Oliver Haslam
Reddit is the self-proclaimed front page of the internet whether you want cat videos or high-level physics discussion. But the web interface sucks. Thankfully iPhone and iPad users have plenty of apps as alternatives, and here are the best.
Choosing the Right App for You
Not all Reddit apps are the same. Sure, they all let you read Reddit and post comments. But how they do it differs from app to app. How you use Reddit will inform which kind of Reddit app suits you best.
If you’d like options all the way down to changing the app icon to fit your particular aesthetic, you need an app that excels in customization. If you want to be able to do your thing and move on, then something more basic is best. Reddit power users—serial commenters, voters, and meme posters—will need yet a different set of features.
Best for Most People: Reddit (Free with In-App Purchase: $7.99)
Reddit does everything you need if all you need is the basic Reddit experience. That includes support for posting, commenting, and uploading media.
At the time of writing Group Chat is only available on the official Reddit app, so if you make use of that, this is the only app for you.
The official Reddit app ticks enough boxes to be recommended for most people. It doesn’t go crazy with fancy gestures or animations, but there’s something to be said for simplicity. And being a first-party app means it is likely to support any new features Reddit adds before the competition.
While free to download, Reddit does offer a $6.99 monthly in-app purchase to enable Reddit Premium. You’ll get access to the r/lounge subreddit and 700 Coins for every month you are subscribed.
Best for Power Users: Apollo (Free with In-App Purchase: Pro $2.99/Ultra $9.99)
Apollo is a darling of the Reddit community because it works well and looks gorgeous.
Sometimes more features can mean added complexity, but not so here. Everything is just a tap away with the navbar offering buttons for Posts, Inbox, Profile, Search, and Settings. That navbar is persistent, too, so it’s always there when you need it.
In-line media previews and GIF scrubbing—fast-forwarding and rewinding of a GIF—make browsing comments a joy and there are even moderator tools for those who need them. For everyone else full support for Markdown rendering in posts is most welcome, as is support for filtering content.
Almost everything in Apollo can be customized, including not only the overall theme but also the app icon. They’re stunning and well worth checking out.
The two levels of in-app purchase may be an issue for some, with a $3.99 one-time in-app purchase needed to be able to post to Reddit. The $9.99 annual subscription—or $24.99 lifetime subscription— gets you push notifications for replies and messages as well as access to whole-app theming and a new icon each month.
If you just want to browse Reddit, then it’s possible to use Apollo for free, but you’ll be missing out on all the fun bits.
Best Combination of Features and Simplicity: Narwhal (Free with In-App Purchase: $3.99)
Narwhal offers the best combination of features and simplicity alongside a clean look. Once you remove the ads, this app is similar to the official Reddit app but with additional capabilities.
Narwhal has a cult following thanks to an active developer and a gesture-driven interface. A powerful filter makes sure you don’t see content that you don’t want to. If you don’t want to see cat memes—why wouldn’t you?—you don’t have to.
There’s a degree of customization here with a dark mode that can be toggled on and off by tapping the logo at the top of the screen. Notably, a button for starting a new Reddit post is always visible. Oddly, not all apps have that.
You can pull to refresh if you’re keeping an eye on a particularly active thread or conversation so you’ll never miss a thing, too.
To remove ads, you need to buy the in-app purchase, which costs $3.99. It’s worth the money if you use the app a lot.
Honorable Mention: BaconReader (Free with In-App Purchase: $1.99)
BaconReader might appear simplistic in its design, but that’s unfair. Similar to the official Reddit app, if all you want to do is get in, read a thread and then get out, BaconReader has you covered. But it also has an ace up its sleeve.
That ace—and the reason BaconReader gets a place on our list—is the ability to save drafts for both posts and comments. That isn’t a feature that came up very often when we were testing apps for this roundup. It’s also one that we found ourselves using more often than we anticipated and we definitely missed it when we tested other apps. People who write lengthy posts or want to ponder their replies before submitting will appreciate the ability to save drafts.
Similar to some of our other picks, BaconReader uses gestures for its most common tasks like voting on posts. And, again, are filters built in to help keep the bad stuff at bay.
The $1.99 in-app purchase removes all in-app ads. If you’re going to be using BaconReader for any length of time, we’d suggest paying up.
