Top 12 News Aggregator Websites for 2024

News aggregator websites, like Feedly, Inoreader, Panda, SmartNews, or Flipboard, help people like you and me to follow multiple news sources without having to visit each individual news website.

In this post, we’ll show you some of the best news aggregator sites that we think are worth sharing.

As an added bonus, we will also discuss their setup and monetization strategies to answer the age-old question of how the best news aggregators work and support themselves.

While we’re at it, if you’re interested in creating your own news website, we’ll later walk you through how to create a news aggregator website.

What is a News Aggregator Website

A news aggregator website is a platform that collects and displays news content from various sources in one centralized location. It acts as a hub where users can access news articles, blog posts, videos, and other forms of media from multiple publishers without the need to visit each individual website.

News aggregator websites utilize technologies like RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds to gather content from different sources automatically. These feeds allow publishers to distribute their content in a standardized format that can be easily parsed and displayed by aggregator websites. For businesses looking to enhance their content distribution further, B2B content syndication is another effective strategy that complements news aggregation, enabling them to broaden their reach and establish thought leadership in their industry.

The main purpose of a news aggregator is to provide users with a convenient and efficient way to stay informed about the latest news and updates across different topics and industries. By aggregating content from various sources, these websites save users time and effort by eliminating the need to visit multiple websites individually.

The Benefits of News Aggregator Websites

News aggregator websites offer several benefits to users, making them a popular choice for staying updated on current events. Here are some of the advantages of using a news aggregator site:

1. Centralized source of information: With a news aggregator, users can access a wide range of news sources and topics in one place. This eliminates the need to visit multiple websites, saving time and effort.
2. Customization and personalization: Many news aggregator sites provide customization options, allowing users to tailor their news feeds based on their interests and preferences. Users can choose the topics they want to follow and receive relevant content accordingly.
3. Diverse perspectives: By aggregating content from various sources, news aggregator websites provide users with a broader range of perspectives on a particular topic. This helps in getting a more comprehensive understanding of the news and enables users to access different viewpoints.
4. Efficient filtering and organization: News aggregator sites often offer features to filter and organize content based on relevance, popularity, or specific criteria. This allows users to focus on the news that matters most to them and avoid information overload.
5. Time-saving: News aggregator sites streamline the process of consuming news by presenting headlines and summaries in a concise format. Users can quickly scan through the latest updates and delve deeper into specific stories if desired.
6. Discovering new sources: News aggregator websites introduce users to new sources and publishers they may not have been aware of before. This helps in diversifying the range of perspectives and discovering content from niche or specialized publications.

If you’re looking to further enhance your news aggregator website or are interested in syndicating content, understanding the role of content syndication providers can be invaluable. For an in-depth look at how these providers can help you expand the reach of your content, check out our latest guide on content syndication providers.

News Aggregator Website vs. News Aggregator Apps: What’s the Difference?

News aggregator websites and apps share key functionalities, such as aggregating content from a diverse array of news sources to provide a broad spectrum of topics and perspectives. However, there are a few key differences:

Platform Accessibility

• Websites: Accessible via web browsers on various devices like computers, tablets, or smartphones.
• Apps: Specifically designed for mobile devices and may offer a more streamlined experience on smartphones and tablets.

User Interface

• Websites: Generally have a more traditional, webpage-based interface. They might offer a broader view on a desktop screen.
• Apps: Often have a mobile-optimized interface, potentially more intuitive for touch-screen use, with gestures and swipes.

Notifications

• Websites: Typically do not send push notifications (unless they have browser notifications enabled).
• Apps: Can send push notifications to devices for breaking news or important updates.

Offline Accessibility

• Websites: Usually require an active internet connection.
• Apps: May offer features like offline reading where articles can be saved and read without an internet connection.

Integration with Device Features

• Websites: Limited integration with device-specific features.
• Apps: Can integrate more deeply with device features, like sharing options, widget support, or use of device-specific hardware (like haptic feedback).

Performance

• Websites: Performance can vary based on the web browser and device.
• Apps: Often optimized for the specific operating system, potentially offering smoother performance.

A Typical News Aggregator Website

The best news aggregators do one thing very well: they collect news stories from multiple news websites using RSS feeds (yes, they still exist and are going strong!) and display them on their homepage.

Follow The Winds is a great example of a news aggregator website. It provides site visitors with breaking news in windsurfing from some of the top news sources related to windsurfing, kitesurfing, and sailing – all in one place.

Here’s how it works:

1. Follow The Winds fetches content by parsing (analyzing) each source site’s RSS feed through WP RSS Aggregator.
2. Once a new piece of content is available on the source site, it is fetched, assigned to a category (such as windsurfing or kitesurfing), and listed on the Follow the Winds website. 
3. When a visitor clicks on a link, they are taken directly to the original source where the article, video, or other forms of content were originally published.

This site, in particular, is beautifully designed using WordPress and has all its breaking news powered by the WP RSS Aggregator plugin. Later on, we’ll show you how to create your own news aggregator site in WordPress using WP RSS Aggregator.

News aggregator websites are a bit different from content curation sites in that the latter typically require more involvement. We published a content curation case study of the Personal Finance Blogs website that goes into more detail.

The 12 Best News Aggregator Websites Right Now

Here’s a quick list of our top 10 news aggregator websites:

1. Feedly
2. Fark
3. Techmeme
4. AllTop
5. Panda
6. Pocket
7. Flipboard
8. InoReader
9. News 360
10. SmartNews
11. Apple News
12. Google News

Below, for each news aggregation site, we’ve included a brief description and its monetization model so you can learn a little bit more about them. If you want to try your hand at creating a site like this, skip to our tutorial below.

These are the news aggregation websites that you’ll typically find in most articles that list news aggregators. They have been around for a while, establishing a dedicated following as well as amazing search engine rankings.

1. Feedly

Feedly is unquestionably one of the best news aggregator sites on the internet today. As its name suggests, it is at its heart an RSS feed reader that allows you to curate your very own news experience from any RSS feed you can think of. You can choose to subscribe to content directly through the platform itself, using its powerful content suggestion engine, or manually add your own favorite blogs and news sites using RSS feeds.

Feedly allows you to browse in a range of different attractive and customizable layouts in a simple, minimalist interface that makes it easy to see at a glance the stories and headlines you want to read.

It’s a flexible platform, too, with Android and iOS apps as well as the traditional browser interface, and cloud sync that allows for continuity between devices.

You can subscribe to up to 100 different sources categorized into up to 3 different boards on their free plan. They also have a range of paid plans allowing subscriptions to more sources and feed types, as well as a powerful AI assistant that can help curate your sources for you.

2. Fark

Fark is a content aggregator that aggregates news content across categories such as politics, sports, business, and entertainment and has built a substantial following over time, making it one of the best news aggregator websites.

It uses a slightly different aggregation method where people can submit a link of their own and give it a unique headline. These are then selected by Fark’s own content team for display on the front page. Others can then comment through Fark itself, building a community around the aggregated content.

As per Fark’s advertising page, they get over 3 million unique pageviews per month and over 50 million total page views per month, which makes it very lucrative for display ads as visitors tend to remain on the site’s news feed for a while (low bounce rate). The minimum budget required for native ads on Fark is $5,000, just to put things into perspective.

They also have a podcast, which is another possible source of monetization, and they even have their own online shop. The brand around Fark has become strong enough to support the sale of branded clothing – not an easy feat even for the best news aggregator, but certainly a testament to their dedication.

3. Techmeme

Techmeme is a news aggregator featuring content from leading world news publications such as The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Other sources also include pure-tech news publications such as 9to5mac.

One of the things it does very well, and which few others do, is to use contextual ads to drive traffic to their advertisers’ sites while ensuring that the readers are being presented with ads that are relevant to them.

Techmeme has a solid monetization strategy offering sponsored posts, contextual ads, event listings, job alerts, and podcast ads.

The prices range from $2,900- $20,000 across ad formats, which will return a substantial amount for any website relying on advertisements to generate revenue.

4. AllTop

Similar to Techmeme, Alltop is a news aggregator with content across a variety of topics, including news, tech, sports, entertainment, lifestyle, and business. Each category features content from popular sites in that niche.

Alltop uses display ads as their primary means of monetization.

5. Panda

Panda is a clean, tech-focused popular news aggregator that makes it easy to browse the latest and most relevant news for tech entrepreneurs, developers, web designers, and more. By default, it offers you a list of around 30 different tech feeds displayed as a smart grid of thumbnails, although you can add more as the mood takes you.

As Panda is offered free to users, it relies on sponsored advertising as its main source of revenue.

6. Pocket

Pocket works pretty differently from most of the other aggregators on this list. Rather than offering curated feeds from the get-go, it allows you to bookmark and save content you like to a reading list so you can browse through it at leisure. It then offers recommendations based on that saved content, helping you to find more content that matches your interests.

Pocket is available both as a browser extension and as a mobile app, so you’re never too far from interesting new content.

7. Flipboard

Flipboard was originally conceived as a digital magazine, and it shows. By far one of the most attractive entrants on this list, Flipboard serves users with, essentially, a daily magazine tailored entirely to their interests. You can choose to follow specific sources and publications, such as the BBC, CNN, or your local news, or simply give it a list of topics and let it find articles that match your interests. The more you use it – making use of its “like” and “less like this” functions – the more it will understand the type of content you want to read.

Flipboard is entirely free, both as a mobile app or via browser, and allows users to integrate it with their paid subscriptions to other magazines and newspapers. If you want a reading experience like you’re reading your own personal morning papers every day, Flipboard has you covered.

8. Inoreader

Inoreader is one of the more feature-rich services on this list, with powerful automation tools for a truly custom experience. As well as serving as a news aggregator by allowing users to subscribe to RSS feeds and blogs, it also supports Facebook pages, Twitter searches, other social networks and even email newsletters.

Using its workflow rules, users can tailor their reading by setting up filters, sending push notifications about specific types of articles, marking them as read, monitoring keywords, and more.

With its Free plan, you’re limited to 150 subscriptions, supported by ads, but there are a variety of higher pricing tiers that allow more and more subscriptions and customization.

9. News 360

With sophisticated AI and machine learning algorithms, News360 offers a unique approach to content curation, analyzing users’ social accounts and reading habits to adapt to their specific interests. This results in a highly tailored news feed that evolves with the user’s changing preferences.

The app aggregates content from over 100,000 sources, ensuring a diverse range of topics and perspectives. It also excels in user experience, providing a single “Home” feed that consolidates all preferred content, thereby streamlining the process of keeping up with various interests from politics to technology, sports, and hobbies.

News360 integrates seamlessly with other digital services, such as Microsoft’s OneNote, allowing users to save and revisit stories. With over seven million users globally, News360 not only personalizes news consumption but also offers a feature called “360 Stories” for in-depth coverage of various topics. This dynamic approach to news aggregation, combined with its reach of over 100 million unique readers monthly through its NativeAI technology, makes News360 a noteworthy contender in the news aggregator space.

10. SmartNews

With its innovative approach to news curation, SmartNews delivers high-quality news and stories from over 14,000 trusted publishers worldwide. This platform has been designed to offer a balanced perspective, providing coverage from reputable sources across the political spectrum. It’s particularly appreciated for its feature that allows users to view news from all sides with a simple slider feature.

SmartNews also addresses the issue of “doomscrolling” with its SmartTake feature, which presents a selection of uplifting stories, editor’s picks, and useful articles, aiming to offer a more positive news consumption experience. However, it’s important to note that some users have raised concerns about increasing advertising and pop-ups within the app, which can be a detractor for those seeking a seamless reading experience.

The app’s deep-reading option and its focus on local breaking news keep users updated with what’s happening in their world, both locally and beyond.

11. Apple News

If you’re on iOS, it’s hard for Apple News to escape your notice – it’s installed by default on all new iOS devices. Like Flipboard, it’s a news reader designed for visual impact, with a clean, image-forward format entirely optimized for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.

It allows you to either read complete digital versions of popular journals, newspapers, and other publications or curate your own feed of selected, optimized articles on your favorite topics using its streamlined search function.

On the plus side – it’s free! But on the flip side, just as with many Apple products, it’s part of a closed ecosystem and doesn’t offer anywhere like as many of the custom features that some of the other sites we’ve featured here.

12. Google News

The final example in our list – Google News! You didn’t think we’d leave this one out, did you?

Google News is probably the most powerful, AI-powered news aggregator on the planet. It offers highly personalized news, across thousands of sources, based on the user’s location, interests, web browsers, whether they are using an Android or iPhone, and countless other algorithms all running in real-time. 

It groups the news into various categories, shows trending topics, and includes a For You page for your personalized news. With all these features, Google News is an aspirational product for a news aggregator website.

---

Bonus: How to Build Your Own News Aggregator Website

Thinking of setting up a dedicated news website or adding a news feed feature to your site? Whether it’s an entire website or just a new feature to add to your existing WordPress blog, an RSS plugin only takes a few steps to set up, but the benefits of your content syndication could last far longer.

Step 1: Install WP RSS Aggregator

You can either download WP RSS Aggregator and upload it to your site through the Plugins section in your WordPress dashboard or search for “WP RSS Aggregator” through that same section directly.

Step 2: Pick Your Sources and Add Them

Do your research and find the best sources for the audience that you have or want. Once you’ve done that, find their RSS feeds and create the feed sources within WP RSS Aggregator.

Step 3: Set up Your Template

Next, visit the Templates section of WP RSS Aggregator and set up the display that you want. If you’re looking for more than just a list, the Templates add-on provides other options, including a stylish grid.

Step 4: Display the Feeds

Using the wp-rss-aggregator shortcode or the WP RSS Aggregator block, depending on the editor you’re using, add the feeds to any page of your choice.

When using the block editor, you can also use columns to create an Alltop-style page showing multiple feeds.

Other Methods of Displaying Feeds

If you’re already using a page builder on your website or you’re using a custom theme and wish to code your solution, WP RSS Aggregator can still help you build a news aggregator app like Feedly, Flipboard, Panda, or Apple News.

For page builders, you may use the wp-rss-aggregator shortcode anywhere on your site using the page builder’s shortcode widget.

When choosing to work directly within the theme, there are a couple of ways that you can achieve the same results.

Option 1

<?php wprss_display_feed_items( $args = array(
  'limit' => '8',
  'source' => '5,9'
)); ?>

Option 2

<?php do_shortcode('[[wp-rss-aggregator]]'); ?>

Step 5: Supercharge Your Site with Pro (Optional)

Take things a few steps further with WP RSS Aggregator’s Pro Plan. Here’s a quick look at what’s on offer.

Feed to Post automatically creates a new WordPress post for each individual entry in the RSS feed for your RSS readers, regardless of whether they use a web browser, iPhone, or Android device.

Images are vital to sprucing up any website, which is why Feed to Post includes a few different options for how to import and set both featured images and images within the content.

Apart from that, you can automatically categorize posts based on keywords or tags present in the title and/or content of the post. This is very useful when a source has news on different topics and you wish to organize them accordingly, like some of the best news aggregator sites (ex. Feedly and Flipboard).

There is also an option to automatically generate the categories from the RSS feed itself, essentially recreating the same categorization as used on the original site.

Attribution is very important to ensure that you always give credit where it’s due. For this, Feed to Post has Author options where you can choose to use the original author’s name from the RSS feed.

Other powerful features included with Feed to Post are the Append and Prepend to Content options, Custom Field Mapping that is very powerful when choosing to import certain information from the RSS feeds into custom post types or custom fields, and Extraction Rules for when you need to remove certain elements from the imported content, such as social media links and buttons within the content.

Oftentimes, the RSS feed won’t contain the full text or images, making your new post incomplete.  The Full-Text RSS feed add-on is used to parse the original URL of the source post and extract images, other media, and full text (or an excerpt of the full text using Word Trimming) depending on your configuration. 

Other Features

Using the Templates add-on, you can create article grids or video grids with YouTube feeds, or an article list with a thumbnail and excerpt. These can be used anywhere on your site as additional content areas, such as sidebars, footers, or as part of an existing page.

The Keyword Filtering add-on is used to filter a feed’s content by keywords, phrases, or tags. You can also use keyword filtering in conjunction with shortcodes which allow you to display notifications or feed items from as many sources as you want, as long as they contain a specific keyword or phrase.

Bonus: Engage with More People Using Instagram

As we’ve seen above, curating content is a great way to build an audience. However, the influence of social media is not something to be disregarded either. Combining the two together will help to engage more with your audience wherever they’re at.

Instagram is the best social media platform for engagement. By sharing posts related to the content you’re curating or even featuring them, you can gain new followers and be active in the comment threads.

Combine your Instagram feed with your website, and you’ve suddenly created a new non-intrusive way of building a bigger audience. For this, we recommend Spotlight Instagram Feeds – a social feeds plugin that is incredibly easy to set up and looks great across all devices.

Spotlight is a free plugin that comes with a PRO version for added features. With the premium options, you can even create Instagram feeds showcasing posts that use a specific hashtag, which is another great way to curate user-generated content with no added effort. The free plan is a great start as well.

Next Steps for Leveraging News Aggregator Websites

News aggregator websites have transformed the way we consume news. They provide a convenient and efficient solution for staying informed without the need to visit multiple sources.

The platforms we’ve discussed offer a personalized experience, presenting a diverse range of perspectives and saving valuable time. All considered, it’s hard to deny that news aggregator websites such as these have revolutionized the way we consume news, offering a convenient, personalized, and time-efficient experience.

Want to get in on the action? Tools like WP RSS Aggregator make it easier than ever before to create and run your own news aggregator. This guide has already covered the key steps to do so, all that’s left to do is to try WP RSS Aggregator for yourself and create your news aggregator site today!

---

Over to you – Are you interested in starting your own news aggregator? Do you know of a news aggregator site that you’d like us to share? Let us know in the comments below.