NFB vs lire
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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.
- Access to 500+ newspapers and magazines
- Breaking news sources
- Retail advertisements
- Television listings
- Localized weather alerts
- Text recognition with camera
- Braille device compatibility
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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.
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.
- 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
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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
Verdict
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
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.
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.
NFB ships an update every 8 months, lire fortnightly. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 7, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | NFB | lire |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free — better | $9.99 |
| Rating | 4.3 (500 ratings) | 4.4 (158 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 60.4% of reviews | 68.3% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 500 — better | 158 |
| Update frequency | Every 8 months | Fortnightly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free — better | Paid |
| Best chart rank | — | #9 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 3 MB | 168 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | National Federation of the Blind | Kunal Sood |
Customer experience
NFB
lire
User reviews
NFB
From 500 App Store ratingsWhat 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 ratingsWhat 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- 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
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- Automatic article categorization
- Sharing options
- PDF export
- Multilingual support
In-app purchases
NFB
No in-app purchases
lire
- Generous Tip$0.99
- Massive Tip$1.99
- Amazing Tip$4.99
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Humongous Tip$9.99
- Stupendous Tip$19.99









