Skype is one such tool, and probably the best known. I’m going to concentrate mainly on recording Skype calls for Podcasting in this guide, but a lot of what I say can just as easily be applied to Google Hangouts, Appear.in or one of the many other Voice over IP (VOIP) systems. For this piece, we will focus on the best, free, online RSS services—the best alternatives to Google Reader and Digg Reader—and we narrowed our recommendations using the following criteria: Free: Each featured app is either completely free, or it offers a free plan that rivals the features of most premium plans on the market. Popular, free podcasting tools you can use to create, host, and grow your podcast without buying the premium alternatives. Audio, video, website, and more tools to help you be a successful podcaster without having to be rich. The best tools and tech to create a podcast in 2018. By Ren LaForme June 18, 2018 Tags: Try This! Newsletter; This article originally appeared in Try This! A tool called Descript (Mac only. Which Windows Podcast Manager Is The Best? Well, that depends on the combination of features you prefer — many people prefer iTunes for its integration with iPods and other Apple devices, while other Windows users would flock to VLC for its minimal, lightweight approach to podcasts.

1. Best Podcast Software For Mac
2. Itool For Mac
3. Best Free Podcast Software For Mac
4. Best Podcast App For Mac Reddit
5. Best Podcast Editing Software For Mac
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Testing 10 voice recording applications was both educational and informative. We pushed each one to its limit testing its organizational, audio capturing and audio editing abilities, extensive file conversion and compression functionality, and even file importing and exporting abilities.

WavePad is an easy-to-use audio recording application that’s feature-rich and powerful. Although it lacks unlimited technical support, it can handle any project and create professional-quality audio recordings.

We ran multiple tests using a USB microphone, a computer’s built-in microphone, CDs, DVDs, streaming audio and other input sources to test standard audio capture, scheduled capture and voice-activated capture.

This showed us which programs could recognize and capture a quality audio recording. We worked with several built-in filters and special effects to determine the extent of each application’s editing abilities, as well as how efficiently it could edit.

We also compared each program’s features and functionality with its price to determine its overall value for any user.

Our overall winner is WavePad. It has a clean and highly intuitive interface that’s approachable for users of any experience level.

It works with and wide variety of file formats, filters and special effects so you can polish your audio tracks.

WavePad

WavePad is an easy-to-use audio recording application that’s feature-rich and powerful. Although it lacks unlimited technical support, it can handle any project and create professional-quality audio recordings.

Audacity

Audacity is free audio recording software aimed at those focusing more on recording and editing voice audio clips rather than recording or building multi-track beats made from samples and loops.

Mixcraft 8

Mixcraft 8 is easy-to-use audio recording software with superb functionality and extensive control over filters and special effects editing. You can record multiple tracks and even convert or compress files.

Best Overall

Reasons to Buy

Best Podcast Software For Mac

Reasons to Avoid

WavePad is intuitive and powerful voice recording software that’s simple enough for a novice to use. It is compatible with a multitude of audio file formats and gives you the option to convert files to an equally large array of audio formats. The program can mix and split audio files, edit silences, reduce or eliminate background noise, integrate filters and special effects, and even convert a mono audio file into stereo.

The program’s layout is clean and intuitive, and meant to encourage a smooth workflow. It does an impressive job of balancing all of its features without hurting its usability. Toolbars within change as you click on different tabs, keeping features and functions organized. It lets you customize the toolbar to include or remove any tool and configure many other features to create an optimal workspace.
WavePad comes with tons of effects and filters, which can be applied manually or set automatically. Whether you want to add distortion, reverb or a delay to your latest song, or you need to amplify, reverse, fade out or otherwise tweak and equalize your tracks, WavePad makes it easy to do that. And if you need to convert a file to a different format that’s compatible with your gear, such as to MP3, you can quickly do so.

Best Value

Reasons to Buy

Reasons to Avoid

Despite being open-sourced and free, Audacity has held its own for years amongst other pricy options within the audio recording software industry. Its availability for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux has the more OS compatibility than any of the paid options. Its clean interface is approachable even for the most novice of users. Beware, however, that Audacity’s bare-bones design is geared more for users wanting to create vocal audio for a podcast, rather than multi-track music created from samplers, loops and MIDI instruments. Overall, though, Audacity is an immense value, especially for anyone wanting to try out a program like this before dropping serious cash.

Don’t be fooled by Audacity’s simplistic interface; within a few minutes of tinkering, you can easily find a battery of features and controls. The program makes it easy to connect and set up external equipment, record, edit and mix tracks, and polish your work before exporting it. You have access to tools for adjusting things like treble and bass, and even frequency analysis. The largest downside of the program, however, is that it makes use of destructive editing, which means that any changes you make on your track alter its actual waveform – the original file – and you can’t undo them later.
Should you have a question regarding the software, Audacity has tons of informational resources on its website including tutorials, manuals and a community user forum. However, unlike the other programs we reviewed, there is no direct customer service.

Best DAW Crossover

Reasons to Buy

Reasons to Avoid

Although Mixcraft 8 is easy enough for people of any experience level to use, the recording application looks and works like a digital audio workstation and has an intimidating-looking interface. However, after tinkering for a few minutes, anyone can see that the software is powerful and full of features to help you not only record your audio but edit, enhance and burn it as well. And while it is the priciest program we tested, it’s also the most versatile and a great option for those focusing on audio engineering and music recording.

Mixcraft is stocked with an arsenal of over 7,800 loops, special effects, filters, digital instruments and samplers. It also boasts unlimited submix nesting, allowing you to tweak each track perfectly. All of the standard effects and editing functions are available to you, including an equalizer as well as fade and reverb options. It can reduce or eliminate unwanted background noise, remove pops and clicks, and edit silences in your tracks. There is no option for converting a mono audio file to stereo. You can set a recording timer; however, the biggest downside to this particular program is that it doesn’t have a voice-activated recording option. There’s also no ripping or burning option.

Most Recording Options

Reasons to Buy

Though RecordPad is technically part of a larger range of digital audio applications from NCH Software, it runs as a standalone recording tool capable of supporting audio feeds from multiple channels.

You can use the other programs to complement and enhance RecordPad’s abilities, however. The software supports audio input from all sources using default application settings and the “loop cable” method, and it allows you to capture audio from internet streaming sources, a line-in device or computer playback.
With this recording software, you can record, rip or burn audio, and schedule future recordings, though you may need to enable a plugin for editing, conversion and burning functions. If you want to edit or add effects to your audio, you’ll have access to noise reduction, reverb, pop and click removal, equalizing and fade among other abilities. However, keep in mind that the program’s weak point is its limited file format compatibility. It’s only compatible with WAV, MP3 and FLAC, unlike other programs that include several others.

Most Support Options

Reasons to Buy

Reasons to Avoid

AV Music Morpher Gold is straightforward voice recording software that leaves out the frills.

It’s also backed by more technical support and informational resources than any other application in our comparison. It has enough tools to help you record and edit audio as well as convert file formats and burn audio as needed. The software is decently easy to use and leaves out super advanced features, making it great for the average user. Despite slightly missing the mark with a few editing effects and recording tools, it is a powerful option nonetheless.
The program supports audio input sources from all standard audio feed and input sources, such as line-in devices, microphones, internet streaming, video playback and audio playback. To record audio, you’ll have to manually initiate the process, as there are no voice-activation or timer options. If you’re wanting to rip audio rather than record it, the software has a tool for doing so, and you can save to WMA, MP3, WAV, OGG and FLAC formats among others. You can also easily apply a variety of filters to your audio, including amplify, notch filter, mix and normalize, then alter the pitch, timbre, speed and other settings.

Why Trust Us

We have been reviewing voice recording software for over eight years, and our most recent series of in-house tests took over 15 hours. Each program was carefully assessed and thoroughly tested by multiple qualified experts who record audio by trade (and sometimes just for fun). We set up multiple testing scenarios involving microphones, CDs, DVDs, flash drives and other audio input sources to simulate how the software would typically be used.

In addition, our test assistants evaluated each program’s ease of use and effectiveness. They told us who they thought would enjoy the software most – beginners or experienced users. Our assistants also discussed their opinions on each application’s customizability options and tools for both editing and exporting audio. All of this factored into our final scoring of each of these 10 products.

How Much Does Voice Recording Software Cost?

Voice recording software that you can use at home is largely free, thanks to popular and powerful programs like Audacity. However, there are also paid options that run from $30 up to $200, though at the higher end, the software becomes more of a DAW.

Why Voice Recording Software?

How many times have you regretted not recording an important phone conversation, business meeting or class lecture? Or perhaps you missed the opportunity to digitize your cherished cassettes and vinyl collection before time and use took their toll on them. Luckily, audio recording software presents us with a way to capture and preserve audio digitally.

Good voice recording software, with ample features and tools, is a prerequisite to a quality digital reproduction. The quality of your audio recordings, especially voice, has to be maintained through its various stages of recording, mixing, editing and burning. Otherwise, the end product could be compromised and, in extreme cases, rendered inaudible or unusable. This seemingly ominous task is made easy with modern recording software. Any person, with a little practice, can master this user-friendly software.

Key Features to Look for in Voice Recording Software

Most of the voice recording programs in our comparison come bundled with all the required tools and features needed to perform several tasks, including audio input, editing and output. There are a number of aspects you should consider while evaluating your voice recording options. Below are the features and criteria we looked at to compare the best voice recording software:

Audio Feed/Input Source for Capture
Recording is traditionally done using a microphone and line-in jacks located on the audio interface panel of the computer system. But more advanced software also supports audio pick-up from media playback; CD, VCD, DVD, USB devices; internet streaming; phone recording or any audio playback by sound card. Essentially, you can record any audio being played by or through the computer. The best recording applications understand this and already have the ability to work with you if you need to work with other input sources. Consider your current input methods – and any you plan to use in the future – before choosing an application.

Record/Rip/Burn Features
A few additional features are essential to the recording and sharing process. For example, recording timers and schedulers let you define the time frame of a particular session, ensuring that your recordings start and end exactly when you need. Similarly, voice-activated recording automates the start of a recording session whenever a predefined level of audio signal (decibels) is registered by the software. All of these can make it a little easier to record things like a podcast or a college lecture without wasting space on your computer’s hard drive.

A program with both digital and analog ripping offers the most versatility for a variety of needs. Digital ripping is useful when recording digital media, and you need analog ripping with copy-protected digital media that cannot be ripped conventionally. Both are handy methods to digitize your aging CD or DVD collection, for example. Burn tools are used for saving files to optical media for storage and playback.

Filters, Effects and Editing
Most of the time, simply recording the audio isn’t enough; you may want to enhance the recording or edit the files before releasing your finalized product. You might need to edit a silence, add a filter or special effect, or manage background noise. Most programs can handle standard editing needs, but the best applications can handle whatever you throw at them.

Many programs let you trim or insert a silence in an audio track or file, which typically smooths out the flow of a recording or makes it easier to add music or other effects later. Special effects like Sound Warmer, Bass Boost or Echo can also be applied to further enhance or achieve a particular audio effect. Whether you’re using filters and effects to enhance clarity or for fun voice morphing, a good set of filters is an essential component of voice recording software. Some programs – typically those with a DAW interface – offer far more effects and editing options, as they are closer to the software that studio audio engineers use.

A program with a noise reduction function can mostly or completely eliminate background noise interfering with your actual recording, such as your air conditioner, refrigerator or a vacuum. Any program worth its weight will also have a pop and click removal option for handling additional unwanted noise. Although a frequent problem, pops and clicks can come from a variety of sources and often be fussy to track down and resolve. So, having a program that automatically monitors and limits that is essential, especially if you don’t have the extra dough to purchase things like a pop filter or a more powerful CPU for your computer.

Options to change a file format and size are also useful and are often used to output files in the desired audio quality, typically to MP3. An integrated ID3 tag editor is also useful to label files appropriately for better organization for archiving and future searches.

Supported Formats
If the software can’t manage or play all of your audio files, what good is it? While most voice recording suites are compatible with only a few of the most common audio file types – MP3, WAV, WMA – others go the extra mile and support additional file types, like FLAC and AAC, as well as file compression and converting. Top programs are not only compatible with a wide variety of file formats but are also adept at importing and exporting files.

Ease of Use
Recording your voice – or any audio, for that matter – on your computer can be difficult when you factor in things like choosing and setting up hardware or searching for the right software application to use. However, it doesn’t have to be, and choosing the best voice recording program can make things much easier. From installation to implementation to actual use, the entire process of voice recording should be straightforward and simple.

Help & Support
A good help and support system is essential for a speedy and trouble-free learning experience, and further instilling confidence in the user. Help files, manuals, FAQs and tutorials address day to day issues, whereas phone support, email, live chat and forums are best for solving specific issues. The best developers host a full array of informational resources on their website and provide multiple ways to contact their technical support teams directly.

Voice Recording Software vs. DAW

You may have heard the terms “voice recording software” and “DAW” used interchangeably, but it’s important to know their similarities as well as how they differ. By learning more about these types of software, you can be better informed to make the best choice for your needs.

Voice recording software is the simpler of the two. You can record audio manually or set the program to run on a schedule or be triggered by sound over a certain decibel level. Afterward, you can edit the audio with special effects. In addition, this type of program has tools you can use to trim files, eliminate unwanted background noise and export. Voice recording software works on a laptop or desktop computer, and some programs even have compatible mobile apps you can use while you’re on the road. This is also the cheaper of the two types of software, making it a great choice for those on a budget as well as anyone not using it for professional audio production.

A digital audio workstation (DAW) is a more heavy-duty version of voice recording software. This kind of software can handle more inputs and tracks, has wider file format compatibility, and generally produces higher quality audio files. Because DAWs are more powerful, they cost more and are predominantly made for audio professionals. As such, they have steep learning curves. However, once you get a handle on how to use the software, and especially if you can afford quality recording hardware in addition to it, you can churn out beautiful, complex audio tracks worthy of a Grammy.

Related Product Reviews

When you want to follow specific writers, publications, and channels—to see every piece of content they publish—nothing beats an RSS reader app. RSS apps access web feeds published by websites, letting you aggregate and curate content you care about. Instead of visiting multiple sites, just open your favorite RSS app to see all new content in a central source.

If you're still looking for a replacement for Google Reader or Digg Reader, or you're just ready to start experiencing the web chronologically, check out the following 10 RSS reader apps that keep you up to date—for free.

What Makes a Great RSS Reader App?

For over a decade, Google Reader was the gold standard for RSS apps—at least until July 2013, when Google abruptly stopped supporting the tool. After that, many users turned to Digg Reader, a tool designed as a replacement for Google Reader. But Digg Reader was also discontinued in early 2018.

But it's not all bad news. There are plenty of other polished, high-quality feed reader apps that let you access the content published on your favorite sites exactly how you want to read it.

For this piece, we will focus on the best, free, online RSS services—the best alternatives to Google Reader and Digg Reader—and we narrowed our recommendations using the following criteria:

• Free: Each featured app is either completely free, or it offers a free plan that rivals the features of most premium plans on the market.

• Web apps: Web RSS apps let you read content online using any device by accessing a URL. This is opposed to native RSS apps that sync feeds directly to your device. The apps featured below are all web apps—though some notable native apps are included in sidebars when relevant.

• Traditional: A traditional RSS reader app does two things: displays content in reverse chronological order and lets you curate the content you want to read. We excluded any apps that use an algorithm to determine the order in which posts are displayed (e.g., popular posts displayed first), and we also excluded tools better described as content discovery platforms (e.g., Flipboard).

• Full-text: When creating an RSS feed, publishers elect to show either a preview of their content or the entire article, so it’s not always possible for RSS readers to display articles in their entirety. But for sites that have elected to show full-text, RSS readers should display the entire article, unless not having full text is a specific feature that provides value to users (e.g., the app is designed to make it easy to skim lots of headlines). We eliminated any apps that placed access to full-text—when made available by the publisher—behind a premium plan paywall.

• Usability: One of the major goals of using an RSS reader app is to simplify the process of seeing content from multiple sites. The apps we chose make it easy to perform basic RSS app functions like following your favorite sites, organizing your feeds into meaningful categories, saving articles, and marking articles as read.

With those criteria in mind, here are our picks for the 10 best RSS reader apps.

The 10 Best RSS Reader Apps

• Feedly (Web, iOS, Android) for providing every feature you might ever need
• NewsBlur (Web, Self-Hosted Web, iOS, Android) for filtering out content you're less interested in
• Inoreader (Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone) for free searching and saving your content long-term
• The Old Reader (Web) for sharing content with friends and getting recommendations
• Bloglovin' (Web, iOS, Android) for discovering popular lifestyle content
• Netvibes (Web) for marketers who want to monitor their brands and industry
• FlowReader (Web) for combining your RSS and social feeds
• Feedreader (Web) for no-frills feed reading
• Feeder (Web, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Yandex, iOS, Android) for viewing your RSS feeds on any device
• Selfoss (Self-Hosted Web, Third-Party iOS and Android) for customizing your RSS reader

Feedly (Web, iOS, Android)

Best for providing every feature you might ever need

Feedly is one of the first RSS reader apps you'll hear mentioned if you ask people how they follow sites today. It's not hard to see why—its clean and simple interface is a great solution for both casual readers who just want to see all of their websites in one place and power users who want to take advantage of every feature RSS apps have to offer.

Feedly's free plan offers most of the features casual readers need. Follow up to 100 sources, sort the sites you follow into topical categories, watch YouTube videos, and read full-text articles (when available) in a distraction-free, minimalist view. Plus, Feedly offers mobile apps for Android and iOS devices, so you can access subscriptions easily both at home and on the go.

But Feedly is also incredibly scalable, giving you the tools you need to do more than just curate and aggregate content. Upgrade to the Pro plan to search your feeds, get Google Keyword Alerts alongside your subscriptions, add notes to content, and highlight important passages. This is great for professionals who want to use their RSS app as a research hub.

And if you want to share your RSS feeds with others, Feedly's Teams plan lets you do just that. Share feeds, boards, notes, and highlights with other members of your team so you can all collaborate to uncover interesting research and share ideas.

Remember: If you have to leave your RSS app and visit the source website to view the full text of an article, it's most likely a setting from the publisher and not a limitation set by the RSS provider.

Feedly Price: Free for the Basic plan that lets you follow up to 100 sources and use the web, Android, and iOS apps; from $64.92/year for the Pro plan that includes unlimited sources and categories, search, and third-party integrations (including Zapier).

Automate Feedly with Feedly's Zapier integrations.

Want to look at posts from your favorite social sharers in your RSS app alongside the blogs and channels you follow? Here's how to build an RSS feed for Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. Once your feed is set up, just add it to your RSS reader app to get all of your favorite content in one place.

NewsBlur (Web, Self-Hosted Web, iOS, Android)

Best for for filtering out content you're less interested in

With a free NewsBlur account, you can subscribe to up to 64 different feeds, read full-text content of those sites in its web reader, and save stories to read or access in the future. And you don't even need to click that much while reading in NewsBlur. Just keep scrolling: Articles display one after another for action-free reading.

But NewsBlur's most interesting feature is its sophisticated filtering, which can automatically highlight or hide stories based on certain criteria. If you spend some time training your filters, the system will learn your preferences and try to surface the stories that interest you most. That way, you can subscribe to as many sites as you want—even the ones that publish 100 articles a day—and still only see the content you're interested in.

NewsBlur also lets you share your favorite stories, either on social networks or inside of NewsBlur. Within the app, you can add stories that you read and like to your personal 'blurblog,' or find people with similar interests and follow their blurblogs as well. Or, you can run NewsBlur on your own server for free.

NewsBlur Price: Free for subscribing to up to 64 sites; $36/year for a Premium account that includes unlimited subscriptions, search functionality, and private sharing; free open-source to run on your own server.

Want offline access to your feeds? ReadKit ($9.99; macOS) syncs your NewsBlur feeds to your desktop, letting you store your articles offline and read them even when you're without internet. ReadKit also supports Feedly, Feed Wrangler, Feedbin, Instapaper, Pocket, and Readability.

Inoreader (Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone)

Best for free searching and saving your content long-term

Inoreader is one of the most feature-packed free RSS readers on this list. Without paying a cent, you can follow an unlimited number of feeds, and you can even search within your subscriptions without paying for a premium plan.

And while most RSS apps only cache content for the short-term, Inoreader doesn't have limited time archives. Your content—even the stuff you've already read—is stored permanently. To stay organized, you can group your feeds in folders and use tags to separate out individual articles as you read them.

This makes Inoreader a great tool for power users, but it's very accessible for beginners as well. After signing up, you're guided through a tutorial that shows you how to use the app's major features, making it easy to get up and running even if you have no previous RSS experience.

If you upgrade to one of Inoreader's premium plans, you get even more features. Add feeds for Twitter and Google+ profiles just by typing in the username of the person you want to follow, write advanced rules for sorting your content into folders and tags, and customize your dashboard to see exactly what interests you the most when you log in.

Inoreader Price: Free with ads for unlimited subscriptions and search functionality; from $14.99/year for the Starter plan (login required to view page) for ad-free reading, a customizable dashboard, and custom rules.

The Old Reader (Web)

Best for sharing content with friends and getting recommendations

If you and your friends all enjoy reading the same types of content, The Old Reader makes it easy to share your recommendations with each other. Just connect your Facebook or Google account, follow friends who also have accounts, and The Old Reader will show you content recommended by your friends.

Itool For Mac

This is a great way to discover new blogs, sites, and channels to follow—as well as share your favorites with your friends. And even if you don't have any friends using The Old Reader to connect with, you can check out the content in its 'Trending' tab to see a list of the pieces that have received the most recent likes from other people who use The Old Reader.

Beyond its social aspects, The Old Reader's free plan does everything you need an RSS app to do. View full-text articles when available, read all posts in reverse chronological order, and subscribe to as many as 100 feeds. But if you want full-text search functionality, need to follow more than 100 feeds, or prefer to use the app without ads, you'll need to upgrade to Premium.

The Old Reader Price: Free with ads for up to 100 subscriptions; from $25/year for a Premium Account (login required to view page) that includes up to 500 subscriptions, one year of post storage, and full-text search.

While The Old Reader is a web-only app, it integrates with popular native RSS apps like Reeder (free until Reeder 4 is launched) and FeedReader (Free; Linux). You can also build your own mobile app using The Old Reader's API.

Bloglovin' (Web, iOS, Android)

Best for discovering popular lifestyle content

Bloglovin' is the Pinterest of RSS reader apps. While it lets you follow your favorite blogs and publications like every other app on this list, it's designed much more like a social media site than some of the other featured RSS readers. It has a clean, image-focused design, 'love' and comment buttons on every post, and a card layout that makes the app feel very modern.

At the top of your dashboard, you'll find a list of categories for popular lifestyle topics like 'Family,' 'Fashion,' and 'DIY/Crafts.' Click any of the topics, and you'll see popular content on that topic, making it easy to discover new authors and blogs to follow. You can even use Bloglovin' to publish your own blog directly on the platform and share your ideas with others.

Like Pinterest, Bloglovin' also lets you create your own personal collections of content. If you're planning a wedding, redesigning your house, or just looking for new crafting ideas, create a collection in Bloglovin' and add any relevant content you find to that collection. Then, when you need inspiration or are looking for ideas, head to your collections to see all of the content you've saved.

Bloglovin' Price: Free

Netvibes (Web)

Best for marketers who want to monitor their brands and industry

Like all of the other tools on this list, Netvibes is an RSS app that lets you follow your favorite publications and view their posts in reverse chronological order. And while it's great as a traditional RSS reader, where Netvibes really shines is with its Potions.

Potions are custom workflows with triggers and actions. For example, some of the other RSS apps on this list let you see the posts of someone you follow on Twitter in your RSS app. But with a Netvibes Potion, you can get even more granular. For example, create a feed that only shows @mentions of your brand, or get a feed of all posts that use a specific hashtag.

Netvibes supports more than 38 trigger apps currently, including sites like Twitter, Medium, Reddit, and Slack. Just set the trigger to monitor the specific site and action you're interested in, then set your RSS feed as your action. When you're finished, all of the mentions that meet your trigger criteria show up in your feed alongside any publications you're following.

The end result: a really powerful dashboard for marketers who want to monitor their brands and stay on top of industry changes and important content at the same time.

Netvibes Price: Free for the Basic plan that includes up to five Potions; from $24/year (billed monthly) for the VIP plan that includes unlimited Potions.

FlowReader (Web)

Best for combining your RSS and social feeds

If you want an easy way to keep up with all of the publications you follow and the things you're following on Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and Pinterest, FlowReader is the RSS reader for you. Subscribe to as many blogs as you want, and see the headlines of their posts in reverse chronological order. Skim headlines quickly, and open only those that catch your eye.

Then, connect your Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and/or Pinterest accounts to see all of the people, brands, topics, and channels you're following on those sites in separate feeds. This keeps you from having to navigate through multiple sites to stay up to date with all of your interests, but—perhaps most interestingly—it gives you an actual chronological view of posts.

For example, when you log into Twitter, it shows you ranked tweets, followed by 'in case you missed it,' before showing you posts in reverse chronological order. But if you crave the ability to just see what the people you follow posted in reverse chronological order, use FlowReader's feed to bypass Twitter's recommendations, and read posts in the order they were posted.

FlowReader Price: Free

Feedreader (Web)

Best for no-frills feed reading

If all you really want is a no-frills place to curate and aggregate the content you care about, Feedreader is the tool for you. It's a basic, ad-free, web-based RSS reader that lets you subscribe to feeds, see your content in two views—expanded or collapsed—and star items you're interested in to view them later.

But in addition to its standard features, Feedreader offers a few more options for those craving simplicity in an RSS app: Sort your subscriptions into categories to keep separate interests separate, or use the app's keyboard shortcuts to navigate, expand and collapse articles, refresh the page, and mark items as starred or read.

Feedreader Price: Free

Feeder (Web, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Yandex, iOS, Android)

Best for viewing your RSS feeds on any device

Feeder's web app isn't all that different from any of the other apps on this list. Like all traditional RSS reader apps, it lets you subscribe to sites and view their posts in reverse chronological order. What makes Feeder stand out, though, its its browser and mobile apps that let you access the content in your feed however you want, wherever you are.

Using Feeder's browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Yandex is perhaps the simplest way to read RSS feeds—one that's especially popular with those who want to quickly read the headlines and get on with their day. Just click your RSS icon to see recently published headlines from any page of your browser. Tap an article to read it, or just quickly skim through the latest updates without reading everything.

You can also take your RSS feeds on the go with its mobile apps for iOS and Android, where you'll get both the headlines and a simplified view of the full articles. It's a great way to stay informed of what's going on wherever you happen to be when you're looking to catch up on the news you care about.

Feeder Price: Free with ads for the Feeder Basic plan that includes access to all of Feeder's apps; from $59.88/year (billed monthly) for the ad-free Feeder Pro plan.

Selfoss (Self-Hosted Web, Third-Party iOS and Android)

Best for customizing your RSS reader

Want to host an RSS reader app on your own server? Selfoss is one of the best options for that today (along with the aforementioned NewsBlur). It's an RSS reader that lets you follow sites and your favorite people on Twitter in one app. Like many of the other RSS apps so far, it simplifies the reading experience and has some basic features that help you organize your feeds.

Selfoss is open source, so you can download it for free, dig into its code, and customize things if you'd like. You can add additional data sources, build plugins to add extra features, and download pre-made extras from its community. And with a Fever API bridge, it can sync with apps that were designed to work with the now-unsupported Fever RSS reader. It'll take a bit more work to start using, but it will let you make a feed reader that's tailored perfectly to your needs.

Selfoss Price: Free open-source

Best Free Podcast Software For Mac

If you like the idea of a self-hosted RSS app but aren't sure if either NewsBlur or Selfoss are right for you, there are three other options to consider: FreshRSS (Free; Self-Hosted Web), Tiny Tiny RSS (Free; Self-Hosted Web and Android), and Winds (Free; Web, Self-Hosted Web, macOS, Linux, and Windows).

Build an RSS Reader in Your Favorite App

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It seems like there should be an RSS app for everyone. But if you're struggling to find the perfect tool, the best tool might just be one you're already using.

Zapier's RSS integrations let you save new RSS feed posts to Instapaper, Pocket, Evernote, or other reading apps:

If you just need a notification about new posts, create a Zap that sends you a push notification, email, or Slack message about new articles—or logs them to a Google Sheets spreadsheet:

Or maybe your favorite apps and sites don't include RSS feeds. Zapier can help turn almost any app's notifications into an RSS feed, so you can subscribe to them in one place.

Alternately, use Zapier to make your own filtered, combined RSS feed that will show all of the articles from your favorite sites, with filters to only show the articles you're interested in.

You can even build a custom RSS feed reader inside Google Sheets, using its =importfeed() function. Here's how.

Be sure to experiment—with a few tricks, you can read RSS feeds in any of your favorite apps.

Struggling to read everything your RSS reader sends your way? It's time to pick a read-it-later or bookmarking tool to save the best content.

RSS is one of the oldest technologies of the internet; it's kind of like email in that way. But also like email, newer advances in technology haven't reduced its importance. RSS remains one of the best ways to make sure you see everything your favorite sites publish—or ensure you never miss out on an amazing Craigslist deal.

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If you're just getting started using RSS, try picking an app that's simple to use. Bookmark its URL, subscribe to favorite sites, and learn its features as your needs grow. Power users should consider which features they need most, then look for an app that matches their needs perfectly.

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Originally published in September 2015, this post has been updated by Jessica Greene with each app's current features and pricing. Additionally, we removed apps that have been discontinued—Digg Reader, gReader, and RSSOwl—and shifted our focus to the best free, web-based RSS apps. Because of this new focus, we removed some premium-only and/or native apps that were previously included, including Feedbin, Feed Wrangler, BazQux Reader, Newsbar, and NetNewsWire. Zapier senior writer Matthew Guay also contributed to an earlier update of this article.