Best Unbiased News App: Comparing Apps That Take Bias Seriously
No news app is free of bias, but some make it visible. Ground News is the best for comparing coverage across the spectrum, AllSides is the best free option for left, center and right headlines side by side, and SmartNews and Particle add a spectrum view to a general feed. Aplomb takes a different route: a curated video feed from vetted newsrooms only.
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.
Unbiased 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 |
 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 Unbiased News Apps
- How the app handles bias: bias ratings per source, coverage split per story, or a curated list of outlets.
- Where the ratings come from: independent raters such as AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, or the app's own method.
- Source quality: whether outlets are vetted before they appear in the feed.
- Format and price: articles or video, and what is free.
For the newsrooms themselves, see our list of vetted news sources and how they score on the media bias chart.
The Best Unbiased News Apps, 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. 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. 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.
Which News App Shows Bias?
Apps take two approaches. Some show bias next to every outlet or story, so you can see how coverage splits across the spectrum: Ground News uses ratings averaged from AllSides, Ad Fontes Media and Media Bias/Fact Check, AllSides uses its own ratings, and SmartNews and Particle place outlets on a left-right scale. Others curate the feed, only including outlets that pass a set of standards.
Aplomb takes the second approach: every newsroom meets six published criteria, and each outlet's ratings are on its profile, from the unbiased news sources list.
More News App Comparisons
Best Unbiased News App FAQ
What is the best unbiased news app?
It depends on how you want to handle bias. Ground News compares coverage of the same story across the spectrum, with ratings averaged from three independent raters. AllSides shows left, center and right headlines side by side for free. Aplomb limits its feed to vetted newsrooms and shows short videos.
Is there a free unbiased news app?
Yes. AllSides is free. Ground News, SmartNews and Particle have free versions, with paid plans or an ad-free option on top. Aplomb is free.
Can a news app be completely unbiased?
No. Every app makes choices about which outlets and stories to show. The useful question is whether the app is transparent about those choices and shows you where each story comes from.
