NetNewsWire icon
NetNewsWire icon

NetNewsWire

 88 likes

RSS reader shows you articles from your favorite blogs and news sites, and it keeps track of what you’ve read.

NetNewsWire screenshot 1

License model

  • FreeOpen Source

Application types

Country of Origin

  • US flagUnited States

Platforms

  • Mac
  • iPhone
  • iPad
4.8 / 5 Avg rating (5)
88likes
5comments
0news articles

Features

Suggest and vote on features

Properties

  1.  Lightweight
  2.  Privacy focused
  3.  Support for Themes

Features

  1.  Feed Reader
  2.  Ad-free
  3.  Works Offline
  4.  Import/Export OPML Feeds
  5.  Dark Mode
  6.  No registration required
  7.  No Tracking
  8.  Extensible by Plugins/Extensions

 Tags

NetNewsWire News & Activities

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NetNewsWire information

  • Developed by

    US flagBrent Simmons
  • Licensing

    Open Source (MIT) and Free product.
  • Written in

  • Rating

    Average rating of 4.8
  • Alternatives

    245 alternatives listed
  • Supported Languages

    • English

AlternativeTo Category

News & Books

Apple AppStore

  •   Updated Jan 23, 2025
  •   4.75 avg rating
View in AppStore

GitHub repository

  •  8,811 Stars
  •  559 Forks
  •  838 Open Issues
  •   Updated May 13, 2025 
View on GitHub

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Our users have written 5 comments and reviews about NetNewsWire, and it has gotten 88 likes

NetNewsWire was added to AlternativeTo by radrew on May 19, 2009 and this page was last updated Aug 16, 2022. NetNewsWire is sometimes referred to as NNW, Evergreen.

Comments and Reviews

   
 Post comment/review
Top Positive Comment
Kelson V
Apr 10, 2023
0

Clean, stable, fast, free, no-clutter and no-nonsense. You can read articles in the application or open them in the web browser of your choice.

It's an app, not a service, so it's not tracking you or inserting ads. That also means there's no web version. But it can sync over iCloud, and with a variety of web-based newsreaders, so you can keep track of your subscriptions and read/unread articles across devices.

I haven't used the iOS version, but I highly recommend the macOS application!

Duncan Briggs
Dec 31, 2024
1

NetNewsWire has a Reader View feature which attempts to fetch the full text of a news article. I tested this feature on an article from BBC News. Unfortunately, Reader View missed the last three paragraphs of the article.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr56jlpr2zqo

Duncan Briggs
Dec 31, 2024

Reader View downloads the full text of a news article when reading it –– not when refreshing the feed. So Reader View does not work offline.

Duncan Briggs
Jan 25, 2025
undeniably_lizard
Aug 14, 2022
0

Though only available on the Apple ecosystem, it features a functional (and semi-modern) design. I appreciate the way that it is both easily usable and customizable.

sgk0bjpe0er
Mar 16, 2020
0

NetNewsWire, which was relaunched on the Mac in August 2019, finally is available for iPhone and iPad. It is built on a foundation of fast syncing and sensible, bug-free, accessible design.

Like the Mac app, NetNewsWire is fast and reliable. I follow hundreds of feeds, and NetNewsWire loads new articles as fast and often faster than any other RSS client I’ve used. The app is rock solid. If you’ve followed the development on GitHub, you know they’ve been relentlessly squashing bugs for weeks leading up to the launch and the dedication shows.

Ditch Feedly and all the other data-mining apps, NetNewsWire is open source and free and ready to be your primary RSS client today!

keizie
Sep 16, 2009
0

Lately can sync to Google Reader as backend, except for account-related features like sharing and commenting.

What is NetNewsWire?

NetNewsWire is a news RSS aggregator for MacOS, iOS and iPadOS.

We value stability, performance, quality, platform-specific design and accessibility.

Features for MacOS include:

  • Safari extension for easy feed-adding
  • Direct feed-downloading
  • Syncing via Feedbin
  • Sharing to Mail, MarsEdit, Micro.blog, Notes, Messages, and so on
  • Easy keyboard navigation
  • Single-key keyboard shortcuts
  • AppleScript support
  • Dark Mode
  • Starred articles
  • All Unread and Today smart feeds
  • Folders
  • Background refreshing
  • Importing and exporting OPML feed lists
  • Searching
  • Help book
  • Multiple accounts
  • Customizable toolbar

We’ll be adding more in future releases, of course, including support for more syncing services.

Features for iOS/iPadOS include:

  • Direct feed-downloading
  • Syncing via Feedbin and Feedly
  • Multiple accounts
  • Dark Mode
  • Reader view
  • Share sheet
  • Starred articles
  • All Unread and Today smart feeds
  • Folders
  • Importing and exporting OPML feed lists
  • Background refreshing
  • Searching
  • Hiding read articles
  • Timeline customization
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Context menus
  • Support for multiple windows

The version 1.0 was introduced in 2002 by Brent Simmons. It included custom feed views, custom downloading and opening of podcasts, synchronization of feeds and feed status between computers, Bloglines support, and a built-in tabbed browser.

Over the years, new features were added (also support for iPhone and iPad) and it was acquired by NewsGator Technologies in 2005 and later by Black Pixel in 2011.

On August 31, 2018 Black Pixel announced that they have returned the NetNewsWire intellectual property to Brent Simmons, that completely rewrote the program as a Free and Opensource Mac RSS reader.

Now version 5.0 is at a very early stage and supports RSS, Atom, JSON Feed, and RSS-in-JSON formats.

Official Links