Octal for Hacker News

Name: Octal for Hacker News
Rating: 4.8 (2813 reviews)
Author: Daniel Wu

By: Daniel Wu App

Social developer & tech news

Overview

Version:

5.1.0

Last updated: 2026-07-03

Features & Capabilities

Discover and discuss the latest Hacker News stories with Octal. This community-powered, ad-free news reader brings fast, clean reading for tech, programming, and startup news on iPhone and iPad.

Key features include voting, submitting links, commenting, and saving favorites; deep linking; robust search; and customizable story filters (Top Stories, Ask HN, Show HN, Best, New, Jobs). It supports Dark/ True Black themes, accessibility options, 2-pane iPad layouts, and privacy-first design with no ads or tracking. Optional Octal Premium unlocks extra features via a one-time purchase.

User Growth & Download Statistics

App News & Magazines Programming Developer Tools Privacy & Security Design Accessibility Open Source Community

By:

Daniel Wu

Rating:

4.80

(2,813)

Version:

5.1.0 Last updated: 2026-07-03

Version code:

887699339

Creation date:

2017-11-26

Compatible devices:

Size:

7.62MB

URLs:

Website ,Privacy policy

Full description:

Source:

Apple Apps Store

Data ingested on:

2026-08-11

Compare stats and ranking:

Ranking

# 33,762 ▼ 1

Other rankings

#50 in developer keyword 61 ▼ 18

For Developers

Monetize with App Pass Boost with Extension Booster

Contact the developer

Chrome-Stats does not own this Apple app. Please use these information below to contact the Apple app developer.

Developed by:

Daniel Wu

Apple Apps Store

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/octal-for-hacker-news/id1308885491

Website:

https://github.com/dangwu/Octal

User Reviews

Users broadly praise Octal for Hacker News as a polished, fast, native-feeling reader with a clean design and strong developer support. The most recurrent drawbacks are reliability-related: login/session instability, intermittent connectivity and refresh problems, and errors when voting or editing content even for premium users. Despite these issues, many reviews highlight the app’s quality and express positive sentiment toward its free core experience and ongoing fixes.

Pros

Polished, fast native-feeling UI
Elegant, intuitive design and overall high usability
Respects OS font sizes and supports dark mode
Developer is responsive and provides fixes/updates
Free core HN client with optional premium for quality-of-life improvements

Cons

Session/login instability (difficulty logging in and being logged out)
Reliability/connectivity issues (no connection messages, failed/slow refreshes, loading indicators getting stuck)
Action errors when voting or editing (issues persisting even with premium)

Recent reviews

Love the app, have been using it for years. However, a recent update (accidentally?) removed the "collapse root" feature from the context menu. Pretty please bring that small affordance back.

by On*****, 2026-07-09

The UI is well designed, intuitive, attractive. It’s my preferred way to read HN. But I use the search a lot, and it’s very primitive. I typically have to switch to my desktop’s browser to find anything. The number one thing missing is a date filter. Preferably that allows selecting start/end dates, but even just a dropdown with common ranges would suffice. HN has a lot of content about topics that move quickly, so I often want to see results from the last X time period. But sort by date, and only see bad submissions that never got traction. Sort by relevance and see popular submissions from 12 years ago. And a hard cap on number of results, so I can’t dig deeper even if I wanted to. It leaves much to be desired.