Dev tools · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to Ember, a native iOS Hacker News reader I built around accessibility
I read HN on my phone every day and never really settled on a reader, so I wrote my own and finally tidied it up enough to put out there. It's plain SwiftUI with no third-party dependencies. A few things I spent the most time on: Comments are parsed and drawn as native text instead of being dumped into a web view. Links, italics, quotes and code blocks behave like the rest of the OS, text selection works, and threads collapse instantly. The whole comment tree comes back from the Algolia API in a single request, which felt a lot nicer than walking the Firebase API node by node. Accessibility.…
Ember is a native iOS app for reading Hacker News, built with accessibility as a core focus. It renders comments as native text rather than web views, enabling features like text selection, instant thread collapse, and… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes.
- 1AE
2015 · chancancode.github.io · its alternatives →
- 2
macOS HackerNews client that aims to be a Mac-assed Mac app. Written in Swift + AppKit. - goranmoomin/HackerNews
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 3
Hey HN! I built a native macOS desktop client for Hacker News and I'm open-sourcing it under the MIT license. GitHub: https://github.com/IronsideXXVI/Hacker-News Download (signed & notarized DMG, macOS 14.0+): https://github.com/IronsideXXVI/Hacker-News/releases Screenshots: https://github.com/IronsideXXVI/Hacker-News#screenshots I spend a lot of time reading HN — I wanted something that felt like a proper Mac app: a sidebar for browsing stories, an integrated reader for articles, and comment threading — all in one window.…
Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 4
I was struggling with navigating HN discussions using existing solutions, so I decided to implement a completely different approach, think of it as depth-first reading vs breadth-first reading. Visually it looks like swipeable stacks of comments and it offers several advantages over traditional interfaces: - Comment width doesn't get narrower no matter how deep in the comment tree you are - You always see the parent of the comment you're currently reading - Swiping allows you to move in and out of subtrees with animated transitions that you fully control - You can easily skip subtrees that…
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 5
Hey HN! I'm excited to share a tool I've been working on - a native Hacker News reader built with Rust and egui. Here's a screenshot: https://github.com/haojiang99/hacker_news_reader/blob/main/s.... As a daily HN reader, I've always struggled with keeping track of interesting posts I want to read later. Browser tabs pile up, bookmarks get forgotten, and I lose track of what I've already read. I needed a way to: 1. Browse HN efficiently (across all sections - hot, new, show, ask, jobs, best) 2. Quickly mark posts as "todo" for later reading 3. Mark posts as…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
We at Emerge Tools (YC W21) recently released open source Hacker News apps for both iOS and Android. The apps use the latest SwiftUI and Compose frameworks and are entirely native. Our goal is to help dogfood our products, but more importantly our team just enjoys reading HN every day and wanted an app to hack on and call our own. :) We are still missing some features but should otherwise be pretty solid. And open to any contributions. iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hacker-news-by-emerge/id674092... Android:…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7HN
I made a Hacker News reader for iOS with React Native and Redux. It was mostly for me to learn more about React Native, but I'm really happy with the result. Let me know what you think! I'm hoping to add a lot more features, the first being a settings page with some color settings and dark mode. App: https://appsto.re/us/czg7hb.i Code: https://github.com/seanyesmunt/hackernews
2017 · its alternatives →
- 8HN
Since I got an iPad I was looking for a better Hacker News reading experience than the one you can get using the web version. On the iPhone I use the ihackernews.com web app (and soon going to try news.yc). It's decent for the iPhone, but it doesn't scale good on the iPad. To my surprise, when I checked there was no decent iPad app for HN (i.e. lacking ability to comment or vote, no readability support and more). I anyway wanted to give a try to iPad development, and was looking for an interesting project to work on. Making HN reader app seemed as a good candidate. Over the last weekend I…
2011 · bit.ly · its alternatives →
- 9
- 10
Native mobile experience forged for Hacker News. Journey through stories, delve into comments, vote, post and more.
Jul 2026 · hackernows.app · its alternatives →
- 11
This is probably the first Hacker News client on AppStore that uses the newly introduced official Firebase HN API. One of the cool features of the new API are updates pushed in real time. There’s...
2014 · hnclient.weebly.com · its alternatives →
- 12
I love HN but always felt the search with algolia is okay but does have some limitations. Since I work at Vectara I decided to try and create a better search for HN. It's based on data from roughly the last 6 months of HN stories and comments. Would love to hear feedback and how useful this is relative to the existing search.
2024 · hackernews.demo.vectara.com · its alternatives →
- 13
iOS Hacker News client to not get lost in big discussions
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 14
I thought building something that I would use while learning iOS SDK was a good idea so I built HN Browser. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/hn-browser/id578535095?ls=1&mt=8 HN Browser is a simple app which lets you to read articles and comments on Hacker News. (no voting and writing comment yet) For the logo, I reached out to Joel Glovier(http://joelglovier.com) for his previous work on Hacker News logo(http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4731140) and he kindly granted the use of his work. It was really fun experience to collaborate and build a mobile app using iOS SDK. (although…
2012 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 15SA
2014 · dimillian.github.io · its alternatives →
- 16
Alerts, AI summaries, and easy search for Hacker News
2025 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 17
HackerNews reader powered by Algolia's API
2020 · play.google.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Hello HN, I'm thrilled to announce the launch of my first app, Hazumi, a Hacker News reader, available for free on iOS! I’ve been lurking on HN for around 2 years while working on this project seeing people post amazing HN reader apps of their own. I’ve always figured Hazumi wasn’t good enough yet to post here but if I wait around until I’m ready, I’ll probably never share so here goes… Hazumi is a modern Hacker News app for your pocket with some intentional limitations. Stories are displayed on a simple colourful card, with images, that condenses all the information you need at a glance.…
2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →
- 19HN
2011 · hn.gethifi.com · its alternatives →
- 20
- 21
I wrote this small client to read hackernews from my favorite editor. It's currently using an external HTTP API [0] but I'm working on my own proxy [1]. I'd love to actually scrape and cache all the info I need using lisp. However, my time constraints are keeping me away of that goal. I could definitely use some help here! :) I'm also planning to add support for comments and posting new things. Any feedback is highly appreciated! Thank you! [0] http://api.ihackernews.com/ [1] https://github.com/clarete/rhn
2013 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22
- 23
A minimal Hacker News reader for Apple Watch built with SwiftUI. - wieslawsoltes/HackerNewsWatch
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 24
Download HACK for Hacker News YC Reader by Pranoy Chowdhury on the App Store. See screenshots, ratings and reviews, user tips, and more apps like HACK for…
2019 · itunes.apple.com · its alternatives →
Also compare
- An embitious Hacker News reader built with Ember.js alternatives
- I developed a native macOS Hacker News client alternatives
- A native macOS client for Hacker News, built with SwiftUI alternatives
- I made an iOS HN app to navigate large threads without getting lost alternatives
- A native Hacker News reader with integrated todo/done tracking alternatives
- A simple Hackernews client for iOS and Android alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →