Fiery Feeds vs News Explorer

Fiery Feeds

• People who already use a feed service and want an Apple client for it
• Readers who want feeds and a read-later queue in one app
• Users who like to adjust layouts, themes and sharing actions in detail

News Explorer

• People on Apple devices who want feed sync without creating an account
• Readers who would rather pay once than subscribe
• Following Reddit, YouTube, Mastodon and podcast feeds alongside RSS

Fiery Feeds

• Apple platforms only: iPhone, iPad and Mac, with no web, Windows or Android version listed.
• Text extraction, offline full text, feed management, smart views, custom themes and home screen widgets are Pro features.
• The US App Store lists Pro purchases of $1.99, $4.99 and $9.99 without saying which billing period each covers.
• The App Store listing requires iOS 17, iPadOS 17 or macOS 14 or later.

News Explorer

• Built only for Apple platforms, with syncing that relies on iCloud; there is no web, Windows or Android version.
• The Mac app and the mobile app are separate purchases, listed at $9.99 and $4.99 on the US App Store.
• The 14-day trial is a download of the Mac edition; the App Store editions are paid up front.
• Current versions need macOS 15.6 or iOS and iPadOS 18 or later, and the Apple Watch app needs a paired iPhone.

Fiery Feeds

Wide choice of feed accounts

Works with Feedly, Feedbin, Fever, Inoreader, NewsBlur, BazQux, The Old Reader, FeedHQ, FreshRSS and Tiny Tiny RSS, and with local or iCloud feed accounts that need no outside service.

Article, web and text view modes

An article can be shown as the feed supplies it, as the web page inline, or as extracted text only, and the last mode used is remembered per feed. Text extraction is a Pro feature.

Smart views and saved searches

Hot Links collects the sites most linked to from your articles, and other views sort by posting frequency or word count. Saved searches filter by keyword. Smart views are a Pro feature.

Read-later accounts

Instapaper and wallabag accounts sync both ways, and links can also be kept in a local or iCloud read-later account. A Safari extension subscribes to feeds and saves links.

Layouts, themes and keyboard control

One-, two- and three-pane layouts and a vertical split are available, fonts and colors can be changed, and an external keyboard can control the whole app. Custom themes need Pro.

Apple Intelligence summaries

Version 2.15 added article summaries, topic categorization and translation through Apple Intelligence on iOS 26, and a later update added a single switch that turns the AI features off.

News Explorer

iCloud sync without an account

Feeds, folders, articles, read status, favorites, filters, notes and tags sync through iCloud across Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV, with no other service to sign up for.

Many feed types

Reads RSS, Atom, RDF and JSON feeds along with Mastodon, Bluesky, Reddit, YouTube channel and podcast feeds, and a built-in search finds new feeds by keyword.

Automatic Reader view

For supported sources the app downloads the full original article and shows it in a clean format. Several Reader view engines are available and can be chosen per feed.

Smart filters and prefilters

Sidebar filters match on title, content, author, tags or dates, and prefilters stop unwanted articles from being downloaded at all. Both sync between devices through iCloud.

Article comments

Comments can be read inside the app for feeds that publish a comment feed per article, and for YouTube, Reddit and Hacker News feeds.

Notes, tags and sharing

Rich-text notes and custom tags can be attached to articles, and built-in sharing sends items to Instapaper, Raindrop.io and Readwise.

Fiery Feeds

• Free$0

  Reading and syncing with the supported feed and read-later accounts, without the Pro features.

• Fiery Feeds Pro$1.99 to $9.99

  subscription; billing periods not shown on the US App Store

  Unlocks text extraction, offline full text, feed management, smart views, custom themes and actions, alternate icons and widgets on iPhone, iPad and Mac.

News Explorer

• Mobile edition$4.99

  one-time purchase (US App Store)

  Universal purchase covering iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Apple TV. It does not include the Mac app.

• Mac edition$9.99

  one-time purchase (US Mac App Store)

  The macOS app. Also sold as a Personal License in the Betamagic Store, where the 14-day trial is offered, and included in Setapp.