HACK for Hacker News YC Reader vs Civisly
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- 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
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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
Civisly
This AI-powered assistant simplifies government actions, providing personalized legislative updates and court ruling summaries in plain English. It explains how policies affect your life and answers your civic questions.
- Personalized legislative feed
- AI-powered plain-English summaries
- Court ruling analysis
- Personalized impact statements
- AI assistant for civic questions
- Bill and ruling tracking
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Civisly is your AI-powered civic assistant that cuts through the noise and tells you exactly how government actions affect your everyday life. PERSONALIZED LEGISLATIVE FEED See federal bills, executive orders, and state legislation - all filtered by your location and interests. Whether you're a homeowner, student, veteran, or small business owner, Civisly shows you what matters most. COURT RULINGS Stay on top of the latest federal court decisions from the Supreme Court, Circuit Courts of Appeals, and D.C. District Court. Every ruling comes with an AI-generated plain-English summary explaining what the court decided, not just what the case is about. Browse by court, sort by impact, and scroll through an ever-growing feed that refreshes every 6 hours. AI-POWERED PLAIN-ENGLISH SUMMARIES No more legal jargon. Every bill and court ruling comes with a clear, AI-generated summary that explains what it does, who it affects, and why it matters - in language anyone can understand. "WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU" Set your life situation tags and get personalized impact statements on every bill and ruling. See exactly how proposed legislation or judicial decisions could affect your taxes, healthcare, housing, education, and more. ASK THE AI ASSISTANT Have a question about a bill or ruling? Ask Civisly's AI assistant anything - "How does this affect homeowners?" or "What does this executive order mean for small businesses?" - and get instant, clear answers. WATCH BILLS & RULINGS FOR UPDATES Follow the bills and court rulings you care about and stay informed as they progress. Know when a bill passes committee, gets a vote, or when a court changes its ruling. YOUR REPRESENTATIVES See who represents you in Congress based on your zip code. Know your senators and house representatives at a glance. FEATURES: • Personalized feed based on your location and interests • Court rulings from SCOTUS, Appeals, and D.C. District • AI summaries of every bill and ruling in plain English • Personalized "Why it matters to you" impact statements • AI assistant for civic questions • Bill and ruling watching with status updates • Federal and state legislation coverage • Representative lookup by zip code • Clean, modern, ad-free interface Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://www.civisly.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Civisly at none against HACK for Hacker News YC Reader's 6. Civisly also leads on rating (5.0 vs 4.7). HACK for Hacker News YC Reader's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 weeks) and ratings volume (1.6K vs 1). On price, ads, monetization model and iOS requirement 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. HACK for Hacker News YC Reader sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Civisly asks for nothing beyond the download.
Civisly holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.7. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: HACK for Hacker News YC Reader has 1.6K ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
HACK for Hacker News YC Reader ships an update every 3 days, Civisly every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 25, 2026 and October 9, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | HACK for Hacker News YC Reader | Civisly |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (1.6K ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 93.5% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 1.6K — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 days — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 — better | 16.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 28 MB | 16 MB |
| Age rating | 9+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Pranoy Chowdhury | Civisly LLC |
Customer experience
HACK for Hacker News YC Reader
Civisly
In-app purchases
HACK for Hacker News YC Reader
- Nice Tip$3.99
- Kind Tip$6.99
- Hack Premium$9.99
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- Generous Tip$9.99
- Amazing Tip$12.99
- Godzilla Tip$19.99
Civisly
No in-app purchases
Questions
Is HACK for Hacker News YC Reader free?
Is Civisly free?
Which has better reviews, HACK for Hacker News YC Reader or Civisly?
Do HACK for Hacker News YC Reader or Civisly have ads?
Which is updated more often, HACK for Hacker News YC Reader or Civisly?
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