Lede Reader: Smarter RSS

Lede Reader groups articles about the same story and sizes each one by how many articles cover it. Everything is saved for offline reading. Now available on iPad.

Lede Reader is an RSS reader that puts the biggest story at the top and keeps everything readable offline.

Most readers list articles newest first. Lede Reader groups articles about the same story into one card and sizes the card by how many articles cover it. If ten of your feeds write about the same thing, it becomes the lead story. If a small blog posts once a month, mark it as a Priority feed and it gets its own spot on the front page, however quiet it is.

Whenever you're online, Lede Reader downloads your news in full: articles, the complete text where the site allows it, and images. After that you don't need a connection, so a weak signal on the metro or a cabin in the mountains won't stop you from reading.

FEATURES

Story clustering Articles about the same event are combined into one card that shows how many articles cover it and which source leads. Open the story to see the other articles under "More on this topic". The matching understands dozens of languages, so Finnish, Swedish, German, French or Spanish feeds are grouped just as well as English ones. Articles are grouped with others in the same language.

Priority feeds Mark the sources you never want to miss. They get their own section at the top of the front page, regardless of how much else is going on.

Freshness window Choose how far back the front page reaches, from 6 hours to 30 days. Older articles move to your history instead of disappearing.

Reading history Stories you've read are dimmed on the front page and move to history after the next refresh. Browse history by date or by source.

Offline reading Everything is saved on your device during each sync, so stories open without waiting for the network.

OPML import and export Bring your subscriptions over from another reader, or export them as a backup.

Feed discovery Paste a website address and Lede Reader finds the RSS, Atom or JSON feeds on it.

iCloud sync (optional) Your feed list, Priority settings, and read and liked articles sync between your devices through your own iCloud account. There is no Lede Reader server.

Privacy No account, no ads, no trackers, no analytics. Your reading history stays on your device unless you turn on iCloud sync.

One-time purchase You pay once. There is no subscription and there are no in-app purchases.

HOW IT WORKS

Open the app and the front page is ready. Pull down to refresh. Tap a story to read it. In an article, swipe left to mark it read and move to the next story, or swipe right to go back to the list. Pull down at the top of an article to mark it as interesting. Lede Reader uses those marks to move a couple of related stories higher on the page.

DESIGN

The look comes from printed newspapers: Instrument Serif headlines, Geist for the interface, a paper-coloured background and a warm dark mode.

DETAILS

Requires iOS 26.4 or later on iPhone or iPad. Supports RSS 2.0, Atom and JSON Feed. Story matching uses the multilingual MiniLM-L12-v2 language model on the device, so article text is never sent anywhere for analysis.

Lede Reader is made in Finland by one developer. Feedback is welcome at hello@ledereader.app.