In NewsBlur the full text of an article, search and notifications are available only on paid plans, and it can’t fetch Telegram, Substack, Fanbox, Patreon and other paid blogs. In Readine full text and search come out of the box, and you can also set up automatic export to cloud storage or Obsidian.
NewsBlur fetches the full text itself, and on some sites it does not work — instead of the article you get a message that the text could not be extracted. In Readine there are specialised parsers for popular sites, and the support team handles cases like that.
NewsBlur doesn’t fetch Telegram or articles that require a subscription or an account: Substack, Boosty, Fanbox, Patreon and Sponsr.
In Readine you can read them, but for that you have to buy the password-protected feeds module. You pay the author on their own site.
Another difference is that Readine can export full articles to a file, images included. You choose the destination, and a rule saves the file to cloud storage (Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Yandex Disk) in HTML or DOCX format. Obsidian costs extra, and it pulls the articles into your vault itself.
| What | NewsBlur | Readine |
|---|---|---|
| Full text and search | available only on paid plans | free |
| Text extraction | fails on some sites | has dedicated parsers for popular sites |
| Export of articles | to Pocket, Instapaper, Evernote or Notion via IFTTT and Zapier; labels and saved searches come as RSS feeds | HTML or DOCX to cloud storage, Markdown to Obsidian |
| Offline copies | in the mobile apps | on every device, desktop included |
| RSS, Atom | supported | supported |
| Email newsletters | supported | not supported |
| Telegram | not supported | supports public channels and private chats |
| Substack, Boosty, Fanbox, Patreon, Sponsr | not supported | through the password-protected feeds module |
| Sites without a feed | yes — it can build a feed from a page (paid plans) | no universal method |
| Ads | yes | none on any plan |
Scrolling through a feed and deciding what to read sometimes takes more time than the reading itself. In NewsBlur, algorithms do the choosing — you give a thumbs up or down to an author, a tag or a word in the title, and matching articles are highlighted.
In Readine, rules are a separate module: a condition can be set on the title, full text, URL or tag. A rule consists of a condition and an action. The action applies to the whole article: delete it, add it to favourites, mark it as read, send a push notification or an email. One rule can be applied to all feeds at once or to several chosen feeds.
| What | NewsBlur | Readine |
|---|---|---|
| Rules and filters | filters driven by your ratings | by matching a word in the title, full text, URL or tag |
| What the selection does | highlights matching articles | delete, add to favourites, mark as read, remove all tags, add a tag, export, send a push notification or an email |
| Notification frequency | immediately for each article | batched into one, from every minute to once a day |
| Notification content | the title, optionally a preview of the article | the text you set, plus a list of links in emails |
| Regular expressions | on the Pro plan only | no |
Your subscriptions move straight out of your account — the import wizard logs into NewsBlur and pulls the feeds along with favourites and unread items.
The second way is an OPML file. It moves subscriptions and folders. The free plan limit does not apply during import.
Q: Is it worth leaving NewsBlur?
A: Need your own server or filters that learn from ratings? Then stay put — Readine doesn’t offer that. If you need Telegram or paid blogs in your feed, leave.
Q: Does NewsBlur read Telegram?
A: No, it does not. In Readine you can read both public channels and private chats through a separate paid module.
Q: Are rules and filters moved?
A: No. The OPML file only carries subscriptions and folders, and NewsBlur’s filters learn from your ratings — so in Readine you build your rules from scratch.
Q: Does NewsBlur have ads?
A: On paid plans you get banners pushing you towards a pricier plan. Readine has no ads at all — not on the free plan, not on the paid one.
Q: Is there a desktop app?
A: NewsBlur has a web version and phone apps. Readine has both, plus apps for macOS, Windows and Ubuntu.