NewsFlash vs Fluent Reader Lite
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
NewsFlash
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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Your sources. Less noise. NewsFlash is an independent RSS reader for people who want to choose what they read, without an algorithm, ads, tracking, or a separate account. Bring the websites, blogs, and links you care about into one organized library on iPhone and iPad. Filter out what doesn't interest you and keep what does. FOLLOW YOUR SOURCES Subscribe to RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds. Paste a website or feed address, preview its articles, or start with suggested feeds. Import and export your subscriptions with OPML. CONTROL THE NOISE Hide articles that match words or phrases in their title, summary, or URL. Apply a filter to one feed or your whole library, and preview what it matches before you save it. The source stays; only the stories you don't want disappear. KEEP MORE THAN A BOOKMARK Save articles for later, add tags and personal notes, and organize feeds in nested folders. Search across titles, sources, tags, and notes to find things again. SAVE LINKS FROM ANYWHERE Share a page from Safari or any other app straight into NewsFlash, even if you don't follow its source. READ IT YOUR WAY Choose Hero, Full, Compact, or Text Only layouts, with separate settings for each feed. Light and Dark Mode, larger text, and Safari Reader on supported websites help you read comfortably. Seen and read are tracked separately. YOUR READING, WITHIN REACH Your library syncs through your own iCloud account. Get to headlines and saved articles with widgets, Siri, Shortcuts, Control Center, and Spotlight, and choose which feeds may notify you. On iPad, a sidebar keeps your folders and tags in view. Good to know: saved articles are kept when older articles are removed automatically, but saving doesn't store an offline copy of the full webpage. Feed alerts depend on refresh timing, and iOS manages background refresh. An independent RSS reader, made by Michael Steurer.
Fluent Reader Lite
A simple, open-source RSS client that supports various self-hosted and commercial services. It offers features like dark mode, content filtering, and article organization. Optimized for multitasking on iPad.
- Supports Fever, Google Reader, Inoreader, and Feedbin APIs
- Dark mode for UI and reading
- Configure content loading (full or webpage)
- Dedicated subscriptions tab with article titles
- Search and filter local articles
- Organize subscriptions with groups
- Two-pane view and multitasking on iPad
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Fluent Reader Lite is a simplistic, cross-platform, and open-source RSS client. The following self-hosted and commercial RSS services are supported. * Fever API (TT-RSS Fever plugin, FreshRSS, Miniflux, etc.) * Google Reader API (Bazqux Reader, The Old Reader, etc.) * Inoreader * Feedbin (official or self-hosted) Other key features include: * Dark mode for UI and reading. * Configure sources to load full content or webpage by default. * A dedicated subscriptions tab organized by latest updates with article titles. * Search for local articles or filter by read status. * Organize subscriptions with groups. * Support for two-pane view and multitasking on iPad. The following features from the desktop app are *NOT* present: * Local RSS support and source / group management. * Importing or exporting OPML files, full application data backup & restoration. * Regular expression rules that mark articles as they arrive. * Fetch articles in the background and send push notifications. * Keyboard shortcuts.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: NewsFlash at 4.8 against Fluent Reader Lite's 3.6. NewsFlash also leads on update cadence (monthly vs every 6 months) and review sentiment (67% vs 50%). Fluent Reader Lite's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 3) and iOS requirement (15.0 vs 18.6). On price, ratings volume, ads 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
Both are free to download. NewsFlash sells 3 one-off in-app purchases. Fluent Reader Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.
NewsFlash holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 3.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 6 and 10 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of NewsFlash's written reviews are positive against 50% of Fluent Reader Lite's.
NewsFlash ships an update monthly, Fluent Reader Lite every 6 months. Both last shipped on November 11, 2026.
| Parameter | NewsFlash | Fluent Reader Lite |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (6 ratings) — better | 3.6 (10 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews — better | 50.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 6 | 10 — better |
| Update frequency | Monthly — better | Every 6 months |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 18.6 | 15.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 16 MB | 23 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Michael Steurer | Haoyuan Liu |
Customer experience
NewsFlash
Fluent Reader Lite
In-app purchases
NewsFlash
- Espresso$0.99
- Cappuccino$2.99
- Specialty Coffee Aeropress$4.99
Fluent Reader Lite
No in-app purchases









