Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to HN client app that remembers reading history
hey HN, I am re launching an HN client app that i built this year. It got very little traction when i launched earlier. Following YC advice to do multiple launches, I am going to give it another shot. It’s fairly basic, but here are some of the features that I hope you would like. - Minimal, distraction-free UI - keyword based search functionality to see past stories. - Dark mode support - Breeze through comments with collapse functionality. - Bookmark your favourite stories to read later or revisit any time - All your reading history is saved. - Export reading history when you want it. I…
Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.
- 1
HN is all about the rich discussions. We wanted to take the HN experience one step further - to bring the familiar keyboard-first navigation, find interesting viewpoints in the threads and get a gist of long threads so that we can decide which rabbit holes to explore. So we built HN Companion a year ago, and have been refining it ever since. Try it: https://app.hncompanion.com or available as an extension for Firefox / Chrome: [0]. Most AI summarization strips the voices from conversations by flattening threads into a wall of text. This kills the joy of reading HN discussions.…
Feb 2026 · hncompanion.com · its alternatives →
- 2
Hey HN, cofounder of Readwise here. We've been working on this cross-platform reader app for about 2 years, excited to finally share it in public beta. Probably the most notable thing that makes Reader unique is that it supports almost any content type you could want to save/read/highlight: * web pages * emails/newsletters * PDFs * ePubs * twitter threads * youtube videos (with transcripts) * RSS feeds With all of your knowledge content in one place, we built powerful reading and highlighting, as well as a bunch of novel triage/organization features, so you can actually…
2022 · readwise.io · its alternatives →
- 3AP
Hello! I’ve been reading Hacker News for years and have a bad habit of favoriting articles but never actually going back to read them. I finally built hnbuffer to scratch my own itch and help me work through that backlog. I also mainly built this as an excuse to learn/use some of the languages/frameworks/tools since I have another backlog of things I wanted to try too. It syncs your favorites into a queue with a reader mode and swipe gestures. The streak tracking is something I'm still experimenting with. Note: It requires an HN login to scrape the favorites list (credentials…
2013 · hnbuffer.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 →
- 5AH
2016 · florian.github.io · its alternatives →
- 6
Remember every article you read online, forever
2023 · harkenapp.com · its alternatives →
- 7IH
Hi, I have published a mobile app to have coffee chat with HN users. There was already a guy who made a website for this, but I wanted to do it in mobile to practice WebRTC(technology behind the audio chat) and have some fun. I haven't spent too much time in terms of the general functionality as a HN client but can upgrade it if there are enough users enjoying the app. You can download the apps via the links below; IOS: https://apps.apple.com/tr/app/betternews-coffee-chat/id65047... Android: As you might have known, Android requires the app to be tested in a…
2024 · its alternatives →
- 8
- 9TH
2020 · thn.rakhim.org · its alternatives →
- 10AM
There are many like it but this one is mine: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pivit/id705715915?mt=8 Seriously, though, this Hacker News reader is better than what's out there, or I wouldn't have spent time on it. How? Most importantly, it utilizes the background refresh APIs, so content is always up to date. Pull to refresh is there, but you probably won't need it. The more addicted you are, the more often it updates. So if you check every few hours, you'll always get the current front page. Complementing this, it helps you see not only what you've read but what…
2013 · its alternatives →
- 11
Remember what your read. Little time, lots of knowledge.
2015 · gethibou.com · its alternatives →
- 12
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 →
- 13
Hey HN folks, Last week I released the first public version of 120 HN — a fully native Hacker News client for macOS. This week, I'm excited to share version 0.2.1 with some essential updates: The app now remembers window size, position, and sidebar state between sessions Improved AI summaries: more concise, relevant with link back to the comments, easier to read with short paragraph form. Minor tweaks to navigation and layout for a smoother experience Sneak peek: local LLM support is coming in the next release. As always, the app is free to use. Any suggestions or comments would be…
2025 · 120.dev · its alternatives →
- 14
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 →
- 15MH
Hello everyone!, this is a app I have being working on recently. I know there are number of HN readers on android. But couldn't find a one suitable for daily use. So I started developing this app. News articles, comments open in default browser of the device. Click on title of the item to open the article and anywhere else to open comments. Pull down to refresh. Swipe left and right to change the tabs. This is only the first phase of application. Lot of functions yet to be implement (you can read more in Google play listing). Before developing further I would love to have some feedback. BTW…
2015 · its alternatives →
- 16
Timelnfree tier, from $9.99/mo▲13Your entire reading history, as context for any LLM
Aug 2026 · timeln.app · its alternatives →
- 17EM
Yesterday I decided I wanted to experiment with different ways of reading HN. After considering a few options, I settled on a Mac app and spent a couple of hours planning/sketching on paper. This morning I fired up Xcode and spent 4 hours hacking away and I must say I'm liking how it's looking. Since the project is in its very early stages, I though that it could be a very good time to get some feedback. I've posted a few screenshots at http://imgur.com/a/rCbVN and uploaded a binary at http://abra.rm-fr.net/~fiam/HackerNews.zip If you have some free time, give a try and let me know what you…
2011 · imgur.com · its alternatives →
- 18AN
Checking on some old material to provide some cross-referencing[1] I got this message: We've temporarily limited requests for old items. I've always taken it for granted that HN contained useful information that I'd be able to retrieve whenever I found the need, but this has brought me up short. Perhaps older discussions will eventually become unavailable. Will Google cache still have them? Will the Wayback machine still have them? How convenient will they be to find in the future. Probably this is a temporary glitch to prevent some overly enthusiastic crawler from bringing the site to a…
2012 · its alternatives →
- 19
Hi everyone, I read HN every day, but there was always more great content than I had time to read. I know there are already several HN summarizers on GitHub, and I tried some of them. They just didn't fit the workflow I wanted, so I decided to build my own. My project is a self-hosted app that automatically fetches top stories, summarizes them with AI, translates them into your preferred language, and prepares a personalized daily briefing in a nice customizable UI while you sleep. Maybe I'm not the only one who wanted this kind of workflow. I'd love to hear your thoughts, especially on what…
Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 20TS
2020 · hn-timemachine.com · its alternatives →
- 21
A little toy HN client for the desktop that I've been playing around with this week.
2022 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 22T1
HN has some of the best discussions on the internet, but I don’t love reading 100 comments to find 10 great insights. This site analyzes top HN threads with LLMs and summarizes the key ideas, disagreements, and resources — while preserving links to the original discussion. Useful for revisiting old threads as well. Updated daily, manual-assisted for quality, no spam, fan project only. Would love thoughts from the community. https://hn-discussions.top
Jan 2026 · its alternatives →
- 23AP
Hi HN, I've been a daily user here for almost 15 years. Over that time, my interests have shifted. I find I'm now more interested in deep-dive technical posts and personal blogs than the big tech announcements that often dominate the front page. The "top" feed was starting to feel stale, and I was spending more time digging through "new". So, I decided to build what I wanted: a personalized "For You" feed. Link: https://hn.shaped.ai It's a simple concept: you log in with your normal HN credentials, and as you favorite stories, it learns what you're interested in and re-ranks the…
2025 · hn.shaped.ai · its alternatives →
- 24
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 →
Also compare
- HN Companion – web app that enhances the experience of reading HN alternatives
- Readwise Reader, an all-in-one reading app alternatives
- Automated post to HN at the perfect time alternatives
- I made an iOS HN app to navigate large threads without getting lost alternatives
- A HN desktop app for reading links and comments next to each other alternatives
- Harken Chrome Extension 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 →