whether you are Tired of social media, want to get rid of endless notifications, or just want to read your news in one place, an RSS reader can help. RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. It’s a protocol that allows RSS readers to talk to and get updates from your favorite websites. Instead of visiting 10 sites to see what’s new, you see a single page with all the new content.
RSS has two parts: an RSS reader and a feed of your favorite websites. RSS has been around for a while, so there are a lot of really good RSS readers out there. Most of them have built-in search and suggestions, so you don’t have to hunt for the feed yourself. You might find some cool new sites to read.
I’ve been using RSS for over a decade and spent the last few months trying out nearly a dozen RSS reader services. The following picks are the best RSS readers available. Once you find one you like, put it on one of our best tablets or one of the best iPads for easy reading on the go.
Update August 2022: We’ve added Feedbin and updated prices throughout.
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best overall
Inoreader offers a well-designed interface, good search and discovery options, and a set of beginner-friendly features, with plenty of options for advanced users. There is a web interface as well as iOS and Android apps. Inoreader handles more than just RSS feeds – you can add email newsletters, Facebook pages, Twitter searches, podcasts, and even Telegram channels.
Advanced users will appreciate extra features like keyword monitoring. Enter your search term and Inoreader will search all your feeds for any mention of that keyword or phrase, then create a feed of only those articles. You can also do the opposite and hide articles that match the phrase. Inoreader also provides a nice automation system that you can use to create rules and filter your feed to give higher priority. For example, you can get a push notification every time WIRED posts a new comment, but not our other content.
Automation requires a pro account, which also offers some other nice features, such as the ability to integrate with IFTTT and Zapier, an offline mode for the mobile app. It also includes my favorite: keeping your YouTube account in sync with your RSS readings. You can watch YouTube videos in Inoreader, and the next time you log into YouTube, you won’t have a lot of unwatched videos.
