Comparison

Smart Feed Reader vs An Otter RSS Reader

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

Head to head
About

Smart Feed Reader

This app helps you manage your news feeds from various sources like RSS, RDF, and ATOM. It offers smart filtering to organize content, allows you to rate and share articles, and provides a user-friendly interface for efficient news consumption.

Highlights
  • RSS, RDF, ATOM feed support
  • Smart news filtering
  • Automatic feed organization
  • Rate and share stories
  • Import from other readers
  • Full-context search
Features
Read full description

Smart Feed Reader is a full-featured RSS, RDF and ATOM reader for iPhone, iPod and iPad touch platforms. Manage your news automatically by using Smart News Filtering, organize Feeds Groups by any criteria you choose – music, sport, movies and international news, rate the most interesting readings or important news and share them with your friends and colleagues. Smart Feed Reader is based on user experience design and provides you with easy to learn and use graphic user interface and inuitive workflow. Features: - Support of RSS, RDF and ATOM feeds; - Easy to add feeds; - Stories filtering by Author, Title, Content, Category; - Automatic organizing of the feeds by categories to Keep Everything In Order; - Media Collection support; - Import feeds from the most popular RSS readers; - Rate stories by starring them; - Sharing via E-Mail; - Landscape support; - Feeds identification with icons; - Full-context search in saved stories; - Grouping stories by Date. Smart News Filtering is likely the most powerful feature in Smart Feed Reader. It allows to automate common actions like copy a news into some Criteria Folder, mark news as Read, Starred or just delete it. You can create as many filters as you need. Each filter is made up of search condition to match specific news and an action to perform on them. Once created, the filter will work on downloaded news that matches the search conditions.

About

An Otter RSS Reader

A minimalistic RSS reader that synchronizes your subscribed feeds across Apple devices via iCloud. It allows for automatic feed discovery, organization into folders, and reading articles in a standard web view. Integrates with Shortcuts and offers home screen widgets for unread counts.

Highlights
  • iCloud feed synchronization
  • Auto-discover RSS feeds
  • Group feeds into folders
  • Read articles in web view
  • Shortcuts integration
  • Home screen widgets
  • Import/Export with OPML
Features
Read full description

An Otter RSS Reader is a simple RSS reader for following news, blogs, and personal sites without another account. Subscribe to feeds, organize them into folders, and let iCloud keep everything in sync across your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Otter keeps the experience intentionally calm: quick refreshes, native navigation, readable article views, and just enough personality to make checking your feeds feel pleasant. New in 2.0, the iPad edition grew up. The Front Page opens to today's stories while native adaptive columns keep feeds and the story list side by side when there’s room, then collapse cleanly on smaller screens. Articles set in a real serif with a comfortable reading measure, on iPad and iPhone alike. Features: - Subscribe to RSS, Atom, JSON Feed, and XML feeds - Sync subscriptions and reading state with iCloud - The Front Page: a daily opening spread across iPhone and iPad - Smart Folders that fill themselves — long reads, quick reads, podcasts, videos - A serif reading view with adjustable typography - Reading Insights: streaks, reading calendar, and when-you-read patterns - Organize feeds into folders - Import and export subscriptions with OPML - Keyboard shortcuts and menu commands on iPad - Refresh feeds in the background or manually - Shortcuts actions, Home Screen widgets, and alternate app icons Otter Pro, the optional subscription, adds ad-free reading, custom Smart Folders, TL;DR article summaries, and the full Reading Insights dashboard. Otter is not trying to be a social network, inbox, or power-user dashboard. It is a practical little RSS reader for people who still like the open web. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://anotterrss.com/privacy

Screenshots

Smart Feed Reader4 screens
An Otter RSS Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Smart Feed Reader at none against An Otter RSS Reader's 10. Smart Feed Reader also leads on rating (4.6 vs 4.1) and iOS requirement (9.2 vs 17.0). An Otter RSS Reader's advantage is update cadence (every 3 days vs every 11 months) and review sentiment (60% vs 36%). On price, ads 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. An Otter RSS Reader sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per year. Smart Feed Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Smart Feed Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.6 against 4.1. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: An Otter RSS Reader has 73 ratings behind it against 7, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 36% of Smart Feed Reader's written reviews are positive against 60% of An Otter RSS Reader's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Smart Feed Reader ships an update every 11 months, An Otter RSS Reader every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 3 level
Smart Feed Reader versus An Otter RSS Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSmart Feed ReaderAn Otter RSS Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.6 (7 ratings) — better4.1 (73 ratings)
Positive reviews36.4% of reviews60.4% of reviews — better
Number of ratings773 — better
Update frequencyEvery 11 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS9.2 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size39 MB45 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperSCAND LLCJosh Holtz

Customer experience

Smart Feed Reader

All ratings7 ratings
Positive85.7%
Neutral14.3%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews33 reviews
Positive36.4%
Neutral15.2%
Negative48.5%

An Otter RSS Reader

All ratings73 ratings
Positive75.3%
Neutral8.2%
Negative16.4%
Written reviews111 reviews
Positive60.4%
Neutral9.9%
Negative29.7%

Bugs and requests

Smart Feed Reader

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

An Otter RSS Reader

Reported bugs

10 issues
  • It does not work
  • Articles flicker in and out of existence and about 30 of them don't show at all
  • The list views are messed up with many black spaces where a feed item should appear but is completely black
  • Reader mode seems to not work
  • Articles show up in duplicated often, articles had been marked as read will show up again as unread
Show 5 more
  • Feeds disappear after closing the app
  • Feeds don't refresh
  • Crashes when importing OPML files
  • Crashing when importing opml files
  • Crashes when trying to import an OPML file

Requested features

13 requests
  • Encripted iCloud backups would be welcome
  • Mark articles read on scrolling past them
  • Option to hide read articles by default instead of manually hiding all the time
  • When clicking on a top level folder it expands the folder clicking the arrow should expand the folder
  • Needs swipe gestures example swipe right mark read/unread swipe left add to favorite
Show 8 more
  • Need to add an option to sort by oldest and newest first
  • If in reader mode hitting the safari button should open in the in app browser instead of leaving the app
  • Under notifications there should be an option to show badge count with unread articles
  • Should be an option to see favicons to the left of the headline to quickly see at a glance which site posted the story as well as an option to enable images if there is one in the story
  • MiniFlux Sync would be nice
  • Offline reading?
  • Dark mode option
  • Advanced analytics dashboard

In-app purchases

None

Smart Feed Reader

No in-app purchases

6 purchases

An Otter RSS Reader

Subscriptions1
  • Otter Pro Annual7 Days trial$9.991 Year
One-time5
  • Small Tip2 variants$0.99
  • Medium Tip2 variants$2.99
  • Large Tip2 variants$5.99
Show 2 more
  • Mega Tip2 variants$12.99
  • Otter Pro Lifetime$19.99

Questions

Is Smart Feed Reader free?
Smart Feed Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is An Otter RSS Reader free?
An Otter RSS Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Smart Feed Reader or An Otter RSS Reader?
Smart Feed Reader is rated higher. Smart Feed Reader averages 4.6 out of 5 from 7 ratings, while An Otter RSS Reader averages 4.1 from 73 ratings.
Do Smart Feed Reader or An Otter RSS Reader have ads?
Neither Smart Feed Reader nor An Otter RSS Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Smart Feed Reader or An Otter RSS Reader?
Smart Feed Reader ships an update every 11 months, and An Otter RSS Reader every 3 days. Most recently, Smart Feed Reader was updated on November 1, 2026 and An Otter RSS Reader on November 3, 2026.

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