Comparison

Amethyst vs Skim Reader

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

Head to head
About

Amethyst

A streamlined RSS reader designed for Apple devices, offering customizable feed organization, real-time notifications, and article bookmarking. It supports RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds, syncing seamlessly across your Apple ecosystem.

Highlights
  • RSS, Atom, JSON feed support
  • Feed grouping and sorting
  • Real-time push notifications
  • Article bookmarking
  • iCloud sync across Apple devices
  • OPML import/export
Features
Read full description

Amethyst is the ultimate RSS reader for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro. Built by a writer, for writers. It support RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds. It offers in depth customization, group sorting, real time push notifications, recaps, and much more. It feels right at home on your Apple device, being optimized for larger screen layouts - and truly makes RSS feel painless. Your feeds sync across iCloud, providing a unified experience across all of your Apple devices. Stay organized - Group feeds into folders and reorder them however you like - Mark your key sources as favorites - Bookmark articles to read later - Unread indicators quickly show you whats new - "Here's what you missed" summary when you're away for a little while - Keep up with your reading stats on your profile Real-time push notifications - Get notified the moment your favorite publications post new articles - Dial in your notifications per feed, so you only see what's most important - Never miss key stories, even when the app is in the background - Set certain feeds as Time Sensitive, so they always show up despite your Focus mode - Free users get up to 4 notification sources, Plus users gain unlimited Deep integration - View articles on your Apple Watch through complication or notifications, beam it to your iPhone to read later - Home and Lock Screen widgets to keep up with the news without checking the app - Mac keyboard shortcuts for easy navigation without lifting a finger - Share sheet extension to bookmark articles or add new sources, straight from Safari Discover new sources - Browse curated feeds organized by topic for added variety - Preview any source before adding it to your library - Import and export your feed collection with OPML, making it easy to switch in or out Amethyst Plus - Customize your folder icons, theme color, and app icon - Follow writers, so you can keep up with your favorite sources - Unlimited real time push notifications, instead of just 4 Thanks for using Amethyst! Feel free to share any feedback with me at feedback@amethyst.news. Subscription Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/

About

Skim Reader

Read full description

Skim Reader: Read Smarter, Not Longer In a world of infinite scroll and endless content, your time is the ultimate currency. Skim Reader is the RSS reader that respects it. The Problem With Modern Reading You subscribe to 30 feeds. You have 200 unread articles. You have 10 minutes. What do you do? Skip everything? Skim headlines and miss the insights buried in paragraph seven? Feel guilty about the growing unread count? There's a better way. One Slider. Infinite Control. Skim Reader introduces something no RSS reader has done before: a compression slider that transforms any article to match exactly how much time you have. Drag left for a two-sentence summary. Drag right for the full article. Stop anywhere in between. It's that simple. - Glance: The headline in 10 seconds - Brief: Key points in 30 seconds - Summary: Main ideas in 2 minutes - Digest: Detailed overview in 5 minutes - Full: The complete article Every position is generated by on-device AI. No cloud. No subscriptions. No data leaving your phone. AI That Lives on Your Device Skim Reader runs a state-of-the-art language model entirely on your iPhone or iPad. Your articles stay private. The first time you open the app, you'll download a ~1GB AI model. After that, everything runs locally. Your reading habits are yours alone. It Learns How You Read Notice how you always want the full article from The New York Times but just the brief from tech blogs? Skim Reader notices too. The app quietly learns your preferences - by feed, by time of day, by habit. Open an article at 7am during your commute? It remembers you prefer Brief. Saturday morning deep-dive? It knows you want Full. You can disable this entirely in settings. But once you experience an app that just knows, you won't want to. Beautiful Typography, Zero Compromise Reading apps should be beautiful. Skim Reader uses carefully chosen typefaces optimised for extended reading: - New York for headlines - editorial elegance - Charter for body text - designed for screens - Your choice of fonts and sizes - Bionic Reading mode for faster scanning - Light and dark themes that don't strain your eyes Features That Matter - Add any RSS or Atom feed - paste a URL and it finds the feed - Full article extraction - even when feeds only provide snippets - Swipe gestures - mark read, bookmark, delete - All Articles view - see everything in one stream - Bookmarks - save articles for later - Pull to refresh - stay current - Open in browser - when you need the original - Haptic feedback - feel the slider snap into position No Subscriptions. No Ads. No Tracking. Skim Reader is free. No monthly fees. No "premium tiers." No advertisements. No analytics watching what you read. Who Is This For? - Professionals who need to stay informed but don't have time to read everything - Researchers managing dozens of sources - News enthusiasts who want depth without the time commitment - Anyone tired of the "mark all as read" guilt spiral - People who believe reading should be a choice, not an obligation The TL;DR for a Doomscrolling World I built Skim Reader because I was drowning in content. Every day, more articles. Every day, less time. I wanted a reader that adapted to me, not the other way around. Now I read more than ever - because I can finally read at the right depth for every article. Some get 10 seconds. Some get 10 minutes. Every one gets exactly what it deserves. Your time is valuable. Read accordingly.

Screenshots

Amethyst4 screens
Skim Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Skim Reader at none against Amethyst's 3. Amethyst's advantage is device support (5 vs 2) and iOS requirement (17.0 vs 26.0). On price, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.

Scored on Price ยท Rating ยท Positive reviews ยท Number of ratings ยท Update frequency ยท Ads ยท In-app purchases ยท Monetization ยท Best chart rank ยท Devices ยท Requires iOS

CostPrice ยท In-app purchases ยท Ads ยท Monetization

Both are free to download. Amethyst sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Skim Reader asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly monthly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard3 real differences ยท 5 level
Amethyst versus Skim Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterAmethystSkim Reader
PriceFreeFree
Positive reviews0.0% of reviewsโ€”
Update frequencyMonthlyMonthly
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesNo โ€” better
MonetizationFreeโ€”
DevicesiPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, Vision Pro โ€” betteriPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.0 โ€” better26.0
Further details โ€” not scored
Size63 MB12 MB
Age rating12+17+
DeveloperMBRKHRDT LLCLucas Young

In-app purchases

3 purchases

Amethyst

Subscriptions2
  • Amethyst Plus - Monthly7 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Amethyst Plus - Annual14 Days trial$29.991 Year
One-time1
  • Amethyst Plus - Lifetime$49.99
None

Skim Reader

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Amethyst free?
Amethyst is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Skim Reader free?
Skim Reader is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Do Amethyst or Skim Reader have ads?
Neither Amethyst nor Skim Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Amethyst or Skim Reader?
Amethyst ships an update monthly, and Skim Reader monthly. Most recently, Amethyst was updated on October 26, 2026 and Skim Reader on October 25, 2026.

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