Best News Apps: 7 Apps Compared on Bias, Sources and Price
The best news app depends on what you want from it. Ground News is the strongest tool for comparing how outlets across the spectrum cover a story, Google News is the best free aggregator, and Apple News suits iPhone users who also want magazines. For short videos from vetted newsrooms, Aplomb is the vertical video option.
Disclosure: we make Aplomb, one of the apps on this page. We apply the same criteria to it as to every other app, we don't rank it first by default, and we never give it a score. Read our editorial policy.
Best News Apps at a Glance
| App | Best for | Format | Shows bias | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ground News | Best for comparing coverage across outlets | Articles with bias and factuality ratings | Yes: bias and factuality per outlet, coverage split per story | Free; paid plans from $9.99 to $99.99 a year |
 AllSides | Best free app for left, center and right headlines side by side | Headlines and summaries from left, center and right | Yes: its own ratings for 800+ outlets | Free |
 Apple News | Best for iPhone users who also want magazines | Articles, magazines and audio | No | Free; Apple News+ $12.99 a month |
 Google News | Best free news aggregator | Articles | No | Free |
 Aplomb | Best for vertical video news | Short vertical videos | Trust tier on every story; bias ratings on each source profile | Free |
 SmartNews | Best free app for a quick scan, with local news | Articles | Political spectrum view on politics stories | Free with ads; ad-free option $3.99 to $4.99 |
 Particle | Best for AI summaries of each story | AI-written story summaries | Political spectrum view per story | Free; Particle+ subscription (price shown in the app) |
Want news as short videos instead of articles? Aplomb is the vertical video option.
How We Compared News Apps
- Source quality: who publishes the news you see, and how outlets are selected.
- Bias transparency: whether the app shows political lean or reliability.
- Format: articles, video or audio, and how fast you get the gist.
- Ads and price: what is free and what sits behind a paywall.
- Platforms: iPhone, Android and web.
For the newsrooms themselves, see our list of vetted news sources and how they score on the media bias chart.
The Best News Apps in 2026, Reviewed
1. Ground News: Best for comparing coverage across outlets
Ground News groups articles about the same story from many outlets and shows how the coverage splits between left, center and right-leaning sources. Its bias ratings average the ratings of AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, and its factuality scores average Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check. The Blindspot feed highlights stories covered mostly by one side. It is the most complete tool for comparing coverage, but its top features sit in the paid Vantage plan.
- Shows the left, center and right split of coverage for every story
- Bias ratings averaged from three independent raters
- Blindspot feed and ownership information for each outlet
- Blindspot analysis, full coverage comparison and ownership data are listed as Vantage plan features
- Several overlapping paid plans, with prices that differ between the app and the website
- Articles only, no video
2. AllSides: Best free app for left, center and right headlines side by side
AllSides puts headlines about the same story from left, center and right-leaning outlets next to each other, with a short summary on top. It is also one of the raters behind our media bias chart: its own bias ratings, built from blind surveys and editorial reviews, cover more than 800 outlets. It is free, and best for seeing how framing changes across the spectrum rather than for reading full coverage.
- Left, center and right headlines on the same story, side by side
- Free
- Bias ratings for 800+ outlets, with a published method
- Rates political lean only, not factual accuracy
- Covers fewer stories each day than a full aggregator
- Website-first: the app is a smaller part of the product
3. Apple News: Best for iPhone users who also want magazines
Apple News comes preinstalled on iPhone, iPad and Mac and mixes articles from a wide range of publishers, picked by editors and by algorithm. Apple News+ ($12.99 a month in the US after a one-month trial, shareable with family) adds magazines and paywalled newspaper articles. It does not show bias or reliability ratings, and there is no Android version.
- Preinstalled on Apple devices
- Apple News+ bundles magazines and paywalled newspapers
- Family Sharing included with News+
- No bias or reliability information
- Apple devices only
- Much of the best content sits behind the News+ subscription
4. Google News: Best free news aggregator
Google News collects articles from thousands of publishers, ranked by algorithm, with a Full Coverage view that gathers many outlets' articles on the same story. It is free and works everywhere, but it does not label the political lean or reliability of its sources, and what you see depends on Google's ranking.
- Free, on every platform
- Full Coverage view groups many outlets on one story
- Very wide range of publishers
- No bias or reliability labels
- Algorithmic ranking you cannot inspect
- Mixes news with commentary from a very wide range of outlets
5. Aplomb: Best for vertical video news
Aplomb is our app, so read this entry with that in mind. It shows news as a full-screen vertical video feed, filled only with official videos from vetted newsrooms: wire services, public broadcasters and newspapers. Each story names the outlet and its trust tier, and links to the outlet's website. The day's main stories, in Today, also come with a short AI summary written only from the articles of the newsrooms covering them, with a link to each article. It is a good fit if you prefer watching to reading; it is not an article reader, and it does not compare coverage story by story.
- Only vetted newsrooms, no creator channels
- Short video format, one swipe per story
- Every video names the newsroom that published it
- Video first: no articles inside the app, only short summaries of the main stories
- Fewer sources than article aggregators
- Coverage depends on what each outlet posts as short video
6. SmartNews: Best free app for a quick scan, with local news
SmartNews is a free, ad-supported aggregator that draws on thousands of publisher partners. In 2019 it added News From All Sides, a slider on politics stories that sorts coverage of the same event from more liberal to more conservative outlets, using lean labels set by its own content team. It does not rate factual reliability.
- Free, with a large publisher network
- Political spectrum slider on politics stories
- Local news sections
- Ads in the free version
- Lean labels come from SmartNews's own team, not independent raters
- No factual reliability ratings
7. Particle: Best for AI summaries of each story
Particle, built by former Twitter engineers, groups articles on the same story and writes a bullet-point summary with AI, with follow-up questions you can ask about the story. A spectrum view shows where the outlets covering a story sit on a left-right scale, and an Opposite Sides tool summarizes each side's position. Summaries are generated by AI, so check key facts against the original articles.
- Fast bullet-point summaries of each story
- Left-right spectrum view of the coverage
- Follow-up questions on any story
- Summaries are written by AI, not editors
- Spectrum data is deepest for US news
- Some features require Particle+
Try the news app built around vertical videoVetted newsrooms, the source named on every story, a link to each outlet's website.
More News App Comparisons
Best News App FAQ
What is the best news app?
It depends on what you need. Ground News is best for comparing coverage across the political spectrum, Apple News for iPhone users who also want magazines, Google News for a free aggregator on every platform, and Aplomb for short videos from vetted newsrooms. For bias-focused picks, see the best unbiased news apps.
What is the best free news app?
Google News and AllSides are free with no paid tier needed. SmartNews is free with ads, and Ground News and Particle are free with optional paid plans. Aplomb is free. Apple News is free, but much of its best content is in Apple News+ ($12.99 a month).
Which news app is the least biased?
No app is free of bias, but some show bias ratings or limit their feed to vetted outlets. We compare them in our guide to the best unbiased news apps.
