Comparison

NewsBlur vs RSS

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

Head to head
About

NewsBlur

Consolidate all your favorite news sources, blogs, and newsletters into one personalized feed. Customize your reading experience with themes, text adjustments, and offline access. Train the app to highlight important stories and hide irrelevant ones.

Highlights
  • Personalized RSS news feed
  • Offline reading
  • Customizable themes and text
  • Story filtering and training
  • Home screen widgets
  • Article summarization with AI
  • Text-to-speech for articles
Features
Read full description

Follow the sites you care about with NewsBlur, a personal RSS news reader that brings your reading together. Keep up with news, blogs, newsletters, and more, with your subscriptions and reading progress synced across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and the web. READ YOUR WAY Browse stories from individual sites or bring a folder together in one reading list. Choose a comfortable theme, adjust the text, and use gestures to move through your stories. Download stories for offline reading and pick up where you left off. STORIES AT A GLANCE Add widgets to your Home Screen. Each widget can show All Site Stories, a folder, or one site. Choose its source with Edit Widget. FIND YOUR FOCUS Train NewsBlur on authors, tags, and words in headlines to highlight stories you want and hide ones you don't. You decide what matters. DISCOVER AND KEEP Find new sites, preview their latest stories, and try reading before subscribing. Save stories for later, organize them with tags, and search your reading. Share stories with comments on your NewsBlur blurblog and follow what friends are reading. LISTEN TO YOUR STORIES Turn articles into audio with voices in 21 languages. Follow highlighted paragraphs, tap to jump ahead, adjust playback speed, and queue stories in Up Next. Keep listening with the screen locked. Full listening is included with Premium Archive and Premium Pro. Free and Premium accounts can try 30-second previews. GO DEEPER Use Text view to read an extracted article. Ask AI for a summary, background, or answers to questions about a story. Availability and usage limits depend on your account plan. IN YOUR LANGUAGE Use NewsBlur's interface in 21 languages, including right-to-left layouts for Arabic and Hebrew. Choose your language in Preferences or follow your device settings. Stories stay in the language they were published in. A NewsBlur account is required. Free accounts and optional paid subscriptions are available. Some features require a paid plan. SUBSCRIPTIONS If you purchase a subscription through the App Store, payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation. Subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends. Manage or cancel your subscription in your Apple Account settings. Terms of use: https://www.newsblur.com/tos Privacy policy: https://www.newsblur.com/privacy

About

RSS

This news reader allows you to control your content with advanced filtering options. Blacklist, whitelist, or graylist terms to ensure you see what matters without wasting time. Enjoy a clutter-free experience with no ads or data sharing.

Highlights
  • Advanced filtering (blacklist, whitelist, graylist)
  • Content control
  • Clutter-free reading
  • No ads, account, or data sharing
  • iCloud syncing
  • One-time in-app purchase for unlimited filters
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

A clutter-free reader app with easy-to-use but advanced filtering options, including a blacklist, a whitelist, and a graylist. You control what reaches you. Miss less while wasting less time. No ads. No account needed. No data sharing. No subscriptions. Effective Filtering: Add terms quickly to a filter list by selecting text. You can manage entire topics by selecting parts of a website link, such as '/crosswords/'. Articles containing a blacklisted term are automatically trashed. If no whitelisted term is present, articles containing a graylisted term are also automatically trashed. You can review the trash occasionally to verify your settings. Transparent And Fair Purchase Model: Start with up to 100 filter entries, then unlock unlimited filters with a one-time in-app purchase (5 USD)—no subscriptions or recurring fees. This lets you scale up to thousands of filter terms effortlessly.

Screenshots

NewsBlur4 screens
RSS4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: NewsBlur at Free against RSS's $4.99. NewsBlur also leads on ratings volume (514 vs 2). RSS's advantage is review sentiment (100% vs 57%) and chart position (#158 vs unranked). On rating, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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

NewsBlur is free to download; RSS costs $4.99 up front. NewsBlur sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $29.99 per month and RSS sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

NewsBlur holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: NewsBlur has 514 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 57% of NewsBlur's written reviews are positive against 100% of RSS's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly weekly. The most recent releases landed on November 6, 2026 and November 8, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard5 real differences · 6 level
NewsBlur versus RSS: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNewsBlurRSS
PriceFree — better$4.99
Rating4.7 (514 ratings) — better4.5 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews56.7% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings514 — better2
Update frequencyWeeklyWeekly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree with in-app purchases
Best chart rank—#158 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac — betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS26.017.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size33 MB28 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperNewsBlur, Inc.Volker Koch

Customer experience

NewsBlur

All ratings513 ratings
Positive92.8%
Neutral2.9%
Negative4.3%
Written reviews194 reviews
Positive56.7%
Neutral9.8%
Negative33.5%

RSS

All ratings2 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews3 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

NewsBlur

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Crashes on launch for some users
  • Incorrect feed display and article loading issues
  • Syncing problems between web and mobile apps

Requested features

4 requests
  • Customizable font sizes
  • Offline reading mode
  • Improved sharing options
  • Ability to delete feeds and folders

RSS

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

3 purchases

NewsBlur

Subscriptions3
  • NewsBlur Premium Pro$29.991 Month
  • NewsBlur Premium$35.991 Year
  • NewsBlur Premium Archive$99.991 Year
1 purchases

RSS

One-time1
  • One-Time Unlock$4.99

Questions

Is NewsBlur free?
NewsBlur is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is RSS free?
RSS costs $4.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, NewsBlur or RSS?
NewsBlur is rated higher. NewsBlur averages 4.7 out of 5 from 514 ratings, while RSS averages 4.5 from 2 ratings.
Do NewsBlur or RSS have ads?
Neither NewsBlur nor RSS shows ads.
Which is updated more often, NewsBlur or RSS?
NewsBlur ships an update weekly, and RSS weekly. Most recently, NewsBlur was updated on November 6, 2026 and RSS on November 8, 2026.

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