> how stagnant Reader was before its death

That's a feature, not a bug. It was close to perfect, no pointless UI re-designs required. Fast, lightweight, no bs.

Yes and no. By being the de facto standard and housing most of the people, it somewhat stifled innovation in the space. Sure there were a ton of front ends built over the top of it, and the space was vibrant, but it really shined after they were forced into the spotlight. It was like turning on a flashlight and spiders scattering everywhere. The scatter breathed new sustaining life into many many projects.

Do you have a favorite? I have a Feedly account but I don’t use the site much, and the Reeder app added local subscriptions recently.

I've been happily using Inoreader since the plug was pulled on Google Reader

I tried a bunch of them (Inoreader, Feedly, Oldreader, ttRSS) before settling on FreshRSS. It has a beautiful interface, don't need to use a dedicated mobile client as the website works perfectly and is self-hosted. Marks all the boxes for me.

I tried a couple and ended up settling on Feedly.

Which ones are your favorites?