Octal (Hacker News iOS app)
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 11 hacker news clients by recommenders
Recommended as a lightweight Hacker News reader with good touch targets and night mode; one critic finds nested threads hard to read in heated debates.
Recommended as a lightweight Hacker News reader with good touch targets and night mode; one critic finds nested threads hard to read in heated debates.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 83%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Best Hacker News reader
“Been using it for years and I have never found a better reader for hn.”
Comment from 10 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Orange Juice – Small UX improvements that make HN much easier to read” “Octal is the best one. Typing this comment from it right now.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Why doesn't HN have a mobile app?” Used in place of website
“most of the time for HN I browse using Octal instead of the website”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “Starlink roam 50GB is now 100GB with unlimited slow speed after that” “Octal is the best one. Typing this comment from it right now.”
Comment from 5 Apr 2026 in “Why doesn't HN have a mobile app?” Pleasant UI and good touch targets
“The Octal app has better touch targets on mobile and manages to show more text at the same time.”
Comment from 15 Jan 2026 in “Starlink roam 50GB is now 100GB with unlimited slow speed after that” “Night mode, Pleasant UI, and lightweight”
Comment from 6 Apr 2026 in “Why doesn't HN have a mobile app?”
Other hacker news clients people recommend
The four most recommended other hacker news clients, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hacker News client for macOS | 26 | 5 | 84% | 1 | — | — |
| hcker.news | 18 | 4 | 82% | 10 | — | Approved |
| hckrnews.com | 18 | 0 | 100% | 8 | — | Approved |
| The Front Page | 16 | 0 | 100% | 5 | — | Approved |
| Octal (Hacker News iOS app)This page | 10 | 2 | 83% | 8 | — | Approved |
What people said
9 of the 15 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“My method is better than Octal as no screen scraping or html tag parsing is done.”
“still sound really really good, especially compared to a lot of solid-state guitar amps”
“Been using it for years and I have never found a better reader for hn.”
“even on Octal in heated debates on HN it becomes extremely difficult to read nested comment threads”
“one of best the third party apps available and quite popular”
“Night mode, Pleasant UI, and lightweight”
“Octal is the best one. Typing this comment from it right now.”
“The Octal app has better touch targets on mobile and manages to show more text at the same time.”
“most of the time for HN I browse using Octal instead of the website”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.