Hey everyone! I hope you’re well. I wanted to talk a little bit today about RSS feeds - what that is if you’re new to RSS, and why they’re so handy - plus of the RSS readers that are big right now: Bloglovin and Feedly, which one I think is better and why!

What is an RSS Reader?

The easiest way I think I can explain an RSS Reader is it’s a website where you’re able to subscribe to all the websites you love, and it aggregates all of the posts that are published on those sites and allows you to read them all in the one place. So if you’re time poor or just want more convenience, an RSS Reader is a fantastic tool. They can be accessed anywhere as well, so no need to remember URL’s if you’re using another computer. Websites such as Bloglovin and Feedly are two of the biggest RSS Readers around right now.

Home Screens

When you sign into these sites, you’re taken to the home screen. Both basically show the same information, but in a slightly different way. If you’re going off looks alone, you would give this one to Feedly, since it looks a bit nicer. Functionality wise though the posts are more spaced out on the Bloglovin page, and personally a prefer this when it comes to scrolling down the page I find I am able to find what I want to read faster whereas it’s a little cramped on Feedly.

I’m giving this one to Bloglovin. At the end of the day, it’s about functionality, not how pretty it is.

Organising

Ultimately in a good RSS reader you want to be able to easily create folders, and customise your feed to suit your interests. You can create categories so if you’re into different things, it will let you arrange this. Both Feedly and Bloglovin allow you to do this, although they work slightly different. I have to say, both sites actually do this really well.

I like Feedly’s drag and drop feature that they use in order to create new categories, I find that really cool and it’s something different to Bloglovin. I actually think it’s easier to customise your feed via Feedly than Bloglovin, where you have to click around for a bit to get to the same page.

So for navigation when it comes to organising your folders, I give this one to Feedly. It’s just easier.

Reading posts

This is what’s important!! Reading posts. Both sites do this different.

If you click a link via Feedly, your post will open within Feedly, and you can then quickly move to other posts. The speed in which posts load is impressive and something I really like.

Bloglovin will actually open a new window that takes you to the ACTUAL post on the website where it was published. And as someone that runs a blog, I prefer the way Bloglovin does this… takes you to the source.. you can see the post laid out as it was intended. You also get to see the site itself and sometimes you miss out on this through other feed readers.

Bloglovin wins this round.

Overall Performance

Look - it comes down to personal preference really. But if you don’t use RSS readers right now, I think you should try one and see what you think - I love them, it saves me so much time and I am able to still keep up to date with all the blogs that I enjoy reading quite easily that way.

Some people will tell you they love Feedly over Bloglovin, and hey…. whatever works for you! But Kristy and I both use Bloglovin… I think when you pick one that you really like, you end up just sticking with it. I also really like that you can follow people and not just sites on Bloglovin. You can see your friends activity and what they like, and interact a bit more with people that way. It’s almost more of a social platform I find, and I am enjoying that element of it heaps!

I hope you find some of this information useful! Let us know what RSS reader you use, and why you like it. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below and Kristy or I will make sure we answer them for you.