GoodLinks vs NetNewsWire
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
GoodLinks
Save articles and links for later reading, with a clean, ad-free experience. Organize, highlight, and take notes on your saved content across all your devices. Enjoy a private and customizable way to manage your reading list.
- Save links and articles
- Ad-free reading experience
- Cross-device syncing
- Highlight and take notes
- Organize with tags and stars
- Customizable interface
- Private and secure
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Save links effortlessly. View them later, from anywhere, on all your devices. Sync, organize, and share your links—privately, without ever creating an account. GoodLinks is a powerful bookmarking app with a sleek reading experience. Save the content of the link while eliminating the ads and other clutter. Adding and viewing links is super simple and lightning fast. If you want to dig deeper, GoodLinks can be fully customized. No account. No ads. No creepy spying. GoodLinks just works. KEY FEATURES • Universal App :: GoodLinks is a single app that works on all of your iOS and macOS devices, so you can access your articles anywhere. • No Account :: Sync links, tags, and reading position without needing another web service account. iCloud Sync means all you have to do is install the app. • Simple :: Save articles from anywhere with a powerful Share Sheet extension. GoodLinks is so easy it feels like part of the operating system. • Readability :: Put the emphasis where it belongs—on the article you want to read. GoodLinks extracts the article text and removes web advertisements and other distractions to provide a wonderful reading experience. Pick the perfect font, spacing, and size. • Highlight & Note :: Highlight important information within articles and add notes to them, making it easier for you to remember key passages. • Organize :: Tame a large list with tags and starred articles, so you can always find what you need. You can also search based on title, author, and description. • Actions :: Actions help you manage and share links. You can add article to Starred, share to other apps, export to PDF, plain text or Markdown... Build your own actions to export and share your saved links. • Customize :: Adjust how your links and lists look, change swipe behavior, and more. Tailor GoodLinks to fit your style. • Themes :: Switch between beautiful themes: Light and Sepia for light mode, Dark and Night for dark mode. • Siri Shortcuts :: Deep support of iOS Shortcuts. Save a new link, query links, open a specific view, and more. • Log in to Sites :: Log in to paywalled sites to get full access to their content. • Widgets :: Get quick access to a list, or open a random unread link from your home screen. • Summarization :: Get a summary of any article with Apple Intelligence or external LLM services using your own API keys. • Archive :: The full rich text of each article gets saved in GoodLinks, and your reading history provides a natural archive if you need it. Save as many links as you want. • Private :: Your reading history and favorite articles should only be private by default. GoodLinks doesn’t track you or your information, and nothing is shared online unless you choose to share it. • VoiceOver :: GoodLinks is fully accessible via VoiceOver. GOODLINKS PREMIUM When you purchase GoodLinks today, you will get *permanent* access to all the current features, including any new ones released one year from your date of purchase. After your one year of feature upgrades is up, any new features introduced will require the GoodLinks Premium subscription to unlock. Once unlocked, those features are yours to keep *forever*, even if you choose to unsubscribe right after subscribing. Terms: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://goodlinks.app/privacy/
NetNewsWire
This app aggregates articles from your favorite blogs and news sites, offering a faster and more organized way to consume content. It provides control over your news feed, eliminating the need to visit multiple websites or rely on social media algorithms. Enjoy a streamlined reading experience with customizable features and syncing capabilities.
- Direct feed downloading
- iCloud and third-party syncing
- Customizable article themes
- Reader view
- Starred articles
- Smart feeds
- Home screen widgets
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It’s like podcasts, but for reading. NetNewsWire is a free and open source RSS reader. It shows you articles from your favorite blogs and news sites and keeps track of what you’ve read. It’s fast, stable, and accessible. If you’ve been going from site to site in your browser looking for new articles to read — or counting on the unreliable algorithms of corporate social media — let NetNewsWire bring you the news you want. It’s easy and fun. And it puts you, not billionaires, in control of your news. Features: * Direct feed downloading * Syncing via iCloud, Feedbin, Feedly, BazQux, Inoreader, NewsBlur, The Old Reader, and FreshRSS * Multiple accounts * Custom article themes * Reader view * Share sheet * Starred articles * All Unread and Today smart feeds * Folders * Importing and exporting OPML feed lists * Background refreshing * Searching * Hiding read articles * Timeline customization * Keyboard shortcuts * Context menus * Home screen widgets for today, unread, and starred articles * Share extension
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: NetNewsWire at Free against GoodLinks's $9.99. NetNewsWire also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 6). GoodLinks's advantage is chart position (#4 vs #83) and update cadence (fortnightly vs monthly). On rating, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads 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
NetNewsWire is free to download; GoodLinks costs $9.99 up front. GoodLinks sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $4.99 per year. NetNewsWire asks for nothing beyond the download.
On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for GoodLinks against 4.7 for NetNewsWire. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 638 and 882 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 80% of GoodLinks's written reviews are positive against 84% of NetNewsWire's.
GoodLinks ships an update fortnightly, NetNewsWire monthly. Both last shipped on October 15, 2026.
| Parameter | GoodLinks | NetNewsWire |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $9.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.7 (638 ratings) | 4.7 (882 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 79.7% of reviews | 84.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 638 | 882 — better |
| Update frequency | Fortnightly — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | #4 — better | #83 |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 223 MB | 27 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Ngoc Luu | Brent Simmons |
Customer experience
GoodLinks
NetNewsWire
Bugs and requests
GoodLinks
Reported bugs
3 issues- Syncing problems between devices
- Crashes and freezes reported
- Inconsistent article rendering
Requested features
5 requests- Annotation and highlighting support
- Folder-based organization
- Improved search and filtering
- PDF export and annotation
- RSS feed integration
NetNewsWire
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
GoodLinks
- Annual Feature Upgrade$4.991 Year
- Small Tip$0.99
- Nice Tip$2.99
- Generous Tip$4.99
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- Massive Tip$9.99
- Amazing Tip$19.99
NetNewsWire
No in-app purchases








