Comparison

Cyber Security News & Alerts vs Hacker News Tech Reader

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

Head to head
About

Cyber Security News & Alerts

Stay informed about the latest cybersecurity threats and news. This app aggregates and prioritizes top stories on vulnerabilities, ransomware, hacking, and more from multiple sources. Receive alerts, manage topics, and engage with a community of security-conscious users.

Highlights
  • Aggregated news from dozens of sources
  • Prioritized news feed
  • Push notifications for alerts
  • Video coverage feed
  • Customizable topic management
  • Source blocking
  • Community features (posting, commenting)
Features
Read full description

The latest cyber security news stories from leading experts. We aggregate and prioritize the top news about the latest vulnerabilities, ransomware, exploits, hacking attempts, cyber attacks, the NSA, Anonymous, malware, social engineering, and more. We apply complex filtering algorithms so you won't have to deal with information overload - get what you need to know here first. Features - Full coverage - dozens of news sources covering cyber security in one app. You get full coverage from all over the web, with no unrelated articles. Get a clean, prioritized feed - the most important news appears first and there are no repeated stories. - Opt in for push notifications so you can stay ahead of the bad guys - Video coverage - a cyber security video feed brought to you from leading video channels - Topics management - easily choose your favorite topics or block topics you don’t want - Block source - saw a source you don't like? Long tap on the article and block it - Suggest your favorite news source, video channel or podcast - Join the community! Post stories or polls, comment on stories, and tag articles! - An awesome widget - Free in-app Read Later - save interesting articles for later reading right inside the app Love the app? Give us a five star rating, write a review and share the app with your friends! Need Help? Let us know here: https://loyalfoundry.atlassian.net/servicedesk/customer/portal/1 Privacy Policy and Terms of Use: https://www.loyal.app/privacy-policy

About

Hacker News Tech Reader

This app offers a beautiful and intuitive way to read the latest tech, startup, and STEM news from Hacker News. It features customizable reading options, push notifications, and advanced search capabilities, all without ads or subscriptions.

Highlights
  • Ad-free and subscription-free experience
  • Push notifications for replies
  • Nested comment threads
  • Advanced search with filters
  • Customizable fonts and themes
  • Article sharing and archiving
  • Support for multiple browsers
Features
Read full description

HACK for YC's Hacker News is the most beautiful and easy way to read about the latest tech, startup and STEM news. - No Ads. No subscriptions. - Login or Register your Hacker News account - PUSH NOTIFICATIONS for Hacker News replies to comment or post - Supported on iPhone, iPad, and Mac - Setting to block AI posts on HN. - Comments are presented in nested threads - Tap a comment to collapse that thread - Swipe left or right on stories and comments to upvote and favorite - Ability to submit new posts including drafts - Long press a story, link or comment to share - iPad supports split view - On iPads, you can drag a story / comment / story's image (link) to open it in safari in split view. This is useful for when you are viewing the app in split view / multitasking and like opening the link / story / comment in a browser side by side. - Landscape and Portrait support - 3D touch for peek, pop support - Home screen 3D touch shortcuts - Hide posts from the feed - Tap the bottom button to scroll to the next root comment in the thread. Long press it to go to the previous one - All known hacker news endpoints - News, front page, Ask HN, Show HN, Show HN Newest, classic, active, best stories, best comments, new stories, new comments, noob stories, noob comments, jobs, over 100-500 points - Submit posts, reply, comment using your HN account - Browse top 100 leader accounts - Browse stories from a specific site, user or date - Search in comments and usernames! Search is case and diacritic insensitive and ignores punctuations. Search uses an CONTAINS, OR operation if multiple words are typed. - Can select / highlight the comment/post title text for lookup/copy/translate etc iOS native operations. - Powerful search (powered by Algolia API) - use @date to sort by date, #story to filter for stories, #comments to filter for comments, #author_username to filter by user etc. These tags can be separated by commas. Refer to https://hn.algolia.com/api for more tags. - Dark mode - both pure black and gray mode - Low contrast text mode to make the text not be pure white - Many color choices & color picker for customization - App icons in variety of colours for light and dark mode - Font choices - Ability to change font sizes, padding etc to make the layout as compact as you like! - Threaded comments with color bar to maintain visual orientation - Articles open in Safari view with setting to automatically open in "readability" mode - Tap the domain in a story to see all stories from that site - Tap the username in a story or comment to go to the user profile - Browse your submitted stories and comments, favorited stories and comments, upvoted stories and comments - Archive: View an archive of the post website. archive.is, archive.org & google cache. - Share comment as image - Articles can be opened in built in safari or 3rd party browsers. Supports Brave, Firefox, Firefox Focus, Orion, Opera Touch, Dolphin, DuckDuckGo, iCab Mobile, Microsoft Edge and Chrome. Go to settings > Disable the "Use in-app Safari" setting > tap that row to change the default browser. All stories and comments are via Algolia API and Hacker News API: https://news.ycombinator.com/ https://hn.algolia.com/api https://github.com/HackerNews/API Profile picture robots lovingly delivered by Robohash.org There are ongoing costs of developing and maintaining HACK. I am a small indie developer and need your help keep the lights on. I offer a beautiful app for the absolute best user-experience. I don't use intrusive ads, trackers, third-party analytics, subscriptions, or other nonsense. I need to run my own server for caching high quality favicons shown in the app plus for push notifications for replies to hacker news posts. If you can afford it, please support me by purchasing the one-time-only in-app-purchase or giving me a tip. No subscriptions. It's a small and fair amount which helps cover development costs of future updates. Contact me at: pran@pranapps.com

Screenshots

Cyber Security News & Alerts4 screens
Hacker News Tech Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is ads: Hacker News Tech Reader at none against Cyber Security News & Alerts's shown. Hacker News Tech Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 2 months) and monetization model (free vs free with in-app purchases). On price, rating, in-app purchases and iOS requirement 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. Cyber Security News & Alerts sells 4 in-app purchases, starting at $0.99 per month and Hacker News Tech Reader sells 6 one-off in-app purchases. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Hacker News Tech Reader holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 395 and 1.6K respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 75% of Cyber Security News & Alerts's written reviews are positive against 94% of Hacker News Tech Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Cyber Security News & Alerts ships an update every 2 months, Hacker News Tech Reader every 3 days. The most recent releases landed on November 1, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard6 real differences · 4 level
Cyber Security News & Alerts versus Hacker News Tech Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterCyber Security News & AlertsHacker News Tech Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.5 (395 ratings)4.7 (1.6K ratings) — better
Positive reviews75.4% of reviews93.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings3951.6K — better
Update frequencyEvery 2 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsYesNo — better
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS16.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size99 MB28 MB
Age rating12+9+
DeveloperLoyal Foundry, Inc.Pranoy Chowdhury

Customer experience

Cyber Security News & Alerts

All ratings396 ratings
Positive88.9%
Neutral3.0%
Negative8.1%
Written reviews179 reviews
Positive75.4%
Neutral4.5%
Negative20.1%

Hacker News Tech Reader

All ratings1,589 ratings
Positive91.4%
Neutral2.6%
Negative6.0%
Written reviews200 reviews
Positive93.5%
Neutral2.5%
Negative4.0%

Bugs and requests

Cyber Security News & Alerts

Reported bugs

3 issues
  • Clipboard data being copied on app launch
  • Notifications not working consistently
  • Ads crashing the app or preventing content access

Requested features

4 requests
  • Offline content access
  • Customizable news feed and alerts
  • Dark mode option
  • Improved social sharing capabilities

Hacker News Tech Reader

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

4 purchases

Cyber Security News & Alerts

Subscriptions4
  • Remove advertising$0.991 Month
  • Monthly Subscription3 Days trial$0.991 Month
  • Remove Ads Annual2 variants$3.991 Year
Show 1 more
  • Yearly Subscription$5.991 Year
6 purchases

Hacker News Tech Reader

One-time6
  • Nice Tip$3.99
  • Kind Tip$6.99
  • Generous Tip$9.99
Show 3 more
  • Hack Premium$12.99
  • Amazing Tip$12.99
  • Godzilla Tip$19.99

Questions

Is Cyber Security News & Alerts free?
Cyber Security News & Alerts is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Hacker News Tech Reader free?
Hacker News Tech Reader is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, Cyber Security News & Alerts or Hacker News Tech Reader?
Hacker News Tech Reader is rated higher. Cyber Security News & Alerts averages 4.5 out of 5 from 395 ratings, while Hacker News Tech Reader averages 4.7 from 1.6K ratings.
Do Cyber Security News & Alerts or Hacker News Tech Reader have ads?
Cyber Security News & Alerts shows ads; Hacker News Tech Reader does not.
Which is updated more often, Cyber Security News & Alerts or Hacker News Tech Reader?
Cyber Security News & Alerts ships an update every 2 months, and Hacker News Tech Reader every 3 days. Most recently, Cyber Security News & Alerts was updated on November 1, 2026 and Hacker News Tech Reader on November 3, 2026.

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