Best Free News Apps: Credible News Without a Paywall
Google News is the best free news aggregator, with no paid tier and Full Coverage of each story. AllSides is the best free app for comparing left, center and right headlines. SmartNews, Ground News and Particle are free with ads or paid extras, and Aplomb is a free feed of short videos from vetted newsrooms.
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.
Free News Apps at a Glance
| App | Best for | Format | Shows bias | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 Google News | Best free news aggregator | Articles | No | Free |
 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 |
 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 |
 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 |
 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) |
 Apple News | Best for iPhone users who also want magazines | Articles, magazines and audio | No | Free; Apple News+ $12.99 a month |
Want news as short videos instead of articles? Aplomb is the vertical video option.
How We Compared Free News Apps
- What is free: how much of the app works without paying, and what sits in a paid plan.
- Ads: whether the free version shows ads.
- Source quality: who publishes the news you see, and whether outlets are vetted.
- Bias transparency: whether the app shows political lean or reliability.
For the newsrooms themselves, see our list of vetted news sources and how they score on the media bias chart.
The Best Free News Apps, Reviewed
1. 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
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. 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
4. 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
5. 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
6. 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+
7. 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
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
Free News App FAQ
What is the best free news app?
Google News is the most complete free aggregator, and AllSides is the best free app for seeing left, center and right headlines side by side. Aplomb is free and shows short videos from vetted newsrooms. SmartNews is free with ads.
Are free news apps really free?
Most are free to download and use, then earn money from ads or a paid tier. Google News and AllSides need no subscription. SmartNews shows ads unless you pay for the ad-free option, Ground News and Particle keep some features for paying members, and Apple News keeps magazines and many paywalled articles in Apple News+ ($12.99 a month in the US).
Can I read paywalled newspapers in a free news app?
Usually not. Free aggregators link to the original article, and paywalled outlets still ask you to subscribe. Apple News+ is the main app that bundles some paywalled newspapers, for a monthly fee.
Is there a free news app without ads?
Aplomb shows no ads of its own: the videos come from the newsrooms' official channels. In aggregators, the outlets you open may still show their own ads, and SmartNews shows ads in its free version.
