Comparison

Later vs lire

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

Head to head
About

Later

Save articles, videos, and shopping items from across the web to read later on your own terms. This private, ad-free tool offers seamless saving across devices and organizes your content with tags and notes. Enjoy offline access and robust import/export options.

Highlights
  • Private link saving
  • Ad-free experience
  • Save from any app
  • Organize with tags and notes
  • Offline reading
  • Import/export from other services
  • Reminders for links
Features
Read full description

Too many open tabs and links you sent yourself? Later is one calm place for everything you want to read: articles, videos, recipes, anything with a link. Save it in a tap and read it when you're ready, on iPhone, iPad and Mac. No account. No ads. No tracking. Your links live on your devices and in your iCloud, never on our servers. Downloaded over 500,000 times and named one of the Best Read Later Apps by Apple. SAVE FROM ANY APP • Tap Share in any app and choose Later • Save with Siri, Shortcuts or the Action Button • On the Mac, save in one click with the Safari, Chrome and Firefox extensions READ WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS • Reader mode shows just the article: no ads, no pop-ups, no clutter • Keep offline copies for flights, trains and spotty connections • Offline copies sync to all your devices ORGANIZE YOUR WAY • Colorful tags, flags and smart folders • Add a note to remember why you saved something • Set a reminder to read it at the right time • Archive what you've read to keep your Inbox clear • Find any link with search, even from Spotlight PRIVATE BY DESIGN • Trackers are stripped from your links as you save them • Lock Later with Face ID or Touch ID • Daily backups to iCloud Drive BRING YOUR LIBRARY • Import from Pocket, Instapaper, Raindrop or GoodLinks • Export everything anytime. You're never locked in. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://xavimoll.com/legal/privacy-policy

About

lire

This app provides full-text RSS feeds, converting partial feeds into complete articles. Read content offline after initial caching. It offers standalone use or syncs with iCloud and various popular RSS services.

Highlights
  • Full-text RSS feed conversion
  • Offline reading of cached feeds
  • Standalone feed reader
  • iCloud sync
  • Sync with multiple RSS services
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Love RSS feeds? So do we!! RSS feeds are a great way to follow updates on your favorite website. However, some sites set up their feeds to only show a portion of each entry, you know, to get you to click through to their actual website. We find that really annoying, and we're sure you do too. Which is why, unlike other RSS feed readers, that either push you into a browser (in-app or otherwise), or depend on third party text parsing services and require you to be online to fetch the full text of one article at a time (which makes it no different from having to click/tap through to a website), in lire, you get your favorite RSS feeds as they should've been. You don't need to click through to any website (though, you do still have the option to, if you really wanted). It takes your favorite partial feeds, does its magic, and converts them in to full feeds, so you don't have to click/tap on those annoying 'Read more' or 'Continue reading' links. Once they're cached, you don't even need to be connected to read your full-text feeds. Use as a standalone feed reader, sync with iCloud, or, sync with any of the several services: Feedly, Feedbin, FeedHQ, The Old Reader, Inoreader, BazQux Reader, Newsblur, Feed Wrangler, FreshRSS, Miniflux, Nextcloud News, Tiny Tiny RSS.

Screenshots

Later4 screens
lire4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Later at Free against lire's $9.99. Later also leads on update cadence (every 5 days vs fortnightly) and review sentiment (80% vs 69%). lire's advantage is chart position (#5 vs unranked) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 26.0). On rating, ratings volume, ads and in-app purchases 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

Later is free to download; lire costs $9.99 up front. Later sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $1.99 per month and lire sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Later holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 173 and 157 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 80% of Later's written reviews are positive against 69% of lire's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Later ships an update every 5 days, lire fortnightly. Both last shipped on October 25, 2026.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
Later versus lire: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLaterlire
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating4.5 (173 ratings) — better4.4 (157 ratings)
Positive reviews79.8% of reviews — better68.5% of reviews
Number of ratings173 — better157
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterFortnightly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#5 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, MaciPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS26.015.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size11 MB164 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperXavi MollKunal Sood

Customer experience

Later

All ratings173 ratings
Positive88.4%
Neutral4.0%
Negative7.5%
Written reviews114 reviews
Positive79.8%
Neutral8.8%
Negative11.4%

lire

All ratings155 ratings
Positive80.6%
Neutral7.7%
Negative11.6%
Written reviews178 reviews
Positive68.5%
Neutral13.5%
Negative18.0%

User reviews

Later

From 173 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast and responsive app performance
  • 🔒 Strong privacy protection with local data storage
  • 👍 Simple, clean, and intuitive user interface
  • 🔄 Seamless syncing across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS via iCloud
  • 💰 Reasonable pricing with one-time purchase option

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Subscription prompt appears even for paid members
  • 😤 10-link free tier limit not clearly communicated upfront
  • 🔄 Recent update forces navigation to app instead of staying in share sheet
  • 📖 Lacks integrated reader view for articles
  • 🖼️ Missing image preview functionality

lire

From 157 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast full-text parsing
  • 👍 Highly customizable
  • 🔒 No data collection
  • 💡 Bionic reading support
  • 👍 Excellent accessibility

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes
  • 🐛 Sync issues
  • 🐛 Memory management problems
  • 🐛 Buggy after updates
  • 🐛 Inconsistent article rendering

Bugs and requests

Later

Reported bugs

10 issues
  • macOS app crashes on scroll and when adding links from share menu
  • Subscription restoration button doesn't work for paid members
  • Images not loading for bookmark previews
  • App gets stuck on subscription page preventing further saves
  • Long press sneak preview feature not functioning
Show 5 more
  • Duplicate link removal option not detecting duplicates
  • Data loss after phone update/migration
  • Tag order changes unexpectedly after updates
  • Loading times increased significantly in recent version
  • iOS 17 requirement breaks updates for older devices

Requested features

15 requests
  • Custom folders with icons for better organization
  • Ability to create and search tags from share menu
  • Bulk editing and multi-tag selection
  • Offline article content saving
  • Integrated reader view with distraction-free reading
Show 10 more
  • Image preview thumbnails in list view
  • Ability to mark articles as read/unread
  • Advanced filtering by location (Inbox/Archive) and read status
  • Support for multiple browser selection (Firefox, etc.)
  • Shared link collections with other users
  • Pinboard and other import format support
  • Annotation and highlighting within articles
  • Selective offline saving by tag
  • Grid view with thumbnails
  • Notes feature for links

lire

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Crashes on launch
  • Incorrect feed display
  • Articles not opening
  • Overlapping UI elements
  • Sync errors with FreshRSS and Wallabag
Show 2 more
  • Revert to old articles after sync
  • VoiceOver issues after update

Requested features

9 requests
  • Bulk unsubscribe option
  • Ability to add multiple feeds at once
  • Custom keyword filtering
  • Highlight/annotate articles
  • Embedded video support
Show 4 more
  • Automatic article categorization
  • Sharing options
  • PDF export
  • Multilingual support

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Later

Subscriptions2
  • Later Pro (Monthly)7 Days trial$1.991 Month
  • Later Pro (Yearly)7 Days trial$11.991 Year
One-time1
  • Later Pro (Forever)$49.99
5 purchases

lire

One-time5
  • Generous Tip$0.99
  • Massive Tip$1.99
  • Amazing Tip$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Humongous Tip$9.99
  • Stupendous Tip$19.99

Questions

Is Later free?
Later is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is lire free?
lire costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Later or lire?
Later is rated higher. Later averages 4.5 out of 5 from 173 ratings, while lire averages 4.4 from 157 ratings.
Do Later or lire have ads?
Neither Later nor lire shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Later or lire?
Later ships an update every 5 days, and lire fortnightly. Most recently, Later was updated on October 25, 2026 and lire on October 25, 2026.

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