Today is the day the sun sets on Google Reader. Back in march, Google announced the shutdown of the RSS Reader service and what followed the announcement was a developers explosion of great alternative RSS Readers - Feedly, Feed Wrangler, Fever, Feedbin, Digg Reader, AOL Reader, FeedHQ, BazQuax Reader and NewsBlur are just some of the new alternatives.
After taking out all my subscriptions from Google Reader, I set out the find the alternative for me.
I tested some of the alternatives and from the services I tested, Feedly and Feed Wrangler are the ones that I kept coming back to.
Feedly has all the tags, folders, stars and basic features, with a “mark all as read feature”, great social sharing options, read later options, keyboard shortcuts and a lot of customizable options, like font, look, text layout and more. Feedly has apps for iPhone and iPad and support for third party apps with a powerful API. Feedly is free to use and since you login to the service with your Google account, all your data from Google Reader is imported automatically. There is just feature that is missing in Feedly, and that feature is Search.
Feed Wrangler is like the power user version of Google Reader, it has everything you would want from your Google Reader alternative but without folders. But it covers for it’s lack of folders with 2 great additions: Smarts Streams and Filters.
Filters allow you to mute keywords from your feeds, so if you muted for example WWDC, all posts that talk about WWDC will be muted until you turn the filter off. Filters are account wide so they filter the keywords on all of your feeds, while Smart Streams are feeds you make by using filters, keywords and rules. You can use Smart Streams to replace Folders on Feed Wrangler and you can also use them to create a subject specific feed, like an iOS feed that shows posts only contain news about iOS. Feed Wrangler, like Feedly, has iOS apps and an API for third party apps, but Feed Wrangler is not free, it costs 19$ yearly fee, but if you ask me, it’s worth it.
If you are a basic user that don’t need the extra features, I suggest you go for Feedly. But if you are a power user and check your feeds everyday, you might want to check Feed Wrangler.
Feedly and Feed Wrangler are available on my favorite iOS Reader apps: Reeder on iPhone and Mr. Reader on the iPad. But also on other apps. Here is a handy list posted by TUAW with apps by service:
Feedly: Mr. Reader, Reeder for iPhone, Newsify, Byline for iPhone and Byline Universal.
Feed Wrangler: Mr. Reader , Reeder for iPhone, Slow Feeds and ReadKit for Mac.
Feedbin: Mr. Reader , Reeder for iPhone, Slow Feeds, Favs, Readlines for Feedbin, Bulletin for Feedbin and Readkit for Mac.
Fever: Mr. Reader , Reeder for iPhone and ReadKit for Mac.
NewsBlur: Slow Feeds.
BazQuax Reader: Mr. Reader.
FeedHQ: Mr. Reader.
I hoped I helped you find your new replacement for Google Reader. If you have questions/ideas/suggestions/something to say about anything on the website, feel free to contact me via email, Twitter or App.net, Thanks for reading! :)