Comparison

lire vs Flyleaf

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

Head to head
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.

About

Flyleaf

Save articles from the web and read them later in a distraction-free, magazine-like format. Customize your reading experience with themes and typography, and organize your content with tags. Syncs seamlessly across devices via iCloud.

Highlights
  • Save articles from the web
  • Distraction-free reading view
  • Book-like pagination
  • Customizable themes and typography
  • iCloud sync
  • Article tagging
  • Archive.today integration
Features
Read full description

Flyleaf is a “read-later” app that displays saved articles from the web in a meticulously designed reading view, without popups, ads or other distractions. SAVE ARTICLES FROM THE WEB Use the share sheet from anywhere to save interesting links to Flyleaf. There is also an easy-to-use bookmarklet if you need it. READ LATER WITHOUT DISTRACTIONS Flyleaf takes web pages and removes everything inessential, like popups, ads and trackers, to preserve your privacy and sanity. TURN WEBSITES INTO MAGAZINE ARTICLES With Flyleaf's best-in-class book-like pagination, you can read articles page by page instead of scrolling vertically. READ IT YOUR WAY Flyleaf offers many ways to customize your reading experience, such as color themes and in-depth typography settings. DISCOVER WHAT TO READ NEXT Once your list of saved articles grows, it's easy to lose track. Flyleaf helps you to always discover fresh articles from your list. SYNC WITH ICLOUD Flyleaf uses iCloud to securely sync articles and reading progress between your devices – no additional signups needed. STAY ORGANIZED WITH TAGS You can add your own tags to articles to organize your library. READ ANYWHERE YOU GO Enjoy fully native apps for iPhone, iPad, and macOS, lovingly crafted by indie developer Max Melzer. READ IN FULL SCREEN Remove all distractions and focus on the text by entering fullscreen mode. You can still access all the controls you need through an intuitive gesture interface. LOAD ARTICLES FROM ARCHIVE.TODAY IN ONE TAP Sometimes, an article may not be available in your region or without logging in. Flyleaf lets you effortlessly access many of them from a web archive instead. AUTOMATE ACTIONS WITH SHORTCUTS AND SIRI Flyleaf offers a comprehensive list of Shortcuts actions, so you can add URLs via Siri or build Shortcuts to automatically tag articles. Flyleaf is free to use and offers an optional subscription for advanced features such as themes, tags and the archive.today integration. Privacy Policy: https://flyleafapp.com/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://flyleafapp.com/terms/

Screenshots

lire4 screens
Flyleaf4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Flyleaf at Free against lire's $9.99. Flyleaf also leads on rating (4.9 vs 4.4) and review sentiment (99% vs 69%). lire's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 5 weeks) and chart position (#6 vs unranked). On ratings volume, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

Flyleaf is free to download; lire costs $9.99 up front. lire sells 5 one-off in-app purchases and Flyleaf sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.00 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Flyleaf holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.4. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 157 and 93 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 69% of lire's written reviews are positive against 99% of Flyleaf's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

lire ships an update fortnightly, Flyleaf every 5 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 29, 2026 and October 30, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 5 level
lire versus Flyleaf: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterlireFlyleaf
Price$9.99Free — better
Rating4.4 (157 ratings)4.9 (93 ratings) — better
Positive reviews68.5% of reviews98.8% of reviews — better
Number of ratings157 — better93
Update frequencyFortnightly — betterEvery 5 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
Best chart rank#6 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS15.6 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size164 MB37 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperKunal SoodMaximilian Melzer

Customer experience

lire

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

Flyleaf

All ratings94 ratings
Positive98.9%
Neutral1.1%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews81 reviews
Positive98.8%
Neutral1.2%
Negative0.0%

User reviews

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

Flyleaf

From 93 App Store ratings

What we love

  • ✨ Clean and beautiful design
  • 📖 Excellent reading experience
  • 🚀 Fast and smooth performance
  • 🔄 Seamless cross-device sync
  • 🆓 Usable and generous free tier

Room to improve

  • 💡 Missing highlighting functionality
  • 💡 Missing note-taking functionality
  • 💡 No one-time payment option
  • 💡 No device AI summarization
  • 💡 No bulk actions for managing articles

Bugs and requests

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

Flyleaf

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Tagging feature bug on iPhone (iOS 18.3.2)
  • Paywalled articles sometimes not saved (e.g., FT)
  • "Read now" option in Share Sheet not working (fixed in 2.1.0)

Requested features

11 requests
  • Highlighting function
  • Note-taking functionality
  • One-time payment option
  • Device AI summarization
  • Bulk actions for managing articles
Show 6 more
  • Improved support for non-Apple platforms (e.g., Android)
  • More theme colors (yellow, orange)
  • AnyBox importer
  • Ability to archive different versions of a webpage
  • German localization
  • Export entry as PDF

In-app purchases

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
2 purchases

Flyleaf

Subscriptions2
  • Monthly renewal7 Days trial$2.001 Month
  • Yearly renewal7 Days trial$17.001 Year

Questions

Is lire free?
lire costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Is Flyleaf free?
Flyleaf is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, lire or Flyleaf?
Flyleaf is rated higher. lire averages 4.4 out of 5 from 157 ratings, while Flyleaf averages 4.9 from 93 ratings.
Do lire or Flyleaf have ads?
Neither lire nor Flyleaf shows ads.
Which is updated more often, lire or Flyleaf?
lire ships an update fortnightly, and Flyleaf every 5 weeks. Most recently, lire was updated on October 29, 2026 and Flyleaf on October 30, 2026.

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