Reeder Classic vs. Inoreader

Mar 27, 2025

Edit from the future: In hindsight, this is a hasty and shallow comparison. Look elsewhere for something remotely thorough. Also, I'm going back to Inoreader. 😆

I recently moved from Reeder Classic to Inoreader. I did this primarily to experiment with Inoreader’s filtered feeds. I was hoping to filter “Trump” out of the news to make the news cycle more palatable and to focus my limited attention more on local news. This was a worthwhile experiment, but after a couple months, I don’t find myself too attached to the feature. (I end up eventually wanting some sense of what Trump’s up to, for better and often worse.)

Today, I went to add a feed to Inoreader, and it processed for a long time before presenting any options. A minor issue, but it reminded me that, in general, I find Inoreader’s feed-adding UX to be a bit clunky. For example, it’s not obvious to me whether it’s letting me add exactly the feed I gave it, or if instead it’s trying to find the most similar one that it’s already tracking. This is probably easy to figure out if I actually studied the results, which I admittedly haven’t. It just feels like there’s some unnecessary-for-me complexity going on behind the scenes. Perhaps it’s because Inoreader is an aggregator rather than a mere client like Reeder.

Because my primary reason for moving to Inoreader is now moot, I think I’ll give Reeder another shot. Below are some assorted thoughts in support of that decision.

I’m all in on Apple, so Reeder’s lack of cross-platform apps and web access doesn’t bother me.

Reeder’s UI/UX feels polished. Inoreader feels more utilitarian.

I kind of like that I can’t access Reeder without installing it on a device. I try to keep my phone as unappealing as possible so it’s less of a distraction. That means I deliberately did not install Reeder. But I’ve found myself getting into Inoreader on my phone, since it’s just a web app and is accessible anywhere. This is of course a me-problem rather than a problem with Inoreader.

I’ve already paid the one-time fee for Reeder, whereas Inoreader is a subscription model at $90/year after the first year’s discount.