Comparison

Hackercast vs think

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

Head to head
About

Hackercast

Features
Read full description

Hackercast turns top Hacker News stories into your daily audio digest. No time to read? Just listen. Every day, the highest-scoring stories are curated, summarized by AI, and converted into natural-sounding audio you can listen to anywhere.

About

think

This news app offers a focused reading experience by presenting one story at a time, free from distractions like auto-playing media or infinite scrolling. Users can customize their news sources by selecting topics, publishers, or adding custom RSS feeds, with all data stored locally for privacy.

Highlights
  • One story at a time reading
  • Customizable publisher selection
  • Add custom RSS/Atom feeds
  • Bookmark stories for later
  • No account or tracking
  • Offline data storage
Features
Read full description

think renders news the way e-ink renders a page: soft greys, a serif headline, dithered photographs, nothing that blinks, auto-plays, or refreshes itself while you're looking at it. ONE STORY AT A TIME No infinite scroll, no feed to doomscroll through. Each story fills the screen — headline, photo, publisher, and a read-time estimate. Swipe up for the next one, swipe right (or tap) to open the full article in-app. When you've seen everything your topics have to offer, the feed says so and stops, instead of padding itself out with filler. PICK YOUR PUBLISHERS, SKIP THE ALGORITHM There's no engagement-driven ranking deciding what you see. Choose your topics, and think shows you a curated catalog of publishers behind them — 208 publishers across 32 topics at last count. Vote a story up or down to tune the mix, or mute a publisher outright. Want a source that isn't in the catalog? Paste any site's RSS or Atom feed URL and think adds it to your list. SAVE FOR LATER Bookmark anything you don't have time for now. Saved stories are grouped by topic and stay in your list until you clear them. NO ACCOUNT, NO TRACKING There's no sign-in and no user id. think has no analytics, advertising, or crash-reporting SDK, and no server of its own — it only talks to your chosen publishers' RSS feeds and their image hosts. Your topics, your publishers, your votes, and your saved stories live on your device only, and are deleted when you delete the app. Available in English and Vietnamese. Requires iOS 15 or later.

Screenshots

Hackercast4 screens
think4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Hackercast at none against think's 1. On price, update cadence, 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. think sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Hackercast asks for nothing beyond the download.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Hackercast ships an update every 3 weeks, think every 2 weeks. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard1 real difference · 8 level
Hackercast versus think: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterHackercastthink
PriceFreeFree
Rating—5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Number of ratings—2 — better
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 2 weeks — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
Monetization—Free
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad
Requires iOS17.016.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size2 MB51 MB
Age rating4+17+
DeveloperBERENALP BEYGIRCIKhanh Trinh Le Ba

In-app purchases

None

Hackercast

No in-app purchases

1 purchases

think

One-time1
  • think forever$9.99

Questions

Is Hackercast free?
Hackercast is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is think free?
think is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Do Hackercast or think have ads?
Neither Hackercast nor think shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Hackercast or think?
Hackercast ships an update every 3 weeks, and think every 2 weeks. Most recently, Hackercast was updated on October 24, 2026 and think on October 24, 2026.

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