GoKawiilBad news for those who get their updates through RSS feeds: Feedly, the largest standalone RSS reader worldwide, has experienced technical issues for over a week, and paying users are upset that the web app has been “unusably slow.” Some users have also reported that the company has ignored their support requests. Uh-oh.
Feedly, the heir to the market ceded by Google when it closed Google Reader in 2013, is today among the most successful RSS newsreaders globally with 15 million users, according to its website. That makes it larger than competitive products like the web-based Inoreader as well as various desktop apps like NetNewsWire, Reeder, and others.
And yet, the app is experiencing a number of ongoing issues that are affecting users and paying subscribers alike. The most critical problem is a significant slowdown on its web app, which has made browsing feeds quickly and efficiently very frustrating. Users on Reddit reported the app running “extremely” slow, making it “unusable.”
Further, users said that the company’s iOS app, including on iOS 27 beta, has not been working, and the classic version of Feedly’s mobile app (preferred by a small subset of customers) was shut down without warning weeks ago.
As most consumers now keep up with news through dedicated apps, like Apple News by browsing the web and sources like Google News, and through posts on social media, the market for RSS readers has always been relatively small. However, Feedly has been working to shift its focus to AI, offering businesses a way to track emerging threats and keep up with tailored intelligence through its app.
With the latest issues, it begs the question as of whether Feedly is still focused on its core RSS customers amid its pivot to AI, which is the product the company now advertises via its homepage.
TechCrunch reached out to Feedly for an update on these issues, given that multiple customers on Reddit said their requests for technical support had been ignored.
In response, Feedly CEO Edwin Khodabakchian reassured TechCrunch that RSS was still a focus.
“Despite the pivot to cyber threat intelligence, fixing the basic RSS functionality is still a priority because our CTI community uses the news-reading capability,” he said. “Our goal has been to maintain the Feedly News Reader as fast and streamlined as possible.”
In addition, the CEO said the company was aware of the issues with its web app, which were attributed to a bug, and said the front-end team had been testing a fix. Currently, the team believes the issue was related to using “Mark as Read” on accounts with a lot of folders, and a fix for that was released Friday. The company is still confirming whether this has resolved the problem for all users.
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