Comparison

Ruby vs Fluent Reader Lite

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

Head to head
About

Ruby

A beautifully designed news reader app offering a personalized home feed based on your chosen topics. Easily discover trending articles, bookmark content for later, and customize your reading experience with language and region settings. Enjoy ad-free content across multiple Apple devices.

Highlights
  • Personalized topic feeds
  • Explore trending articles
  • Bookmark articles for later
  • Customizable region and language
  • Ad-free reading experience
  • iCloud syncing across devices
  • Apple Watch app integration
Features
Read full description

Ruby is a beautifully designed news app for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple Vision. It's built with a familiar design, so it's simple and easy to use and understand. Ruby works great with your devices, and supports iCloud syncing for a seamless experience across all of them. The app itself has a lot of distinct features, such as being able to choose the topic you want to view on your home feed. If you only want to view technology without the politics, you can. Only interested in sports? There's an option for that too. With the explore page, you can also keep up with the latest trends in your region, or make a quick search for whatever you're interested in. Ruby also offers bookmarks, so you can find an article and come back to it later. We also offer customization. You can easily change the country you're in, or the language you prefer to read. The built in news reader is easy to understand, and provides content from your favorite websites, but without the advertisements and other nonsense. Ruby also offers an Apple Watch app, where you can quickly view headlines on your wrist. The Apple Watch app has the same functionality as the iPhone app, so you can easily read headlines of a specific topic, and more. If you want to suggest features for Ruby, contact me on X (Twitter) @mbrkhrdt. I'm open to suggestions, and want to create the best user experience possible!

About

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.

Highlights
  • 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
Features
Read full description

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

Ruby4 screens
Fluent Reader Lite4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Ruby at 5.0 against Fluent Reader Lite's 3.6. Ruby also leads on device support (5 vs 3). Fluent Reader Lite's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 9) and iOS requirement (13.0 vs 26.0). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence 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

Both are free to download. Ruby sells 9 in-app purchases, starting at $0.69 per 7 days. Fluent Reader Lite asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Ruby holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4 and 10 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 50% of Ruby's written reviews are positive against 47% of Fluent Reader Lite's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Ruby ships an update every 5 months, Fluent Reader Lite every 6 months. The most recent releases landed on October 1, 2026 and October 2, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 5 level
Ruby versus Fluent Reader Lite: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterRubyFluent Reader Lite
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (4 ratings) — better3.6 (10 ratings)
Positive reviews50.0% of reviews — better47.1% of reviews
Number of ratings410 — better
Update frequencyEvery 5 months — betterEvery 6 months
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro — betteriPhone, iPad, iPod
Requires iOS26.013.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size8 MB23 MB
Age rating12++17
DeveloperMBRKHRDT LLCHaoyuan Liu

Customer experience

Ruby

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews10 reviews
Positive50.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative50.0%

Fluent Reader Lite

All ratings10 ratings
Positive60.0%
Neutral20.0%
Negative20.0%
Written reviews17 reviews
Positive47.1%
Neutral17.6%
Negative35.3%

In-app purchases

9 purchases

Ruby

Subscriptions3
  • Ruby Premium - Weekly7 Days trial$0.697 Days
  • Ruby Premium - Monthly$0.991 Month
  • Ruby Premium - Annual$5.991 Year
One-time6
  • Tip Jar - $0.99$0.99
  • Tip Jar - $1.99$1.99
  • Tip Jar - $2.99$2.99
Show 3 more
  • Tip Jar - $4.99$4.99
  • Tip Jar - $9.99$9.99
  • Ruby Premium - Lifetime$17.99
None

Fluent Reader Lite

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Ruby free?
Ruby is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Fluent Reader Lite free?
Fluent Reader Lite is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Ruby or Fluent Reader Lite?
Ruby is rated higher. Ruby averages 5.0 out of 5 from 4 ratings, while Fluent Reader Lite averages 3.6 from 10 ratings.
Do Ruby or Fluent Reader Lite have ads?
Neither Ruby nor Fluent Reader Lite shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Ruby or Fluent Reader Lite?
Ruby ships an update every 5 months, and Fluent Reader Lite every 6 months. Most recently, Ruby was updated on October 1, 2026 and Fluent Reader Lite on October 2, 2026.

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