Wisp is a free calm news app for iPhone and Android. You choose the topics you follow; Wisp reads every major source covering them, clusters duplicate coverage into single events, and rewrites each event as one neutral summary. The feed is chronological and finite, with no engagement algorithm, no clickbait, and no outrage.
What Wisp is
Topics can be a country, an industry, a sport, a technology, a policy area. When several outlets cover the same underlying event, Wisp recognizes it, merges that duplicate coverage into a single item, and writes one neutral summary of it.
The feed is chronological — newest events first, no algorithm deciding what you “really” want. The language is deliberately flat — no “SHOCKING,” no “slams,” no manufactured urgency. And the feed ends: when you’ve read what happened in your topics, Wisp tells you you’re caught up, and you close it.
That’s the entire product. The tagline is “news without drama,” and the design principle behind it is that most of what makes news feel bad — the anxiety, the compulsive checking, the outrage — comes from how news is delivered, not from the news itself. We’ve written the long version of that argument in How to Stop Doomscrolling and Still Stay Informed.
Is Wisp legit?
A fair question to ask about any free app, so here are the checkable facts:
- It’s a real app with official store listings: Wisp on the App Store and Wisp on Google Play.
- It doesn’t make money from your attention. Wisp is free, and the feed isn’t funded by ads, which means no incentive to keep you scrolling. You can read why that distinction matters more than any feature in our calm news apps ranking.
- There’s a human on the other end. Wisp is built by a small independent team, reachable at [email protected] and on X. The privacy policy and terms are short enough to actually read.
- We show our work. Every summary is built from real coverage by real outlets, and those sources stay one tap away — Wisp is designed to be checked, not trusted blindly.
What Wisp is not: a news outlet. We don’t report, and we don’t editorialize. Wisp is a delivery mechanism for other people’s reporting, restructured to inform you without activating you.
How Wisp works, slightly less briefly
Three steps, each doing one job:
- Clustering. Dozens of outlets covering the same event get recognized as one event. This alone removes most of the volume of a normal news feed — you were never reading forty stories a day, you were reading eight stories five times each.
- Neutral rewriting. The summary is generated from the full range of coverage, which averages the most outrage-y outlet’s framing against the wire services’ restraint. What survives is the facts. (The mechanics of why this matters: What Is Outrage Journalism?)
- Chronological, finite delivery. Events appear in the order they happened, in the topics you chose, and the feed has a bottom. No engagement optimization at any layer, because nothing in the business model wants your engagement.
If you’re comparing us against the alternatives, we keep honest comparisons — including where competitors are better: Wisp vs Particle, Wisp vs 1440, Wisp vs Ground News, and Wisp vs Slow News Co..
Other things called Wisp
The name is common. Wisp the telehealth company is an unrelated US business that ships prescriptions; our app downloads, it doesn’t ship. WISP, the acronym, means “wireless internet service provider.” And a wisp is a thin strand of smoke or hair, which is why we liked the word.
Try it
The fastest way to evaluate a news app is to use it for a week and notice how you feel after each session. Wisp is free on iOS and Android — if it doesn’t make your news habit calmer, delete it and keep the week of calm as a souvenir.
Related: How to Stop Doomscrolling and Still Stay Informed · The Best Calm News Apps in 2026 · Curated News vs. Algorithmic Feeds
Questions people actually ask
What is the Wisp app?
Wisp is a free calm news app for iPhone and Android. You choose the topics you follow, and Wisp clusters coverage from every major source into one neutral summary per event, in a chronological, finite feed with no engagement algorithm.
Is Wisp a legit app?
Yes. Wisp is a real news app, free to download from the official App Store and Google Play listings, built by a small independent team. It is free, and it doesn't sell your attention to advertisers. You can reach the team directly at [email protected].
Is Wisp free?
Yes. Wisp is free to download and use on iPhone and Android.
Does Wisp use AI?
Yes, for two specific jobs: recognizing when multiple outlets are covering the same underlying event, and writing one neutral summary of that event from the full range of coverage. The sources behind every summary remain one tap away, so you can always verify against the original reporting.