Comparison

Hacker News vs Hacker Pulse

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

Head to head
About

Hacker News

Access the latest tech, startup, and science news with a fast and customizable reader. Organize stories by topic, search quickly, and enjoy AI-powered summaries. This ad-free experience syncs across devices and prioritizes your privacy.

Highlights
  • Fast browsing of feeds and comments
  • iCloud sync for favorites and read status
  • Customizable story groups by topic
  • Lightning-fast search
  • AI-powered story summaries
  • Ad-free reading experience
  • Home screen widgets
Features
Read full description

The Ultimate Hacker News App! Dive into the latest startup, technology, programming, and science news with the ultimate app for browsing Y Combinator's Hacker News. Built for Speed and Customizability Designed from the ground up, this app offers a fast, seamless reading experience with extensive customizability. Optimized for iPhone and iPad Carefully crafted for both iPhone and iPad, the app is packed with features to enhance your reading experience: - Fast and Simple: Browse Hacker News feeds and threaded comments swiftly, ensuring you stay updated with everything happening. - Sync Across Devices: Favorite, read, or hide stories and keep your activity in sync across devices, thanks to iCloud. Your data stays private and secure. - Organize Your Way: Create custom groups to easily save stories by topic. Keep all your programming topics together, and all your science topics in one place, accessible on every device. - Lightning Fast Search: Quickly find any post, even those you mentioned to a friend days ago. - Highly Customizable: Choose between light and dark modes, select from eleven different color themes, and enjoy beautifully designed icons by Michael Flarup & Matthew Skiles. Customize your reading experience further by selecting your preferred browser, adjusting the appearance of read stories, and more. - AI-Powered Summaries: Get quick summaries of stories with AI powered by OpenAI. Perfect for when you only need the gist. - Ad-Free Reading: Skip the ads and read a clean, markdown-formatted version of articles. - Time-Saving Features: Know how long articles will take to read with time estimates. - Powerful Gestures: Use swipe gestures to quickly favorite, hide, and add stories to your groups. - iPad Keyboard Shortcuts: Easily manage favorites, hiding, and adding to groups with keyboard shortcuts. - Home Screen Widgets: Customize your Home Screen with widgets of all sizes, showing your favorite feeds and the latest stories at a glance. - Convenient Share Sheet Action: Open Hacker News links from any app with our share sheet action. Just tap “Open in Hacker News.” - Privacy Focused: No ads, no tracking, and no data storage. Your privacy is paramount. - Support the App: Keep the app alive with a tip or leave a review. Every bit helps! Enjoy the best Hacker News experience on your Apple devices today!

About

Hacker Pulse

Features
Read full description

Hacker Pulse is a Hacker News reader built for reading — the article and the discussion, together, beautifully. THE ARTICLE, RE-TYPESET Every story is fetched, parsed and laid out natively — no web view, no reader-mode shortcut, no external service. Set your type size, and with Premium the typeface, line height, margins, spacing and paper colour; images, code blocks, tables, quotes and lists all survive the trip. The discussion continues below the article in the same scroll, and your place in a long read is remembered. BUILT FOR LONG THREADS The whole discussion arrives at once. Fold a subtree, step between conversations with the navigator, pull a deep reply's ancestors into view, open any comment on its own screen, or search inside the thread. Hold a comment to copy, share, translate, block or report. YOURS TO KEEP Read state, saved stories and reading positions live on your device, and a mis-swipe can be undone. With Premium, a saved story is downloaded whole — article and discussion — and stays readable offline until you remove it. TRANSLATE ON DEVICE With Premium, on iOS 26 and later, articles and comments translate entirely on your device. Nothing is sent to a server. The interface itself speaks nine languages — English, 简体中文, 繁體中文, 日本語, 한국어, Français, Deutsch, Русский and العربية — including full right-to-left layout. TWELVE LISTS, A WIDGET, AN iPad LAYOUT Top, New, Best, Ask HN, Show HN and Jobs from the official API, kept on disk so a cold launch is instant; Active, Classic and the front page from any day back to 2007; three score thresholds; and two lists of comments rather than stories. A widget in three Home Screen sizes — four on iPad — and one for the Lock Screen follows the list you choose. On iPad, a real two-column layout — list beside reader. TAKE PART, IF YOU WANT TO Reading needs no account. Sign in with your own Hacker News account and you can also upvote, downvote, reply, submit a story, and edit or delete your own comments — without leaving for a browser. Your password is never saved; only the session, in your keychain, until you sign out. QUIET BY DESIGN Block users, and with Premium mute title keywords or whole sites. No analytics, no tracking, no ads; the one server of ours the app ever talks to hands out reader-engine updates and learns nothing about you. Your reading habits are nobody's business — including ours. FREE TO READ, ONE PURCHASE FOR THE REST Every list, every discussion, search, profiles, your account and the reader itself are free, with no ads and no time limit. One purchase — no subscription — unlocks Premium: your own type and paper, saved stories kept offline, iCloud sync and library import, on-device translation, read aloud, automatic archive lookup, discussion detail, hiding read stories, four more colours with their icons, and keyword and site filters. One purchase covers iPhone, iPad and Mac, and Family Sharing shares it. AN HONEST NOTE Hacker News publishes no API for signing in, voting, replying or submitting, so Hacker Pulse does those the only way the site allows: by posting its own web forms, exactly as a browser does. They work today and could be broken by a redesign tomorrow. Hacker News itself has no downvote for stories, and it allows editing and deleting only for a couple of hours after posting. Hacker Pulse first shipped in 2012. Version 2.0 is a complete rewrite that keeps the original's look — the same rust-and-orange chrome, the same pulse — and the same two-finger flick to switch between light and dark. Hacker Pulse is an independent app, not affiliated with or endorsed by Y Combinator. Story and comment data come from the public Hacker News and Algolia APIs.

Screenshots

Hacker News4 screens
Hacker Pulse4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is update cadence: Hacker News at every 5 days against Hacker Pulse's every 3 weeks. 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. Hacker News sells 4 one-off in-app purchases and Hacker Pulse sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hacker News ships an update every 5 days, Hacker Pulse every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 7, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
Hacker News versus Hacker Pulse: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHacker NewsHacker Pulse
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (34 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews79.2% of reviews—
Number of ratings34 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 5 days — betterEvery 3 weeks
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.417.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size20 MB10 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperSnap Web StudiosS. Smart Rabbit LLC

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Hacker News

One-time4
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Medium Tip$2.99
  • Large Tip$4.99
Show 1 more
  • Extra Large Tip$19.99
4 purchases

Hacker Pulse

One-time4
  • Small Tip$1.99
  • Hacker Pulse Premium$4.99
  • Tip$4.99
Show 1 more
  • Generous Tip$9.99

Questions

Is Hacker News free?
Hacker News is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Hacker Pulse free?
Hacker Pulse is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Hacker News or Hacker Pulse have ads?
Neither Hacker News nor Hacker Pulse shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hacker News or Hacker Pulse?
Hacker News ships an update every 5 days, and Hacker Pulse every 3 weeks. Most recently, Hacker News was updated on November 7, 2026 and Hacker Pulse on October 31, 2026.

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