Looking for a free alternative to Inoreader usually means one of two things: you hit a limit on Inoreader's free plan, or you never wanted to pay for a news reader in the first place. Either way, "free" means very different things from one app to the next. Some give you a permanent free reader with a feed cap. One gives you a short trial of a different idea. Here is what each free plan actually covers, so you can pick without entering a card number.
First, what Inoreader gives you for free
Inoreader's free plan is permanent and needs no card. You can follow 150 RSS feeds, search inside them, follow Google News alerts, organize with folders and tags, and read without ads. The things people usually miss sit in Pro: rules, filters, monitoring feeds, web feeds for sites without RSS, newsletter feeds, social feeds and push notifications. Pro costs $7.50 a month billed annually or $9.99 month to month, with a 15-day trial.
So if your problem is "I want alerts" or "I need to follow a site that has no feed," the free plan was never going to solve it.
The free plans side by side
Checked on each vendor's pricing page in October 2026.
| App | What free gives you | Time limit | Card needed |
|---|---|---|---|
| AyeWatch | 3 monitoring runs across up to 3 topics, push and in-app alerts | Runs do not renew | No |
| Feeder | 200 feeds, 30-minute updates, no ads | None | No |
| Feedly | 100 feeds in 3 folders, web and mobile | None | No |
| NewsBlur | 64 sites, web and mobile apps, plus a 30-day premium trial | None | No |
| FreshRSS | The whole app, if you host it | None | No |
1. AyeWatch: free to try, built to stop the scrolling
AyeWatch sits first because it solves the problem that sends most people away from Inoreader: too many items, too much sorting. You do not add feeds. You describe what you want to hear about in plain English, for example "a new free game drops on a big store this week," and AyeWatch checks news, forums, blogs, social platforms and any page you add. AI reads each new item and only alerts you when it fits what you wrote, with a short summary and the links.
The free part is a Free Preview: three lifetime monitoring runs across up to three topics, on daily or slower schedules, with push and in-app alerts. There is no card, and it does not renew. That is enough to see whether alerts beat a reader for you. After that, Pro is $9 a month for 50 topics with hourly checks, and checks draw on a monthly credit allowance. Details are on the AyeWatch plans page.
It works in a browser and in the iOS and Android apps, so there is nothing to install on a desktop.
2. Feeder: the biggest permanent free reader here
Feeder's free plan follows 200 feeds, refreshes every 30 minutes and shows no ads. That is more feeds than Inoreader's free plan. Rules, filters and email summaries need Plus, at $7.99 a month billed yearly or $9.99 monthly.
3. Feedly: the familiar one
Feedly Free follows up to 100 feeds in three folders on the web and phones. It is easy to set up and calm to read. Search, more feeds and AI filtering sit in paid plans, starting at $6.99 a month billed yearly.
4. NewsBlur: small free tier, big trial
NewsBlur's free plan is the smallest at 64 sites, but new accounts start with 30 days of premium and no card. It lets you train stories up or down by author, tag, title and full text. If you like it, Premium is $36 a year.
5. FreshRSS: free if you have a server
FreshRSS is free, open source software you install yourself. There is a public demo to try first. It is a good fit only if you are comfortable running a small web server, which most people who browse without installing anything are not.
Where each free plan stops
- AyeWatch: after three runs, topics pause until you pick a plan. Email, Slack, Discord and webhooks are paid features.
- Feeder: no rules or filters on free.
- Feedly: the three-folder cap arrives fast.
- NewsBlur: 64 sites, then the trial ends.
- FreshRSS: free forever, but hosting is on you.
When Inoreader free is still the better deal
If you just want to read 150 feeds in a tidy inbox for nothing, Inoreader's free plan is generous and has no time limit. Stay put. Switch when you want to be told about things rather than go looking for them.
Questions people ask
Is there a free alternative to Inoreader with no feed limit? FreshRSS has no limit set by a vendor, because you host it. Among hosted readers, Feeder's 200 feeds is the highest free cap here.
Does AyeWatch have a free plan forever? No. It has a Free Preview of three runs. It is a way to test, and paid plans start at $9 a month.