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Ask HN: Have you settled on a Google Reader replacement?

38 points by mwexler ↗ HN
Feedly keeps popping up as a winner; some love Newsblur, some say The Old Reader or Tiny RSS. Just asking: have you settled on a winner? What were pros and cons? Do you read on both desktop and mobile, and did that play into your choice?

89 comments

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tocomment
I just started with commafeed.com The good is that it's simple, looks like google reader, and had a 1-click import from google reader.

The bad is that it seems slow to update and it's almost unusable on the iPhone.

prathibhanu
Most of my feeds does not get updated and seems to be slow. So, i am going with multiplx.com and pretty happy with it.
venkasub
Using Feedly for the past couple of weeks. Good so far and the UI is neat.
tusharc
I've been using Feedly (desktop and mobile) and quite like the experience
mhausenblas
Feedly here, both on desktop and mobile. Luv it!
farslan
I'm using https://feedbin.me/. The design is really good and has Reeder support (which is handy because I have both Mac and iPhone clients)
gromgull
I am trying with feedly, but on Android:

* no offline support

* no way to not use the built-in browser for opening links

* no way to go from a post to all posts from this source

lowmagnet
And on the review pages they stuff a lot of high-star reviews with the same text such as:

> Since the announcement of Google Reader being discontinued, I have enjoyed this easy app. It also has a simple, attractive interface. Highly recommend.

and:

> Feedly has managed to create a visually appealing RSS reader, that also focusus on a clean simple visual style that is intuitive to use.

It's really weird.

zfran
Yes, Feedly. I tried it out when Google announced the shutdown, and I wasn't completely satisfied, but then 2 or 3 weeks after that I started using it more and it felt a lot better. I don't know exactly what changes they made, or if they made any at all, but the experience feels fairly polished now. I like to think that they worked on the feedback the Google Reader refugees gave them. I'm quite happy with it, and I've stopped using Reader completely.
notirk
I'm still searching for a perfect substitute. Feedly is the best I've found so far. I've very pleased with the desktop experience. Although, I really liked the Google Reader widget for Android and the Feedly one isn't as dense information wise, and reading offline (when on the subway) has proved to be problematic.
arocks
I have been using Feedly for a bit and my analysis:

PROS

- Great UI. Layout similar to a Magazine

- Intelligent sorting of content - Must Reads etc.

CONS

- No offline reading on Android app

- No pure HTML client like Google Reader

- Feedly Chrome Extension eats up RAM and slows down my laptop. Uninstalled.

CONCLUSION: Still looking for a better alternative

perlpimp
yeah feedly seems to sort of fill the gap for me as well for same reasons.
coldpie
I switched to Feedly. I browse only on my Android phone, and I find the app works very well. I like that they're reimplementing the Reader backend, which means I don't have to worry about keeping track of my feeds when I get a new phone or install a new version of Android. I also like their communication with users.
nodata
The only reason I use RSS, is for offline reading. Which is why I can't use feedly, as much as I'd like to :(
aychedee
Yeah, Feedly developers, if you are reading this. Don't inject an image into every page I visit. Uninstalled.

I've gone with Newsblur now.

firearch
I have been working on building my own(FeedRebel.com) for the past few weeks. It's far from perfect at the moment and web only. I plan on doing a Show HN at some point but would love some early feedback as well. Here is the url http://www.feedrebel.com
fakeer
FeedBin.

But keeping an open mind. Looking for better changes and sync/2rd party support from FeedHQ, NewsBlur and TheOldReader etc. Feedly is not my thing. It's a funny service. No sync to third party client. You need a Firefox client to read on its website. Means it spies in you.

rounak
Using feedly, find it a decent alternative.
olegp
Here's a list of replacements with some additional information such as their popularity, recent blog posts etc. https://starthq.com/apps/?q=reader

If there are any missing, please submit them via the "Submit App" link in the footer.

gateaumoisi
tried to keep away from google starting some months ago (prior to google reader shutdown), and i tried some cli softwares on linux, Newsbeuter is amazing. http://newsbeuter.org/
aerique
Blogtrottr (http://blogtrottr.com/) is an RSS to e-mail service. Combined with filtering, good old procmail for me, it makes a nice alternative to Google Reader since it automatically works on mobile as well.

I really don't need all the social 'features' that come with other RSS services.

__--__
rss2email is a good way of running your own rss to email service. I only say this because rss to email services have a nasty habit of shutting down.
dochtman
I found the Feedly Firefox plugin to slow down Firefox a lot, so that wasn't really a good experience.

So far, as a FeedDemon on Windows, Reeder on OS X and Reader on Android user, NewsBlur looks like the best option from where I sit (as a 10-year RSS reader user with some 120 feeds ATM). Going to try Feedbin, though.

jareds
I use Tiny Tiny RSS and it works well enough with the web interface on my desktop. Although it's self hosted I have no problem using a $2.5 per month vps with 256 mb of ram to host it. For mobile access I use YATTRSSC which is a decent tt-rss client.
markbernard
Also use TT-RSS as I need to check from behind a restrictive proxy.
satyap
I like TT-RSS. It has that mark-read-on-scroll thing as well as next/previous article by arrow keys (or k/j) thing. Awesome sauce.
nicholaides
I'm using http://theoldreader.com/
br0ke
I'm also using theooldreader, but find that updates are sometimes slow and it seems to miss some stuff, so I've been using an install of tinytinyrss as well
bitboxer
Basically I am waiting for the Reeder App Guy to Announce what he will do with the app. If he goes the "give me an google api compliant endpoint and it will connect to it", I might use https://github.com/swanson/stringer , looks really promising so far. But I need Reeder to support it first.
swanson
Just pushed some basic Reeder support to Stringer last night :)
bitboxer
Ah, great! Thanks for this !
cgislason
Reeder is going to use Feedbin. See: http://reederapp.com/reader/
bitboxer
That is not the only option he added. But a final info from him how he sees reeder in the future would be great.
cgislason
Right. I read that, and in hindsight should have used more inclusive wording. Anyway, I really like Feedbin even though it could use a bit more polish (a couple of animations would go a long way e.g. when it is loading an article).
codva
I'm using TT-RSS. I just installed it in a subdirectory of my existing domain account - so no incremental cost at all.
girzel
gwene.org, then read in gnus via nntp.