser. All stories and comments are via Algolia API and Hacker News API: https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/api https://github.com/HackerNews/API Profile picture robots lovingly delivered by Robohash.org There are ongoing costs of developing and maintaining HACK. I am a small indie developer and need your help keep the lights on. I offer a beautiful app for the absolute best user-experience. I don't use intrusive ads, trackers, third-party analytics, subscriptions, or other nonsense. I need to run my own server for caching high quality favicons shown in the app plus for push notifications for replies to hacker news posts. If you can afford it, please support me by purchasing the one-time-only in-app-purchase or giving me a tip. No subscriptions. It's a small and fair amount which helps cover development costs of future updates. Contact me at: pran@pranapps.com

About

Trending Tech News

Stay updated with the latest technological advancements and news from around the globe. This application delivers current tech happenings directly to your device.

Highlights
  • Global tech news aggregation
  • Real-time updates
  • Device compatibility
  • Current industry information
Features
Read full description

A News App that brings the tech news happening all over the world.

Screenshots

Hacker News Tech Reader4 screens
Trending Tech News4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Trending Tech News at none against Hacker News Tech Reader's 6. Trending Tech News also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7) and iOS requirement (8.0 vs 15.0). Hacker News Tech Reader's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 4 months) and ratings volume (1.6K vs 2). On price, review sentiment, ads and monetization model 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. Hacker News Tech Reader sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Trending Tech News asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Trending Tech News holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hacker News Tech Reader has 1.6K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 94% of Hacker News Tech Reader's written reviews are positive against 100% of Trending Tech News's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hacker News Tech Reader ships an update every 3 days, Trending Tech News every 4 months. Both last shipped on November 3, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Hacker News Tech Reader versus Trending Tech News: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHacker News Tech ReaderTrending Tech News
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.6K ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews93.5% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings1.6K — better2
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 4 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.08.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB72 MB
Age rating9+17+
DeveloperPranoy ChowdhuryFrancium Technologies Pvt Ltd

Customer experience

Hacker News Tech Reader

All ratings1,589 ratings
Positive91.4%
Neutral2.6%
Negative6.0%
Written reviews200 reviews
Positive93.5%
Neutral2.5%
Negative4.0%

Trending Tech News

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Hacker News Tech Reader

One-time6
  • Nice Tip$3.99
  • Kind Tip$6.99
  • Generous Tip$9.99
Show 3 more
  • Hack Premium$12.99
  • Amazing Tip$12.99
  • Godzilla Tip$19.99
None

Trending Tech News

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Hacker News Tech Reader free?
Hacker News Tech Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Trending Tech News free?
Trending Tech News is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Hacker News Tech Reader or Trending Tech News?
Trending Tech News is rated higher. Hacker News Tech Reader averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.6K ratings, while Trending Tech News averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do Hacker News Tech Reader or Trending Tech News have ads?
Neither Hacker News Tech Reader nor Trending Tech News shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hacker News Tech Reader or Trending Tech News?
Hacker News Tech Reader ships an update every 3 days, and Trending Tech News every 4 months. Most recently, Hacker News Tech Reader was updated on November 3, 2026 and Trending Tech News on November 3, 2026.

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