Comparison

feeeed 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

feeeed

Build a personalized, ad-free news feed from any website or social media. Enjoy a customizable reader, offline access, and AI summaries. Stay informed on your own terms.

Highlights
  • Customizable ad-free news feed
  • Fast, focused reader mode
  • AI article summaries
  • Offline reading
  • Subscribe to websites, social media, and communities
  • Custom reminders and flashcards
  • Homescreen widgets
Features
Read full description

Stay informed without losing sanity. A feed curated by you, not the social-media mob. with feeeed, you can build your own ad-free news feed, on your own terms: • subscribe to any website and get the latest stories in your feed • view articles in a fast, focused, customizable reader mode • see local weather, flashbacks from your photo library or birthdays from your contacts • no ads or purchases • free ai summaries of articles • offline mode: download dozens of stories to read when you're offline • subscribe to communities from reddit, youtube channels, tiktok profiles, mastodon or threads accounts • add your own custom reminders, or flashcards • see your step count for the day, and your progress towards 10k steps. (powered by an optional integration with the Health) • browse a curated catalog of suggested news feeds for any topic • full dark mode, including auto-dark mode for any site • a built-in chatbot that can recommend feeds and channels for any topic • customize your app icon, tab bar, algorithm and more • see news on your homescreen with a customizable widget • create and share lists of feeds • groups feeds into folders and pin your favorite folders to the tab bar for one-tap access • a lot more! it's 100% private and on-device (no servers, no accounts, nothing leaves your device). don't worry — it's still as fast, smooth and addicting as your favorite Mark Zuckerberg app. it includes a built-in reader mode and reading list. it's fast! take back your news feed ~ scroll on your own terms :)

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

feeeed4 screens
Hacker Pulse4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: feeeed at none against Hacker Pulse's 4. On price, ads, device support and iOS requirement 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 Pulse sells 4 one-off in-app purchases. feeeed asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard1 real difference · 9 level
feeeed versus Hacker Pulse: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterfeeeedHacker Pulse
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.8 (1.5K ratings) — better—
Positive reviews91.6% of reviews—
Number of ratings1.5K — better—
Update frequencyMonthly—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS16.0 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size105 MB8 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperJames ParrottS. Smart Rabbit LLC

Bugs and requests

feeeed

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Issues with loading certain feeds or articles
  • Problems with the 'Read Later' feature
  • Inconsistencies in the 'Reader' mode

Requested features

6 requests
  • Add ability to sort/filter feeds
  • Improve sync between devices
  • Add support for more content types (e.g. podcasts)
  • Provide more customization options (e.g. font size, layout)
  • Implement translation/localization features
Show 1 more
  • Add push notifications for new content

Hacker Pulse

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

feeeed

No in-app purchases

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 feeeed free?
feeeed is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Hacker Pulse free?
Hacker Pulse is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do feeeed or Hacker Pulse have ads?
Neither feeeed nor Hacker Pulse shows ads.

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