Comparison

Hacker News Tech Reader vs ProPUBG

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

ProPUBG

Stay informed about PUBG: Mobile with news, tournament updates, live streams, and content from top players. Personalize your feed and share information easily.

Highlights
  • Game news and roster updates
  • Tournament listings with registration info
  • Live stream viewing
  • Content from top players and interviews
  • Tournament results
  • Personalized notifications
  • Shareable content links
Features
Read full description

ProPUBG is an integrated app where you can receive information about various aspects of the game PUBG: Mobile ProPUBG features: Reshuffles and news. Follow the changes in the rosters of the strongest teams, as well as learn about interesting news. Most posts have unique comments from players and content makers Tournaments. Are you a manager or a starting team? Can't register for events? We publish tournaments with open registration and detailed information about them. In addition we filter by the safety of prize fund payments Live streams. Don't miss the streams of tournaments and watch them in LIVE. Support your favorite teams in chat or analyze the game of your opponents to become even stronger Content. Watch various types of videos from the best content makers. Read interviews and look through podcasts with well-known PUBG: Mobile players. There is also an opportunity to learn something new for yourself in the tuition section. Tournament results. Stay up to date with all the latest tournament results with detailed information about them Personalization. Advanced notification settings by sections and regions. Get only the most necessary information that you are interested in Share posts with friends. Use short links that you can send to your friends. The links will immediately lead you to the necessary information.

Screenshots

Hacker News Tech Reader4 screens
ProPUBG4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Hacker News Tech Reader at 4.7 against ProPUBG's 3.0. Hacker News Tech Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 4 weeks) and ratings volume (1.6K vs 4). ProPUBG's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 6) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 15.0). On price, ads, monetization model 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. Hacker News Tech Reader sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. ProPUBG asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Hacker News Tech Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 3.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Hacker News Tech Reader has 1.6K ratings behind it against 4, 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 75% of ProPUBG's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hacker News Tech Reader ships an update every 3 days, ProPUBG every 4 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Hacker News Tech Reader versus ProPUBG: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHacker News Tech ReaderProPUBG
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.6K ratings) — better3.0 (4 ratings)
Positive reviews93.5% of reviews — better75.0% of reviews
Number of ratings1.6K — better4
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterEvery 4 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS15.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB36 MB
Age rating9+4+
DeveloperPranoy ChowdhuryAleksandr Prokopenko

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%

ProPUBG

All ratings4 ratings
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%
Written reviews4 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative25.0%

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

ProPUBG

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 ProPUBG free?
ProPUBG is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Hacker News Tech Reader or ProPUBG?
Hacker News Tech Reader is rated higher. Hacker News Tech Reader averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.6K ratings, while ProPUBG averages 3.0 from 4 ratings.
Do Hacker News Tech Reader or ProPUBG have ads?
Neither Hacker News Tech Reader nor ProPUBG shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hacker News Tech Reader or ProPUBG?
Hacker News Tech Reader ships an update every 3 days, and ProPUBG every 4 weeks. Most recently, Hacker News Tech Reader was updated on November 6, 2026 and ProPUBG on November 3, 2026.

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