Comparison

9to5Mac 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

9to5Mac

Stay informed with the latest news for Apple devices and other tech. Enjoy an ad-free reading experience with a clean layout and push notifications for breaking stories. An optional premium subscription offers enhanced features.

Highlights
  • Latest Apple news
  • Ad-free reading
  • Push notifications
  • Dark Theme
  • Optimized layout
  • Access to network sites
Features
Read full description

9to5Mac is the leading news website for iPhone, iPad, Mac, and more. The 9to5Mac app offers an ad-free way to stay up to date with the latest Apple news, along with connecting you to the full network of 9to5 sites. View the latest stories from 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, Electrek, and more in a layout optimized for the iPhone and iPad with large photography. Take advantage of the Dark Theme for comfortable reading at any time of day. Get push notifications for instant alerts when a new post goes live so you can always stay up to date with the latest stories. The 9to5Mac app is a beautiful companion to the website experience. Give us your feedback and look forward to more updates coming in the future. Upgrade to the Premium Subscription to read stories in the app with an ad-free, privacy-respecting native reading experience. Premium costs $1.99 per month in the US. The subscription automatically renews — but you can cancel at any time.* 9to5Mac Premium is subject to the standard Apple Terms of Use (EULA): https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ See Privacy and Additional Terms: https://9to5mac.com/privacy/ *Subscription automatically renews unless auto-renew is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Account will be charged for renewal within a 24-hour prior to the end of the current period. Subscriptions may be managed by the user and auto-renewal may be turned off by going to the user's Account Settings after purchase.

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

9to5Mac4 screens
Hacker News Tech Reader4 screens

Verdict

The call

9to5Mac and Hacker News Tech Reader both sit at 4.7 stars, but that hides the real split: 94% of Hacker News Tech Reader's written reviews are positive against 41% of 9to5Mac's. Hacker News Tech Reader also leads on update cadence (every 3 days vs every 3 months) and monetization model (free vs freemium). 9to5Mac's advantage is ratings volume (4.8K vs 1.6K). On price, rating, ads and in-app purchases 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. 9to5Mac sells 1 in-app purchase, starting at $1.99 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

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.7 for 9to5Mac against 4.7 for Hacker News Tech Reader. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 4.8K and 1.6K respectively. Written reviews are what separate them: 41% of 9to5Mac's written reviews are positive against 94% of Hacker News Tech Reader's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

9to5Mac ships an update every 3 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
9to5Mac versus Hacker News Tech Reader: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
Parameter9to5MacHacker News Tech Reader
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.7 (4.8K ratings)4.7 (1.6K ratings) — better
Positive reviews40.9% of reviews93.5% of reviews — better
Number of ratings4.8K — better1.6K
Update frequencyEvery 3 monthsEvery 3 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFreemiumFree — better
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, iPod, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.615.0 — better
Further details — not scored
Size34 MB28 MB
Age rating4+9+
DeveloperSeth WeintraubPranoy Chowdhury

Customer experience

9to5Mac

All ratings4,844 ratings
Positive93.1%
Neutral2.8%
Negative4.1%
Written reviews264 reviews
Positive40.9%
Neutral18.2%
Negative40.9%

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

9to5Mac

Reported bugs

5 issues
  • Subscription issues
  • Inconsistent dark mode support
  • Unreliable push notifications
  • Crashes when opening articles
  • Broken Disqus login functionality

Requested features

7 requests
  • Dark mode icon support
  • Improved notifications
  • In-app commenting
  • Yearly subscription option
  • Faster content updates
Show 2 more
  • Accessibility improvements
  • Seamless integration with other 9to5 sites

Hacker News Tech Reader

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

1 purchases

9to5Mac

Subscriptions1
  • Premium Subscription7 Days trial$1.991 Month
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 9to5Mac free?
9to5Mac 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, 9to5Mac or Hacker News Tech Reader?
Hacker News Tech Reader is rated higher. 9to5Mac averages 4.7 out of 5 from 4.8K ratings, while Hacker News Tech Reader averages 4.7 from 1.6K ratings.
Do 9to5Mac or Hacker News Tech Reader have ads?
Neither 9to5Mac nor Hacker News Tech Reader shows ads.
Which is updated more often, 9to5Mac or Hacker News Tech Reader?
9to5Mac ships an update every 3 months, and Hacker News Tech Reader every 3 days. Most recently, 9to5Mac was updated on November 1, 2026 and Hacker News Tech Reader on November 3, 2026.

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