Comparison

Ziner 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

Ziner

Stay updated with your favorite content through a streamlined RSS reader. Enjoy offline access, smart image preloading, and customizable themes. Share articles easily with various third-party services.

Highlights
  • List and Magazine view
  • Offline feed access
  • Smart image preloading
  • Search starred articles
  • Customizable themes
  • Auto readability view
  • Third-party sharing
Features
Read full description

No ads for the first 5 days. The most interesting features: - List view & Magazine view. - Always updated feeds. - Works smoothly when offline. - Preloads images smartly. - Search in starred articles. - Themes: Day, Sunset, Night. - Auto readability view for partial feeds. - Add/Delete/Rename feed. (Setting -> Feedly Manager) - No prompt for rating. - Fast support within 12 hours. 3rd-party services: - Send articles/images via AirDrop. - Open articles in Safari, Chrome. - Share to lots of 3rd-party services. (Constantly adding new services) Important things to know: - App Badge can be turned off: Setting -> Show/Hide UIs - Feedly account is required to use Ziner. - Article tagging is not supported yet. - You can turn ON/OFF Readability for entire feed by long press on Readability button. - When in magazine mode, you can exit article by double tapping on an article. Support: We can not respond to App Store reviews, if you need to report any bugs/feature requests, please use Setting -> Contact Support. You will receive a reply within 12 hours. Follow Ziner on Twitter: @ZinerRSS

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

Ziner4 screens
An Otter RSS Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: An Otter RSS Reader at 4.1 against Ziner's 3.7. An Otter RSS Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 11 days). Ziner's advantage is iOS requirement (7.1 vs 17.0). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads 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. Ziner sells 1 one-off in-app purchase and An Otter RSS Reader sells 7 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

An Otter RSS Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.1 against 3.7. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 38 and 73 respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 66% of Ziner'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

Ziner ships an update every 11 days, An Otter RSS Reader every 3 days. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard3 real differences · 7 level
Ziner versus An Otter RSS Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterZinerAn Otter RSS Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.7 (38 ratings)4.1 (73 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.0% of reviews — better60.4% of reviews
Number of ratings3873 — better
Update frequencyEvery 11 daysEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPodiPhone, iPad, Mac
Requires iOS7.1 — better17.0
Further details — not scored
Size27 MB45 MB
Age rating4+17+
Developer建寅 赵Josh Holtz

Customer experience

Ziner

All ratings38 ratings
Positive63.2%
Neutral13.2%
Negative23.7%
Written reviews282 reviews
Positive66.0%
Neutral13.1%
Negative20.9%

An Otter RSS Reader

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

User reviews

Ziner

From 38 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 🚀 Fast and responsive performance
  • 👍 Clean, minimalist interface design
  • 📖 Excellent Readability integration for full article text
  • 🎨 Beautiful visual presentation with magazine-style layout
  • ⚙️ Intuitive gesture-based navigation

Room to improve

  • 🐛 Frequent crashes and instability
  • ⚠️ No updates for years (abandoned development)
  • 🔐 HTTPS/SSL login authentication errors
  • 📱 Poor compatibility with newer iOS versions
  • 🔄 Auto-refresh interrupts article reading

An Otter RSS Reader

From 73 App Store ratings

What we love

  • 👍 Elegant and convenient
  • 👍 Great app
  • 👍 Cute RSS reader in every way
  • 👍 Works Great, syncs on all iOS Devices
  • 👍 More than an 'okay minimalistic app'

Room to improve

  • 🐛 It does not work
  • 🐛 Abandoned app
  • 🐛 Bug list view dark mode
  • 🐛 Only shows a couple of entries
  • 🐛 Missing keyboard shortcuts

Bugs and requests

Ziner

Reported bugs

18 issues
  • App crashes on startup with iOS 8+
  • Cannot login to Feedly via Google authentication
  • HTTPS error message preventing login
  • App crashes when selecting Feedly as source
  • Crashes when sharing to Twitter or Facebook
Show 13 more
  • Keyboard input not showing when posting to Twitter
  • Badge icon not updating correctly
  • Menu disappeared in some versions
  • Articles display with missing portions or blocked content
  • App freezes when loading large feed collections
  • Sync fails after a week of usage
  • Video playback stops when rotating device
  • Edge swipe gestures behave erratically
  • Articles marked as read automatically
  • App loses article being read after refresh
  • Readability feature stops working
  • Feedbin login failures
  • Slow performance with large RSS collections

Requested features

15 requests
  • Customizable sync interval settings
  • Support for additional services (Inoreader, Feedbin, Old Reader)
  • Background refresh for offline reading
  • Adjustable font sizes in article view
  • iOS share sheet integration
Show 10 more
  • Push notifications
  • OneNote integration
  • Search functionality across feeds
  • Ability to organize folders/categories manually
  • Tag support for starred items
  • Default folder/feed selection on app open
  • Offline full article caching
  • Mercury web parser support
  • Per-feed readability/web-view choice
  • Text selection and dictionary support

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

1 purchases

Ziner

One-time1
  • Ziner Pro Remove Ads$2.99
7 purchases

An Otter RSS Reader

Subscriptions2
  • Otter Pro Monthly$0.991 Month
  • 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 Ziner free?
Ziner is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is An Otter RSS Reader free?
An Otter RSS Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Ziner or An Otter RSS Reader?
An Otter RSS Reader is rated higher. Ziner averages 3.7 out of 5 from 38 ratings, while An Otter RSS Reader averages 4.1 from 73 ratings.
Do Ziner or An Otter RSS Reader have ads?
Neither Ziner nor An Otter RSS Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Ziner or An Otter RSS Reader?
Ziner ships an update every 11 days, and An Otter RSS Reader every 3 days. Most recently, Ziner was updated on October 24, 2026 and An Otter RSS Reader on October 24, 2026.

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