NewsFlash RSS vs An Otter RSS Reader
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
NewsFlash RSS
A fast, modern RSS reader designed for a clean, distraction-free news experience. Organize articles with tags, filter content, and search your entire feed. Offers custom push notifications and developer-friendly features.
- Clean, distraction-free reading experience
- Customizable tags and filtering
- Full-text search across articles
- Keyword blocking for unwanted topics
- Custom push notifications
- iCloud Sync for private data backup
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Stay in control of your news. NewsFlash is a beautifully designed RSS reader that brings all your favorite sources into one fast, clean, distraction-free feed. Why NewsFlash? Fast & Minimal: A clean reading experience without clutter, ads, pop-ups, or algorithmic noise. Read Your Way: Open articles directly in Safari or use the built-in Reader view. Get the full web experience you prefer. Stay Organized: Tag articles with custom labels, filter your feed instantly, and navigate with smooth, scrollable tag chips. Never Lose Track: Clear read/unread indicators and one-tap bookmarking keep important stories in sight. Find Anything: Full-text search across all articles, tags, and feeds. Control Your Feed: Block keywords to automatically remove topics you don’t care about. Perfect For • News lovers following dozens of sites • Professionals staying current in tech, design, finance, science, etc. • Anyone tired of algorithmic feeds and wanting real control again Power Features • Custom Push API: Send rich push notifications via simple HTTP requests • Developer-Friendly: Great for monitoring services, CI/CD pipelines, personal automations, and more Privacy First • iCloud Sync for private, encrypted syncing • No accounts, no tracking, no ads • Your data stays entirely on your device NewsFlash combines elegant design with powerful tools. Simple enough for casual reading. Powerful enough for serious users. Take back control of your information flow. Download NewsFlash today.
An Otter RSS Reader
A minimalistic RSS reader that synchronizes your subscribed feeds across Apple devices via iCloud. It allows for automatic feed discovery, organization into folders, and reading articles in a standard web view. Integrates with Shortcuts and offers home screen widgets for unread counts.
- iCloud feed synchronization
- Auto-discover RSS feeds
- Group feeds into folders
- Read articles in web view
- Shortcuts integration
- Home screen widgets
- Import/Export with OPML
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An Otter RSS Reader is a simple RSS reader for following news, blogs, and personal sites without another account. Subscribe to feeds, organize them into folders, and let iCloud keep everything in sync across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Otter keeps the experience intentionally calm: quick refreshes, native navigation, readable article views, and just enough personality to make checking your feeds feel pleasant. New in 2.0, the iPad edition grew up. The Front Page opens to today's stories while native adaptive columns keep feeds and the story list side by side when there’s room, then collapse cleanly on smaller screens. Articles set in a real serif with a comfortable reading measure, on iPad and iPhone alike. Features: - Subscribe to RSS, Atom, JSON Feed, and XML feeds - Sync subscriptions and reading state with iCloud - The Front Page: a daily opening spread across iPhone and iPad - Smart Folders that fill themselves — long reads, quick reads, podcasts, videos - A serif reading view with adjustable typography - Reading Insights: streaks, reading calendar, and when-you-read patterns - Organize feeds into folders - Import and export subscriptions with OPML - Keyboard shortcuts and menu commands on iPad - Refresh feeds in the background or manually - Shortcuts actions, Home Screen widgets, and alternate app icons Otter Pro, the optional subscription, adds ad-free reading, custom Smart Folders, TL;DR article summaries, and the full Reading Insights dashboard. Otter is not trying to be a social network, inbox, or power-user dashboard. It is a practical little RSS reader for people who still like the open web. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://anotterrss.com/privacy
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: An Otter RSS Reader at Free against NewsFlash RSS's $0.99. An Otter RSS Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs monthly) and ratings volume (73 vs 6). NewsFlash RSS's advantage is rating (4.8 vs 4.1) and chart position (#90 vs unranked). On review sentiment, ads, in-app purchases 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
An Otter RSS Reader is free to download; NewsFlash RSS costs $0.99 up front. NewsFlash RSS sells 3 one-off in-app purchases and An Otter RSS Reader sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
NewsFlash RSS holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: An Otter RSS Reader has 73 ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of NewsFlash RSS's written reviews are positive against 60% of An Otter RSS Reader's.
NewsFlash RSS ships an update monthly, An Otter RSS Reader every 3 days. Both last shipped on September 23, 2026.
| Parameter | NewsFlash RSS | An Otter RSS Reader |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 4.8 (6 ratings) — better | 4.1 (73 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better | 60.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6 | 73 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly | Every 3 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Paid | Free with in-app purchases — better |
| Best chart rank | #90 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 17.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 45 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Michael Steurer | Josh Holtz |
Customer experience
NewsFlash RSS
An Otter RSS Reader
Bugs and requests
NewsFlash RSS
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
An Otter RSS Reader
Reported bugs
10 issues- It does not work
- Articles flicker in and out of existence and about 30 of them don't show at all
- The list views are messed up with many black spaces where a feed item should appear but is completely black
- Reader mode seems to not work
- Articles show up in duplicated often, articles had been marked as read will show up again as unread
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- Feeds disappear after closing the app
- Feeds don't refresh
- Crashes when importing OPML files
- Crashing when importing opml files
- Crashes when trying to import an OPML file
Requested features
13 requests- Encripted iCloud backups would be welcome
- Mark articles read on scrolling past them
- Option to hide read articles by default instead of manually hiding all the time
- When clicking on a top level folder it expands the folder clicking the arrow should expand the folder
- Needs swipe gestures example swipe right mark read/unread swipe left add to favorite
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- Need to add an option to sort by oldest and newest first
- If in reader mode hitting the safari button should open in the in app browser instead of leaving the app
- Under notifications there should be an option to show badge count with unread articles
- Should be an option to see favicons to the left of the headline to quickly see at a glance which site posted the story as well as an option to enable images if there is one in the story
- MiniFlux Sync would be nice
- Offline reading?
- Dark mode option
- Advanced analytics dashboard
In-app purchases
NewsFlash RSS
- Espresso$0.99
- Cappuccino$2.99
- Specialty Coffee Aeropress$4.99
An Otter RSS Reader
- Small Tip2 variants$0.99
- Medium Tip2 variants$2.99
- Large Tip2 variants$5.99
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- Mega Tip2 variants$12.99
Questions
Is NewsFlash RSS free?
Is An Otter RSS Reader free?
Which has better reviews, NewsFlash RSS or An Otter RSS Reader?
Do NewsFlash RSS or An Otter RSS Reader have ads?
Which is updated more often, NewsFlash RSS or An Otter RSS Reader?
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