Comparison

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader vs feeeed

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

Head to head
About

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

This app offers a beautiful and intuitive way to read tech, startup, and STEM news from Hacker News. It provides advanced features like push notifications, threaded comments, and powerful search, with extensive customization options for a personalized reading experience.

Highlights
  • Ad-free and subscription-free reading
  • Push notifications for replies
  • Nested threaded comments with collapse
  • Swipe to upvote and favorite
  • Submit new posts and drafts
  • Powerful Algolia-powered search
  • Customizable themes, fonts, and layout
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 I am a small indie developer and need your help keep the lights on. I offer an ad and analytics free and beautiful app for the absolute best experience for my users. 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. You can also leave a review on the App Store as that really helps me get the word out. Thank you for choosing HACK. If you have a programming job or have feedback, contact me at: pran@pranapps.com

About

feeeed

Build a personalized, ad-free news feed from any website or social media. Enjoy a customizable reader, offline access, and AI summaries. Stay informed on your own terms.

Highlights
  • Customizable ad-free news feed
  • Fast, focused reader mode
  • AI article summaries
  • Offline reading
  • Subscribe to websites, social media, and communities
  • Custom reminders and flashcards
  • Homescreen widgets
Features
Read full description

Stay informed without losing sanity. A feed curated by you, not the social-media mob. with feeeed, you can build your own ad-free news feed, on your own terms: • subscribe to any website and get the latest stories in your feed • view articles in a fast, focused, customizable reader mode • see local weather, flashbacks from your photo library or birthdays from your contacts • no ads or purchases • free ai summaries of articles • offline mode: download dozens of stories to read when you're offline • subscribe to communities from reddit, youtube channels, tiktok profiles, mastodon or threads accounts • add your own custom reminders, or flashcards • see your step count for the day, and your progress towards 10k steps. (powered by an optional integration with the Health) • browse a curated catalog of suggested news feeds for any topic • full dark mode, including auto-dark mode for any site • a built-in chatbot that can recommend feeds and channels for any topic • customize your app icon, tab bar, algorithm and more • see news on your homescreen with a customizable widget • create and share lists of feeds • groups feeds into folders and pin your favorite folders to the tab bar for one-tap access • a lot more! it's 100% private and on-device (no servers, no accounts, nothing leaves your device). don't worry — it's still as fast, smooth and addicting as your favorite Mark Zuckerberg app. it includes a built-in reader mode and reading list. it's fast! take back your news feed ~ scroll on your own terms :)

Screenshots

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader4 screens
feeeed4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: feeeed at none against HACK for Hacker News YC Reader's 6. HACK for Hacker News YC Reader's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs monthly) and device support (4 vs 2). On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. HACK for Hacker News YC Reader sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. feeeed asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for HACK for Hacker News YC Reader against 4.8 for feeeed. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1.6K and 1.5K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 93% of HACK for Hacker News YC Reader's written reviews are positive against 92% of feeeed's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader ships an update every 3 days, feeeed monthly. Both last shipped on October 15, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
HACK for Hacker News YC Reader versus feeeed: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHACK for Hacker News YC Readerfeeeed
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (1.6K ratings)4.8 (1.5K ratings) — better
Positive reviews93.4% of reviews — better91.6% of reviews
Number of ratings1.6K — better1.5K
Update frequencyEvery 3 days — betterMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFreeFree
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS15.0 — better16.0
Further details — not scored
Size28 MB105 MB
Age rating9+17+
DeveloperPranoy ChowdhuryJames Parrott

Customer experience

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

All ratings1,580 ratings
Positive91.5%
Neutral2.5%
Negative5.9%
Written reviews197 reviews
Positive93.4%
Neutral2.5%
Negative4.1%

feeeed

All ratings1,534 ratings
Positive96.4%
Neutral1.7%
Negative1.9%
Written reviews462 reviews
Positive91.6%
Neutral3.9%
Negative4.5%

Bugs and requests

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

feeeed

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Issues with loading certain feeds or articles
  • Problems with the 'Read Later' feature
  • Inconsistencies in the 'Reader' mode

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add ability to sort/filter feeds
  • Improve sync between devices
  • Add support for more content types (e.g. podcasts)
  • Provide more customization options (e.g. font size, layout)
  • Implement translation/localization features
Show 1 more
  • Add push notifications for new content

In-app purchases

6 purchases

HACK for Hacker News YC Reader

One-time6
  • Nice Tip$3.99
  • Kind Tip$6.99
  • Generous Tip$9.99
Show 3 more
  • Amazing Tip$12.99
  • Hack Premium$14.99
  • Godzilla Tip$19.99
None

feeeed

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is HACK for Hacker News YC Reader free?
HACK for Hacker News YC Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is feeeed free?
feeeed is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, HACK for Hacker News YC Reader or feeeed?
feeeed is rated higher. HACK for Hacker News YC Reader averages 4.7 out of 5 from 1.6K ratings, while feeeed averages 4.8 from 1.5K ratings.
Do HACK for Hacker News YC Reader or feeeed have ads?
Neither HACK for Hacker News YC Reader nor feeeed shows ads.
Which is updated more often, HACK for Hacker News YC Reader or feeeed?
HACK for Hacker News YC Reader ships an update every 3 days, and feeeed monthly. Most recently, HACK for Hacker News YC Reader was updated on October 15, 2026 and feeeed on October 15, 2026.

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