Alternatives to Vienna RSS
Open-source RSS and Atom reader for macOS with smart folders. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
Vienna RSS
Open-source RSS and Atom reader for macOS with smart folders.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as Vienna RSS.
NetNewsWire
Free, open-source feed reader for Mac, iPhone and iPad.
NetNewsWire is a free MIT-licensed reader for Mac, iPhone and iPad with iCloud and many back ends, but has no smart folders or rules.
Reeder
Apple-platform timeline reader for feeds, podcasts and videos.
Reeder adds a timeline covering feeds, podcasts and videos with iCloud sync on macOS and iOS, but is freemium and closed source.
Reeder Classic
The classic Reeder feed reader, still sold separately.
Reeder Classic offers folders, unread counts and nearly every sync back end on Apple platforms, but is a paid closed-source app.
Fiery Feeds
Power-user iOS and macOS reader supporting many back ends.
Fiery Feeds brings smart views and many sync back ends to macOS and iOS, but most features require a paid subscription.
Unread
iOS and macOS feed reader designed around comfortable reading.
Unread focuses on typography and full-text fetching on macOS and iOS, but requires a subscription for most functionality.
lire
iOS and macOS reader that downloads full articles for offline use.
lire downloads full articles for offline reading on macOS and iOS with text search, as a paid closed-source purchase per platform.
RSS Guard
A desktop feed reader that also logs into Feedly, Inoreader and self-hosted readers, and plays podcasts.
RSS Guard is a free cross-platform Qt reader with Feedly, Inoreader and self-hosted sync plus a podcast player, though its styling looks out of place on macOS.
Fluent Reader
A desktop RSS reader with a Fluent Design interface that works locally or syncs with Inoreader, Feedbin, Fever and Google Reader API services.
Fluent Reader runs on macOS, Windows and Linux with regex rules and sync to Inoreader or Feedbin, but it is a heavy Electron app.
Also worth comparing
These listings name Vienna RSS as their own alternative, so the relationship runs both ways.
QuiteRSS
Cross-platform desktop feed reader with an embedded browser.
Vienna RSS is an open-source native macOS reader with smart folders, so Windows and Linux users lose out, and its sync support is limited.
ReadKit
An RSS and read-later client for iPhone, iPad and Mac that syncs with many feed services.
Vienna RSS is a free Apache-2.0 reader with smart folders, but it runs on macOS only and has limited sync support.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
Feedbin
Paid RSS reader that also handles newsletters and YouTube.
FreshRSS
A self-hosted feed reader that is light enough to run on a cheap shared host and still handles hundreds of feeds.
Newsboat
Terminal RSS and Atom reader with heavy keyboard control.
Miniflux
A deliberately minimal feed reader: one Go binary, a PostgreSQL database, and no options you do not need.
