Comparison

Hacker News Reader vs Riffle

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

Head to head
About

Hacker News Reader

A native iOS application offering a streamlined Hacker News experience. Users can read, vote, comment, and post stories, browse different sections, and organize content with custom groups. It prioritizes speed and privacy.

Highlights
  • Vote, comment, and post stories
  • Browse Ask, Show, Jobs, and New sections
  • Read threaded discussions
  • Submit stories
  • Create custom story groups
  • iCloud sync for groups
Features
Read full description

The best native Hacker News reader for iOS. Read, vote, comment, and post. HackerNows is a native iPhone app that brings the full Y Combinator Hacker News experience to your device. No webviews, no compromises, just a fast, clean way to stay on top of tech news and developer discussions. Everything you expect from HN: • Vote, comment, post, and favorite stories • Browse Ask, Show, Jobs, and New sections • Read threaded discussions with a clean, native layout • Submit stories directly from the app Organize your way: • Create custom story groups to save and sort what matters • iCloud sync keeps your groups updated across all your devices Built for the community: • Lightweight, fast, and privacy-focused • Optional patronage: support the app if you want, when you want https://hackernows.app/eula

About

Riffle

Features
Read full description

Riffle is an RSS reader for iPhone, iPad and Mac. It keeps your reading on your device and syncs it with a server you choose — or with no server at all. OFFLINE FIRST Articles download as they arrive, so your unread list works on a flight, on the metro, and anywhere the signal gives out. Marking something read or starring it works offline too: those actions queue up and reach your server the moment you are back, in the order you made them. Nothing is lost because you were in a tunnel. WORKS WITH YOUR SERVER Connect FreshRSS, Miniflux or Feedbin, or any server that speaks the Fever or Google Reader API. Subscriptions, folders, read state and stars stay in step across every device you read on. Credentials go to your server and nowhere else. OR NO SERVER AT ALL Riffle can fetch feeds itself, with no account and nothing in between. Paste a website and it finds the feed. YouTube channels, subreddits, GitHub releases and Medium writers work as they are. BUILT FOR READING A reader view set in Apple's New York serif, with the face, size and line width under your control. Feeds that publish only a summary can be opened in full. Swipe to mark read or to star, search everything you have downloaded, and switch between the article, the full text and the live page whenever you want. DRIVEN FROM THE KEYBOARD Vim-style keys throughout: j and k to move, n for the next unread, s to star, m to toggle read, / to search, ? for the list. Menu commands and shortcuts on the Mac for everything else. ON YOUR HOME SCREEN Widgets for your unread count and your newest articles. Share a page from Safari and Riffle finds the feed behind it. PRIVATE BY CONSTRUCTION No Riffle account and no Riffle server. No tracking, no analytics, no advertising, no third-party services. Passwords and API keys live in the Keychain, never in the database. Riffle talks to your server and to the sites you subscribe to, and to nothing else. POLITE TO YOUR SERVER Riffle will not poll more often than every fifteen minutes, whatever the settings say, and it never runs a full sync just to tell your server you read something. A self-hosted instance is usually one small machine, and it is treated like one. Native on all three platforms: three columns on Mac and iPad, a navigation stack on iPhone, and one library underneath them all.

Screenshots

Hacker News Reader4 screens
Riffle4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Riffle at none against Hacker News Reader's 6. Hacker News Reader's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). 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. Hacker News Reader sells 6 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Riffle asks for nothing beyond the download.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Hacker News Reader versus Riffle: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHacker News ReaderRiffle
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings) — better—
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews—
Number of ratings1 — better—
Update frequencyEvery 10 days—
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo — better
MonetizationFree with in-app purchases—
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS18.0 — better26.0
Further details — not scored
Size22 MB10 MB
Age rating12+4+
DeveloperRodrigo CardosoNikolaj Jensen

In-app purchases

6 purchases

Hacker News Reader

Subscriptions3
  • Iron$0.991 Month
  • Steel$1.991 Month
  • Mithril$2.991 Month
One-time3
  • Small Tip$0.99
  • Medium Tip$2.99
  • Large Tip$4.99
None

Riffle

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Hacker News Reader free?
Hacker News Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Riffle free?
Riffle is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Hacker News Reader or Riffle have ads?
Neither Hacker News Reader nor Riffle shows ads.

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