Fluent Reader Lite vs Tidings
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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
Read full descriptionHide 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.
Tidings
Read full descriptionHide full description
Take back control of what you read. Tidings turns the sources you choose into a calm, focused daily news feed—without an account, ads, or cross-app advertising tracking. TODAY'S BRIEF Catch up quickly with a concise digest of the stories most worth your time. Use the built-in offline summary or connect an OpenAI-compatible service for smarter summaries. KEYWORD RADAR Follow topics, companies, and people—not just publications. Tidings gathers matching stories from all your feeds and can notify you when something new appears. YOUR PERSONAL NEWSPAPER Turn today's subscriptions into a beautifully typeset morning or evening front page. Share it as one polished image, complete with a QR code that helps friends discover Tidings. SHARE ANY ARTICLE Turn a worthwhile story into a polished portrait card with its headline, excerpt, source, reading time, and an App Store QR code—perfect for sharing with friends. READ LATER Save articles to a dedicated inbox without mixing them with favorites. Saved items survive feed refreshes and automatic cleanup, while bilingual reading-time estimates help you pick the right article for the moment. READ YOUR WAY Fetch full text when a feed only provides an excerpt, keep it available offline, listen with text-to-speech, resume long articles where you stopped, and move through your unread queue without distractions. ALSO INCLUDED RSS and Atom discovery, batch subscription import, folders, full-text search, article thumbnails, OPML import and export, broken-feed detection, light and dark themes, background refresh, and local-first storage. Your subscriptions and article reading history stay on your device. Optional usage analytics is off by default. If enabled, it sends a random installation identifier and limited usage/error-count events, never article content, subscriptions, searches, URLs, API keys or error details. You can turn it off at any time in Settings.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is update cadence: Tidings at every 3 weeks against Fluent Reader Lite's every 6 months. Fluent Reader Lite's advantage is iOS requirement (13.0 vs 17.0). On price, 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
Both are free to download. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Fluent Reader Lite ships an update every 6 months, Tidings every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 2, 2026 and October 16, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Fluent Reader Lite | Tidings |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.6 (10 ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 47.1% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 10 — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 6 months | Every 3 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 13.0 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 23 MB | 2 MB |
| Age rating | +17 | 4+ |
| Developer | Haoyuan Liu | 立顺 孙 |
In-app purchases
Fluent Reader Lite
No in-app purchases
Tidings
No in-app purchases









