Comparison

Lede vs Riff

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

Head to head
About

Lede

A fast, calm RSS reader that lets you follow your favorite websites and read articles in a clean, customizable native interface. Manage your reading with daily limits and filters, and import/export your feeds easily. It's designed for privacy with no accounts, ads, or tracking.

Highlights
  • Clean native reader with customizable text
  • Automatic full text fetching for teasers
  • Swipe navigation for articles
  • Starred, Unread, and All filters
  • Daily limits per feed
  • Import/export OPML feeds
  • Private by design, no tracking
Features
Read full description

Lede is a fast, calm RSS reader for iPhone. Follow the sites you choose, read them in a clean native reader, and leave when you're done. READ, DON'T WADE • Articles open in a clean reader with your choice of text size and typeface. • Teaser feeds get their full text fetched automatically. • Swipe up or down for the next article, right to go back, left for the original web page. STAY IN CONTROL • Starred, Unread and All on every list, plus a recency filter: Today, the past few hours, or the past week. • Daily limits per feed: show only the first few articles a busy feed publishes each day, so it can't take over your day. • Keep Articles cleans up after a day, a week or a month. Starred articles are always kept. BRING YOUR FEEDS • Add any feed, or just a website's address and Lede finds its feed. • Import and export OPML to move from any other reader. • Start with a pack of well-known feeds (news and tech, sports, food and crafts, and more), or with none. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No account, no ads, no analytics, no tracking. • Everything stays on your iPhone. There are no servers of ours: Lede fetches only what your feeds point to.

About

Riff

This news reader presents articles one by one, allowing you to quickly read or skip them. It offers AI-powered summaries on demand and an optional listening feature. Your reading experience is private, with no account, ads, or tracking.

Highlights
  • Card-based article browsing
  • AI-powered article summaries
  • Offline article access
  • Customizable source playlists
  • Article listening feature
  • Home and lock screen widgets
Features
Read full description

One card, one second: you read it or you skip it. Riff is an RSS and news reader with no account, no ads and no tracking, with an AI summary on request. Keeping up with the news shouldn’t mean opening twenty links and stacking tabs. Riff shows you the stories from your sources one at a time, full screen: the headline, the picture, the gist. Interested? Read it right here. Not? Swipe. YOUR SOURCES, YOUR PACE • More than 1,000 sources in French and English, switched on in one tap • Paste the address of a site or an RSS feed to add your own • Import your subscriptions from another RSS reader with an OPML file: folders become categories • Playlists: your categories grouped under the name you like, up to 10 • For You: a feed composed on your iPhone from your reading, with “fewer stories like this” one tap away • Subject: tap it to find the articles that talk about the same subject, in your sources and beyond The article’s text shows in the app when the publisher makes it freely available. If it is for subscribers only, Riff shows the excerpt and the link: it never gets around a paywall. AN AI SUMMARY, ONE TAP AWAY Tap the Riff logo: Apple Intelligence writes a short summary above the article, on your iPhone. Nothing is summarized unless you ask, and the text you read stays the publisher’s. It needs a device that supports Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro or later), with Apple Intelligence turned on in Settings. Without it, everything else works. LISTEN (experimental) Riff reads the article aloud, in French or English, with the voices of your device: the text is sent nowhere. Controls on the lock screen, with headphones and in the car. You need an enhanced or premium voice installed in Settings. ON IPHONE DUO Opened and in landscape, the list of articles and the article sit side by side. Swipe from one article to the next, and your watchlist opens on the left. Closed or in split screen, the buttons and the action bar stand down the side. WATCHLIST AND WIDGETS • Keep an article in one tap, with its text and its summary: it opens even offline • Widgets in three sizes on the home screen, and on the lock screen with the number of articles left to read NO ACCOUNT, NO ADS, NO TRACKING Riff has no account and no server: your device fetches articles directly from the publishers. Your sources, settings and reading history stay on your iPhone and, unless you turn sync off, in your private iCloud. Export the sources you added yourself (OPML) to open them in another RSS reader. Riff is free, with no subscription and no in-app purchase. Articles belong to their publishers: Riff sends you to the source and is not affiliated with any of them. Apple Intelligence is a trademark of Apple Inc. Privacy: https://riff.watch/en/privacy/ Riff terms: https://riff.watch/en/terms/

Screenshots

Lede4 screens
Riff4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Lede at none against Riff's 2. On price, rating, review sentiment and ratings volume 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. Riff sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $2.99 per month. Lede asks for nothing beyond the download.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 5.0 for Lede against 5.0 for Riff. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 1 and 2 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Both ship on a similar rhythm, roughly daily. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 31, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
Lede versus Riff: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterLedeRiff
PriceFreeFree
Rating5.0 (1 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings)
Positive reviews100.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews
Number of ratings12 — better
Update frequencyDailyDaily
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNo — betterYes
MonetizationFree — betterFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhoneiPhone
Requires iOS26.026.0
Further details — not scored
Size4 MB16 MB
Age rating17+17+
DeveloperSteve ShreeveArnaud Lewis

Customer experience

Lede

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

Riff

All ratings1 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

None

Lede

No in-app purchases

2 purchases

Riff

Subscriptions2
  • Riff, monthly14 Days trial$2.991 Month
  • Riff, yearly14 Days trial$17.991 Year

Questions

Is Lede free?
Lede is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Riff free?
Riff is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Lede or Riff?
Lede and Riff are both rated 5.0 out of 5 on the App Store, from 1 and 2 ratings respectively.
Do Lede or Riff have ads?
Neither Lede nor Riff shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Lede or Riff?
Lede ships an update daily, and Riff daily. Most recently, Lede was updated on October 24, 2026 and Riff on October 31, 2026.

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