Comparison

NFB vs lire

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

Head to head
About

NFB

This app provides free access to over 500 publications, including newspapers, magazines, and retail ads, for individuals who are blind, visually impaired, or print-disabled. It also features text recognition for instant print access and localized weather alerts.

Highlights
  • Access to 500+ newspapers and magazines
  • Breaking news sources
  • Retail advertisements
  • Television listings
  • Localized weather alerts
  • Text recognition with camera
  • Braille device compatibility
Features
Read full description

NFB-NEWSLINE® Mobile Free service for the print-disabled. Over five hundred newspapers and magazines plus weather, TV listings, and retail ads. NFB-NEWSLINE is a free service available to anyone who is blind, visually impaired, or print-disabled. It offers over five hundred publications to choose from including: - Thirteen national newspapers like the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and USA Today - Thirty-three breaking news sources such as CNN, BBC, and ESPN Online - Fourteen international newspapers including Financial Times and Vancouver Sun - Seventy magazines like Reader’s Digest, Time, Rolling Stone, Guideposts, PC World, and countless state newspapers For a complete list of available publications, please visit https://nfb.org/participating-newspapers. New! KNFB Reader Basic is now a part of NFB-NEWSLINE! All of the core features you love about KNFB Reader are now free with NFB-NEWSLINE. KNFB Reader Basic gives you instant access to print anytime, anywhere, offering text recognition using your device’s camera. Use it to import or take a photo of anything containing text and the app will read the text out loud or display it on a connected refreshable Braille device. The app helps you get a good photo with special alignment tools, including spoken and vibration guidance. Additional NFB-NEWSLINE Features: - Television listings so you can keep track of your favorite shows - The latest retail ads from stores like Target and Walmart - Localized weather alerts. Have you heard the emergency alert tone on the television but are unable to read the message scrolling on the screen? Now you can simply sign into NFB-NEWSLINE and the text of the alert will be read to you on the spot. NFB-NEWSLINE Mobile uses your device’s GPS, so your weather alerts and forecasts go with you wherever you go. To use this app, you must be an NFB-NEWSLINE subscriber with a valid identification and security code. Eligible NFB-NEWSLINE subscribers may install and use this app on up to five devices. To learn more about NFB-NEWSLINE and how you can sign up, visit www.nfbnewsline.org or call 866-504-7300. NFB-NEWSLINE is a service of the National Federation of the Blind. http://www.nfb.org The National Federation of the Blind knows that blindness is not the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back.

About

lire

This app transforms partial RSS feeds into full-text articles, eliminating the need to click "Read more" links. It offers offline reading and syncs with various services, providing a seamless news consumption experience.

Highlights
  • Full-text RSS feed conversion
  • Offline reading of cached articles
  • Syncs with Feedly, Feedbin, and more
  • iCloud sync option
  • No need to click 'Read more' links
  • Standalone feed reader functionality
Features
Currently charting
Read full description

Love RSS feeds? So do we!! RSS feeds are a great way to follow updates on your favorite website. However, some sites set up their feeds to only show a portion of each entry, you know, to get you to click through to their actual website. We find that really annoying, and we're sure you do too. Which is why, unlike other RSS feed readers, that either push you into a browser (in-app or otherwise), or depend on third party text parsing services and require you to be online to fetch the full text of one article at a time (which makes it no different from having to click/tap through to a website), in lire, you get your favorite RSS feeds as they should've been. You don't need to click through to any website (though, you do still have the option to, if you really wanted). It takes your favorite partial feeds, does its magic, and converts them in to full feeds, so you don't have to click/tap on those annoying 'Read more' or 'Continue reading' links. Once they're cached, you don't even need to be connected to read your full-text feeds. Use as a standalone feed reader, sync with iCloud, or, sync with any of the several services: Feedly, Feedbin, FeedHQ, The Old Reader, Inoreader, BazQux Reader, Newsblur, Feed Wrangler, FreshRSS, Miniflux, Nextcloud News, Tiny Tiny RSS.

Screenshots

NFB2 screens
lire4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: NFB at Free against lire's $9.99. NFB also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 5) and ratings volume (500 vs 158). lire's advantage is update cadence (fortnightly vs every 8 months) and chart position (#9 vs unranked). On rating, review sentiment, 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

NFB is free to download; lire costs $9.99 up front. lire sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. NFB asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.3 for NFB against 4.4 for lire. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 500 and 158 respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 60% of NFB's written reviews are positive against 68% of lire's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

NFB ships an update every 8 months, lire fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
NFB versus lire: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterNFBlire
PriceFree — better$9.99
Rating4.3 (500 ratings)4.4 (158 ratings) — better
Positive reviews60.4% of reviews68.3% of reviews — better
Number of ratings500 — better158
Update frequencyEvery 8 monthsFortnightly — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
Best chart rank—#9 — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod — better
Requires iOS17.015.6 — better
Further details — not scored
Size3 MB168 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperNational Federation of the BlindKunal Sood

Customer experience

NFB

All ratings499 ratings
Positive76.8%
Neutral15.8%
Negative7.4%
Written reviews53 reviews
Positive60.4%
Neutral13.2%
Negative26.4%

lire

All ratings158 ratings
Positive81.0%
Neutral7.6%
Negative11.4%
Written reviews180 reviews
Positive68.3%
Neutral13.9%
Negative17.8%

User reviews

NFB

From 500 App Store ratings

What we love

  • ♿ Fully accessible for blind and visually impaired users
  • 📰 Wide variety of newspapers and magazines available
  • 🆓 Free service with no complex downloads required
  • 📱 Convenient mobile access on-the-go
  • 🎙️ Excellent VoiceOver support

Room to improve

  • 🐛 App crashes frequently
  • 😤 Recent updates made app tedious and cumbersome
  • 📍 Difficult to change location settings
  • ❌ Incomplete articles from some publications
  • 🔐 Data privacy concerns

lire

From 158 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast full-text parsing
  • 👍 Highly customizable
  • 🔒 No data collection
  • 💡 Bionic reading support
  • 👍 Excellent accessibility

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes
  • 🐛 Sync issues
  • 🐛 Memory management problems
  • 🐛 Buggy after updates
  • 🐛 Inconsistent article rendering

Bugs and requests

NFB

Reported bugs

11 issues
  • App crashes on search functionality
  • App crashes regularly during use
  • Unable to open individual articles
  • Global news search server communication errors
  • Articles display partially instead of in full
Show 6 more
  • Login credentials not being saved
  • App requires re-initialization after reopening
  • Apostrophes missing from article text
  • Subscription section publications scrambled in iOS
  • Hartford Current articles not displaying fully
  • Returning to app resets position to top of issue

Requested features

9 requests
  • Line-by-line article reading capability
  • Improved favorites section functionality
  • Better page navigation and position memory
  • Remove KNFB reader integration from app
  • Simplify weather forecast display without unnecessary decimals
Show 4 more
  • Add ability to browse entire sections without opening individual articles
  • Improved article display from publications like Consumer Reports
  • User input on app changes before implementation
  • Better location/state management system

lire

Reported bugs

7 issues
  • Crashes on launch
  • Incorrect feed display
  • Articles not opening
  • Overlapping UI elements
  • Sync errors with FreshRSS and Wallabag
Show 2 more
  • Revert to old articles after sync
  • VoiceOver issues after update

Requested features

9 requests
  • Bulk unsubscribe option
  • Ability to add multiple feeds at once
  • Custom keyword filtering
  • Highlight/annotate articles
  • Embedded video support
Show 4 more
  • Automatic article categorization
  • Sharing options
  • PDF export
  • Multilingual support

In-app purchases

None

NFB

No in-app purchases

5 purchases

lire

One-time5
  • Generous Tip$0.99
  • Massive Tip$1.99
  • Amazing Tip$4.99
Show 2 more
  • Humongous Tip$9.99
  • Stupendous Tip$19.99

Questions

Is NFB free?
NFB is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is lire free?
lire costs $9.99, and also offers in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, NFB or lire?
lire is rated higher. NFB averages 4.3 out of 5 from 500 ratings, while lire averages 4.4 from 158 ratings.
Do NFB or lire have ads?
Neither NFB nor lire shows ads.
Which is updated more often, NFB or lire?
NFB ships an update every 8 months, and lire fortnightly. Most recently, NFB was updated on November 1, 2026 and lire on November 7, 2026.

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