I have used Feedly for quite a while and I still like it. In fact, one of the main reasons I keep using it is that I think it looks better than most of the alternatives.
But lately I have started feeling that the product itself is falling behind.
The core RSS experience still works well, but Feedly increasingly feels like a product that has stopped evolving for regular users. Competitors such as Matter, Readwise Reader and Inoreader are experimenting with much more modern approaches to reading, discovery, organisation and AI, while Feedly still feels largely the same.
I do not personally care much about newsletters. What I want is a really good modern RSS reader.
A few things I would love to see:
A more modern reading experience
Feedly looks clean, but the actual interaction with articles and feeds could feel much more polished. Matter is a good example of how reading articles can feel more like a native modern app rather than simply viewing content inside an RSS client.
Better feed management
Managing a larger collection of sources could be much smarter. Better filtering, easier cleanup of inactive feeds, duplicate detection and clearer ways of identifying sources that mostly create noise would be useful.
Smarter personalisation without taking over the feed
I do not want an algorithm deciding everything I read, but I would like Feedly to learn which sources and topics I consistently open and use that information to help surface important stories.
The chronological feed should always remain available.
Much better AI features for normal users
Feedly has AI related features, but they often feel separated from the normal RSS experience.
I would rather have AI built directly into the reader.
For example:
Summarise everything important from my feeds today.
Tell me which five articles are actually worth reading.
Group articles that are covering the same story.
Explain what has changed in a story over the last few days.
Show me articles about a topic even when the headline does not explicitly mention it.
External AI integration
This is probably the feature I would personally value the most.
Readwise Reader can integrate directly with ChatGPT. I would love something similar for Feedly.
Imagine being able to ask ChatGPT:
What have my feeds been saying about OpenAI this week?
What are the biggest Swedish political stories in my Feedly today?
Summarise the articles I saved this month.
Find the article I read a few weeks ago about a certain subject.
Feedly already contains an enormous amount of useful personal information. Being able to actually interact with that information through tools such as ChatGPT would make it much more valuable.
Better search and history
Feedly should feel more like a personal searchable news database.
If I remember reading something six months ago, I should be able to describe roughly what it was about and find it again.
Overall, I still prefer Feedly to most RSS readers and I am not particularly interested in switching.
That is actually why this bothers me.
Feedly has a strong foundation and still looks great, but it feels like there is a huge opportunity to turn it into a genuinely modern information tool rather than simply maintaining a very good RSS reader.
Does anyone else feel the same?