Show HN: Complete list of Google Reader alternatives | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Complete list of Google Reader alternatives

starthq.com

32 pointsolegp52 comments

After trying Fever, Tiny Tiny RSS (both self hosted), and Feedbin (very slow), I've switched to Newsblur and I like it quite a bit. I formerly used Reeder on iOS and my Mac with Google Reader to sync, but I'm using the Newsblur app now and not missing Reeder at all. I like the web interface, it is fast and has less bloat than Google Reader's interface did (a plus for me - I was a big fan of Bloglines way back when and it was very streamlined) and supports everything I want to do (read/organize by folder, save stories). I was confused by the sharing in the app at first - I don't really care about a 'blurblog' and just wanted to share a story on Facebook - so I've switched to just copy/pasting the URL instead of using built in functionality, but I could be missing something. I'd also like to just have a two pane display in the web version - tree view of feeds w/folders, and story content - like Google Reader and Bloglines do, basically - the pane in the middle (the list of stories) doesn't do anything for me and I haven't figured out if it's possible to shut it off.

edit: turns out the story pane can be shut off, a recent addition. Thanks Newsblur :)

I couldn't find TinyTinyRSS in it which is a open source alternative with a JSON API.

http://tt-rss.org/redmine/projects/tt-rss/wiki

Looks good, but I decided not to list open source alternatives that you need to self host, since most non technical users wouldn't be able to do that.

Hehe, I'm quite sure most of the readers of HN are able to selfhost ;)

Would that also exclude Liferea?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liferea

Liferea is also what I'm using for the time being, but I think he's only listing cloud based Reader alternatives.

I've noticed an interesting side effect from using a desktop based aggregator that doesn't sync with a smartphone; while before I'd obsessively comb through new items throughout the day, sometimes even impacting conversations, now I read everything in one fell swoop when I turn on my personal laptop at the end of the day. No more pulling the phone out at awkward places and times, the productivity benefits, at least for me, are immense.

One could argue that it's down to discipline, but if you actually have a mechanism that enforces this behavior it makes things immensely easier.

I, unfortunately, am having a bad side effect: I'm not looking at the feeds at all. And I probably should be, as I'm "supposed to" be gearing up for a social media presence. Sigh.

There are people[1] offering TinyTinyRSS hosting, though they almost hide that fact, which I find a little disagreeable.

[1] http://yanobs.com/reader/

I have mentioned this last time but http://jabs.nu/feedthemonkey is my TTRSS client written in Qt, doesn't do much though, only displaying unread articles in a window you can read and mark as read.

Just reviewed the list and found a new thing for me: Feedreader Online. Tried it with my ipad and was surprised with quite a smooth performance, just a basic interface though. No native mobile iOS app? Cannot find it on their site but as a web app it works well for me so far.

If anyone is interested, I've posted my comparison notes for some of the feed readers I've tried, here https://gist.github.com/cheeaun/5882100

I am hooked on Reeder and am thus limited to whatever servies are supported, thus narrowing my choices quite a bit.

FEEDBIN (2/month or 20/year)

+ best of the bunch

+ api on github

+ moved to new servers, better speed ahead

+ export available

+ aesthetic & functional

+ some app support on most platforms

+ feels like designed for heavy RSS user consumption

+ excellent reviews around the web

- 3 day only trial

- single developer and seemingly developed as a side project (not sure if + or -)

- unsubstantiated rumors about speed sync w reeder.app. (worried - where there's smoke theres fire)

FEEDLY (free)

+ integration w/ ifttt (can be amazing, for non-hosted experiments)

+ bigger team behind, slightly reassuring

+ aggresive about recruiting google reader users, made changes to accommodate.

- web client - more magazine-ish than reader-ish, even after their new update

- NO EXPORT, even after the new update. Looks like this may be strategic.

- mostly feedly's own apps only

FEED WRANGLER (paid 20/year)

+ smart streams

+ some decent app support

+ api on github, twitter

+ native phone apps

- AWFUL looking web ui thats hard to get past

- single developer (EDIT: tx for the reply)

4. FEED_A_FEVER (30/forever)

+ innovative

+ well designed

+ long time, so pretty cleaned up regards to bugs etc.

+ excellent reviews

+ trustworthy dev behind this

+ native app

+ good third party apps

+ api

+ self-hosted

- dev claims he is overwhelmed w/ life and other game related projects atm and will not be able to focus on this.

- have to worry about hosting etc.

Feed Wrangler also has that single developer problem. And while the paid aspect is supposed to be make it self-sustaining, the number of users is critical to whether it is a side-project or something that is a full time job.

I really wish we could see a year into the future, to see which of these services really lasted and were well maintained with new feature updates.

I jumped over to Feedbin when Reeder announced support for it (I am another Reeder die-hard). My experience has been somewhat mixed. I am excited about the server change but I am a bit annoyed that there wasn't a notification about it (I had to go to the blog/twitter to find out why I couldn't get feeds to refresh).

The update to load starred articles from Google Reader excited me quite a bit. It sounds like the business is sustainable and I'm hopeful for its future.

After going over reederapps post and twitters etc. I have a feeling, the next update Silvios is talking about might have it's own backend, but he did say it wouldn't be ready for a few weeks, so I am sort of telling myself, that theres a good chance that whatever I pick might only be for temporary purposes anyway and Export OPML is supert important.

Feedbin might be my final pick.

nice, thanks for sharing. still looking for a good alternative ;)

I also crowdsourced a list - http://getgini.com/google-reader-alternatives

I prefer this list as it summarizes all in one page

I love it. Google should ditch its services more often!

Yeah, most of these appeared in the last couple of months, which is pretty impressive.

I wouldn't mind so much if it was just the reader app that was going away. But Google kept a cache of every article in the Reader indefinitely. Right now, the only existing copy of a lot of old blogs is stuck in that cache, and it's going to be deleted. That bugs me.

You can help save this data actually: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5958119

Here's one more to add to the list: http://www.altfeedreader.com/

I made it, but it provides a simpler and prettier interface to a NewsBlur account (and it's open source: https://github.com/davidjohnstone/alt).

Nice! Added: https://starthq.com/apps/alt

This list is far from complete, because it only mentions web apps.

There are plenty of RSS readers that aren't web-based.

My personal favorite of those is Newsbeuter.[1]

[1] - http://www.newsbeuter.org/index.html

Fair point, although Google Reader is a web app so I think its safe to assume that a viable alternative to it should also be accessible via the browser on any platform.

People differ as to what's important to them in an RSS reader.

Not being spied upon is important to me, so I try to avoid any RSS readers that are hosted on servers that don't belong to me.

I also loathe browser-based applications, for their shitty interfaces, lack of transparency (when they're hosted on some server I don't control), and poor integration with the rest of the unix ecosystem.

So for me, having an open-source, non-browser-based RSS reader trumph the concerns you mention.

Other people may have different needs and concerns, which is why it's important to list every alternative there is, and not just limit them to what one person considers important.

Here is one more to be added: http://bealector.com/

It was made by me and juliogreff, by the way. Still there are a lot of things yet to be implemented and improved, but we are up to it.

Here's another to add: http://www.feedlier.com It's a simple, clean way to aggregate feed stories.

I'd appreciate any feedback on the site as well, it is a work in progress!

Help ArchiveTeam save old blogs that are still cached in Google Reader: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5958119

If you'll accept an app focused purely on podcasts (since a lot of people used Reader for podcasts too): http://player.fm

I submitted it to StartHQ.

StartHQ is primarily a business web app directory, so unfortunately we couldn't include Player. Does look good though.

Good list, it appears Bulletin (http://bulletin.io) is not on the list. Would love to hear feedback regarding it.

It has now been added: https://starthq.com/apps/bulletin

Thank you!

Nice to see Google Reader is an alternative to Google Reader :P

For the next few days only!

I am liking Digg reader the best. It is the only one to have properly imported all my tags and starred items (which go back to 2008)

Nice - I just signed up for an invite. This will be great if the invitation comes before Google shuts down reader - otherwise I doubt I'll be able to import my old stuff.

With Newsblur, which has otherwise been OK, I was only able to import 20 or so starred items.

I am in the same issue. Some readers that I used can't handle thousands of feeds, tags, etc.

Is Digg Reader the best replacement? Is there an independent review?

To import all of your starred stories from Reader, go to Manage > Import.

As of two days ago I had yet to receive my invite. The invitation arrived over the weekend and I was able to import without issues. Thanks.

How is the popularity being determined? I can't believe some of these oddities are more popular than Feedly or Feedbin

FTA: "Based on number of tweets & likes of the app page on StartHQ and Alexa reach"

Please do vote for the reader you're using by liking or tweeting its page - would be great to see which of the alternatives is most popular on HN!

Btw, you can see the underlying Alex reach by clicking the question mark icon.

Which of these support full screen? I tried digg reader and yoleoreader but neither supports it.

Dear HN, what are selfhosted alternatives for google reader outside of tiny-tiny-rss?

Also, http://lector.io

Doesn't look like it's publicly available though.

What's considered an alternative? Anything that can display RSS?

So where is Go Read? Wasn't it on the HN front page yesterday?

I guess the list wasn't all that complete after all ;) Thanks for helping fix that, go read added: https://starthq.com/apps/go-read

I've found Readkit + Newsblur on the desktop and the NewsBlur iOS apps have filled the gap nicely.

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