Reddit App Review: The Community App That Killed Third-Party Clients, and Whether It’s Any Good Now

Reddit killed off every third-party app in 2023 by charging developers enormous API fees, which means the official Reddit app is now what everyone uses whether they wanted to or not. This Reddit app review is about whether the official app has actually gotten better since then, and where it still frustrates people who miss Apollo, Sync, or RIF.

What the app is for

Reddit is thousands of communities (subreddits), each focused on one topic — a hobby, a city, a sports team, a piece of software, a way of thinking. The app is how you scroll them on your phone. Each post is a link, an image, a video, or a text discussion, and comments are threaded so replies nest under the reply they’re answering.

What the official app does well now

Video playback is much better than it was in 2023. Reddit’s videos load fast, autoplay works properly, and the double-tap to like feels responsive. Native video hosting has largely caught up to what YouTube-embedded videos used to be better at.

Community discovery is stronger. The Home feed learns your interests, the “For You” tab surfaces communities you might like, and the search feature actually finds relevant subreddits instead of just posts. If you’re new to Reddit, the app makes finding your people easier than the website ever did.

Chat and DMs work well. Reddit chat has become a real messaging tool, not just an afterthought — you can share posts into a chat, react with emoji, and have real threaded conversations.

Where the app still gets it wrong

Ads. Way too many, poorly labeled, sometimes appearing in the middle of a comment thread as fake posts. If you scroll for 15 minutes you’ll see a dozen. This is the single biggest complaint about the official app from Apollo/Sync refugees.

Comment thread performance. On popular posts with thousands of comments, the app slows down noticeably. Third-party apps handled this better because they were built by people who used Reddit for hours a day. The official app is built by people who need it to serve ads.

The UI for power users. Old Reddit users know: keyboard shortcuts, dense comment layouts, custom CSS on subreddits, hide/tag users. None of that exists in the official app. It’s designed for casual users, and casual users are fine with it.

Reddit Premium — the paywall

Reddit Premium is around $6 per month and removes ads, gives you a monthly allotment of Coins (a virtual currency for awarding posts), and unlocks some cosmetic features. Removing ads is the reason people pay — everything else is filler. If you scroll Reddit daily, it’s worth it. If you use Reddit weekly or less, no.

The Old Reddit vs the app

Some communities are noticeably worse to browse in the app than on old.reddit.com in a browser. Highly technical subreddits (Linux, programming, hobbyist ones with lots of custom formatting) lose formatting on mobile. If you spend time in those communities, the desktop old.reddit interface remains superior, and you can access it from mobile Chrome by going to old.reddit.com directly.

NSFW and age-gating

The app requires you to sign in to see NSFW content and requires a verified account age. This is standard for mobile app stores. If you want anonymous browsing including NSFW, use the web version.

Privacy — the important part

Reddit tracks what you view, upvote, and comment on to shape your feed and target ads. Your account is pseudonymous but not anonymous — Reddit knows your patterns. Turn off “Personalize ads” in Settings → Privacy to reduce ad targeting. Use a throwaway account for anything you don’t want tied to your identity — Reddit doesn’t require your real name and this is normal on the platform.

Should you use the Reddit app?

If you’re a casual Reddit user checking a few subs a day, yes — the official app is fine, and there’s no third-party alternative anymore. If you were an Apollo/Sync power user, it’ll never be what those were, and browsing on the desktop web is a reasonable fallback. Pay for Premium if you’re on the app daily and ads bother you. And don’t feed Reddit’s algorithm anything you don’t want feeding you.