SFGATE vs Clear Reader ™
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SFGATE
Access in-depth Bay Area news and culture with an ad-free reading experience. Unlock exclusive content and connect with the places that matter most to you.
- Ad-free reading experience
- In-depth news coverage
- Bay Area culture insights
- Exclusive content for members
- Connect with local places
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An ad-free reading experience, plus a handful of extras designed to bring you closer to the places you care about. The stories behind them, too. Become a Friend of SFGATE to unlock it all.
Clear Reader ™
This app offers a calm and focused way to read curated news feeds offline. It provides tools for managing articles, adjusting the reading experience, and searching cached content, promoting deliberate reading over scrolling.
- Calm, minimal RSS feed interface
- Offline article caching
- Search cached articles
- Save articles for later
- Filter articles by keywords
- Customizable themes and text size
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Clear Reader is a calm native reading app for deliberate news reading. It gives you a quieter way to follow a thoughtfully curated feed, with local tools that make reading more useful than simply opening articles in a browser. Clear Reader is designed to help you read with more focus and less urgency. Features: - Read a curated RSS feed in a calm, minimal interface - Cache articles on device for offline access - Search cached articles by title and summary - Save articles for later reading - Mark articles as read and optionally hide read items - Filter articles with your own blocked keywords - Adjust theme, article text size, and reading density - Browse saved items and archive/history - Open source articles in an in-app web view or browser Clear Reader is built around clarity over urgency, reading over scrolling, and a more thoughtful relationship with news.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: SFGATE at none against Clear Reader ™'s 1. SFGATE also leads on ratings volume (86 vs 1) and chart position (#81 vs unranked). Clear Reader ™'s advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.6) and update cadence (every 2 days vs weekly). On price, ads, monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Clear Reader ™ sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. SFGATE asks for nothing beyond the download.
Clear Reader ™ holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.6. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SFGATE has 86 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two.
SFGATE ships an update weekly, Clear Reader ™ every 2 days. The most recent releases landed on September 30, 2026 and September 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SFGATE | Clear Reader ™ |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.6 (86 ratings) | 5.0 (1 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 78.6% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 86 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Weekly | Every 2 days — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #81 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 36 MB | 38 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Hearst Newspapers | Space 64 LLC |
Customer experience
SFGATE
Clear Reader ™
In-app purchases
SFGATE
No in-app purchases
Clear Reader ™
- Clear Reader Pro$9.99
