Rivo vs Riffle
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side โ with what reviewers say about each.
Rivo
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Rivo is a calm, fast RSS reader for iPhone, iPad and Mac that works with the server you already run. Three columns, no clutter: articles open straight into a clean full-text Reader View, and video channel feeds open straight into the player. One app, every Apple device. YOUR SERVER, FIRST-CLASS Rivo is a client, not a service โ there is no Rivo account and nothing is stored on our side. Sign in with what you already have: โข FreshRSS, Miniflux, Tiny Tiny RSS (FreshAPI plugin) โ and any other server that speaks the Google Reader API โข BazQux Reader, The Old Reader โข Feedbin, Inkwell (Micro.blog) Add as many accounts as you like; each one gets its own section in the sidebar. Folders, unread and starred stay in sync, and actions you take offline are queued and replayed when you're back online. READER VIEW, ON BY DEFAULT Every article feed opens as clean full text โ extracted on your device, even when the feed only carries an excerpt. Switch it off per feed, fall back to the feed content or the original web page in one tap, and pick the text size that suits you. VIDEO WITHOUT THE ALGORITHM Video channel feeds show thumbnails in the list and play right inside the app, with the description and a button to open the video in your browser. A hundred channels feel like a subscription box, not an inbox. BUILT FOR READING โข Sidebar โ list โ article, with unread badges; Unread, Starred and All filters โข Read/unread, star, mark all as read for the current folder or feed; swipe actions on iPhone and iPad โข Search titles and excerpts in any scope โข Keyboard-first on the Mac: j/k to move, space to scroll, m to toggle read, s to star, โR to refresh โข A minimal article toolbar (Star and Read); everything else one tap away โข Themes: System, Paper, Terminal, Newspaper, Midnight, Sepia โ plus automatic dark mode and system fonts ASK AI Send the article to your favourite AI assistant (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Copilot, Grok, Gemini) with a ready-made prompt โ summarise, explain, translate, or write your own template. Nothing is sent anywhere until you choose to. MADE FOR BIG ACCOUNTS Tested with hundreds of thousands of unread articles: the newest items sync first, badges use your server's counts, and older articles load on demand at the end of every list. Launch is instant, even with huge libraries. PRIVATE BY DESIGN No telemetry, no third-party SDKs, no Rivo account. Your credentials live in the system Keychain and talk only to the server you chose โ over HTTPS, or plain HTTP for a server on your own network if you say so. RIVO PRO Rivo is free to use with one account and everything above. Rivo Pro โ monthly, yearly, or a one-time lifetime purchase โ unlocks unlimited accounts, all themes and the comfort features that come with every release. Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period; payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase, and you can manage or cancel it in your App Store account settings. Rivo is not affiliated with or endorsed by any of the services it connects to; their names are used only to describe compatibility. LEGAL Privacy Policy: https://marcotini.com/privacy-policy Terms of Use (EULA): https://marcotini.com/eula
Riffle
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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 โ 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
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Riffle at none against Rivo's 3. Rivo's advantage is iOS requirement (18.0 vs 26.0). On price, ads and device support 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
Both are free to download. Rivo sells 3 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month. Riffle asks for nothing beyond the download.
| Parameter | Rivo | Riffle |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Update frequency | Monthly | โ |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No โ better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, Mac โ better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 18.0 โ better | 26.0 |
| Further details โ not scored | ||
| Size | 6 MB | 10 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Marco Tini | Nikolaj Jensen |
In-app purchases
Rivo
- Rivo Pro Monthly$0.991 Month
- Rivo Pro Yearly$8.991 Year
- Rivo Pro Lifetime$29.99
Riffle
No in-app purchases









