Reddit is the self-styled front page of the internet. It's a huge community where you can join discussions on almost any topic. It's great for finding interesting articles posted around the web or catching the latest viral videos. Or you can just use it to watch cat GIFs when you should be working.

While you can access the service through any web browser, there's also a vast number of Reddit apps for Android in the Play Store. Which one is best for you depends on how you use the service. Let's take a look.

1. Reddit

The official Reddit app is not the best Reddit app for Android. It can be slow and a little buggy, it's not laid out in the clearest way, and it fills your feed with ads in the form of promoted posts. But it gets a place on our list because it's the only app to deliver the full Reddit experience.

This covers everything from push notifications and live chat to polls and the ability to style your avatar or buy and spend Reddit Coins. If those things are important to you then it's worth getting, and you need to have it installed anyway if you want push notifications in third-party apps. But there's a lot better out there.

Download: Reddit (Free, in-app purchases available)

2. Sync for Reddit

Sync for Reddit is one of Android's most well-established all-rounders and is a good starting point for most users. It looks great, with a modern Material-inspired design, and is incredibly customizable.

There's support for gallery and gesture modes, making content extremely browsable. And there's a Night Mode that can be set to activate automatically at a certain time of day.

Comments are handled well. They're easy to format when writing, and easy to read, with color-coded and collapsible parent comments that make long threads especially scannable. Even better: spoilers in movie and TV discussions get hidden.

And there's more. There's support for multireddits, where you can combine multiple subs into a single screen, as well as multiple accounts, integration with popular image services, and powerful filters that let you clean up the community to your own taste. The list is endless, and you can upgrade to Sync Pro for more.

Download: Sync for Reddit (Free, in-app purchases available)

3. BaconReader for Reddit

BaconReader has been around since 2011 and has many similarities to Sync. It's not as good-looking, though, with a less attractive theme and fewer options to customize it to your taste.

There are no complaints about the feature list. There are gestures for upvoting and downvoting comments as well as carrying out other common tasks, color-coded threads to make discussions easy to follow, and a slide-show view that's perfect for image-heavy subs. It's easy to format your comments and post images, and offers tools for mods too.

The app is ad-supported, and you can remove those through a one-time payment.

Download: BaconReader for Reddit (Free, in-app purchases available)

4. rif is fun for Reddit

reddit is fun is one of the oldest Android Reddit apps. It had to change its name a while back to conform to Play Store rules, and the developers settled on the rather awkward moniker rif is fun instead. The app itself? Still strong.

If you're the kind of person who still browses Reddit on the desktop using the old theme, reddit is fun is for you. It is possible to tweak the distinctly old-school look, such as making images larger if you prefer a more visual approach, but the app is very much a throwback to how Reddit used to be.

What it lacks in looks and advanced features, it makes up for in speed. It's especially good if you mostly use Reddit to find links to interesting articles around the web. It's less effective if you're keen on joining in the community discussions. It takes two taps to open the comments on any post, and you can't collapse comment threads to make them more readable.

Download: rif is fun for Reddit (Free)

5. Boost for reddit

Boost for reddit is a treat for anyone who likes to really delve in and customize their apps. It's possible to tweak almost everything.

You can decide how it should handle links to certain types of content, such as in which app they should open. You can set up data saving to compress GIFs or videos or show them at lower resolutions when you're on mobile data. You're even able to set custom fonts and choose different ones for both titles and content.

The visual choices are equally vast, with eight preset layouts plus a further option to create your own. These include an image-only layout, which is great for picture-based subs, and a very nice magazine-style Swipe mode. With this, you can browse all your posts just by swiping the page left and right.

Boost also lets you browse anonymously, although you'll need to create a throwaway account if you want to post.

Download: Boost for reddit (Free, in-app purchases available)

6. Joey for Reddit

Joey is a great Reddit app that gets all the basics down while adding in a few extras you rarely see elsewhere. It has a very visual approach. GIFs autoplay, there's a video downloader, and you can also preview images and videos by tapping and holding on them. There's no need to actually open each individual post.

In addition, the app supports vertical cards, where you can browse through endless content with a quick swipe up the screen.

You also get a Reader mode for web articles, text-to-speech support, spoiler hiding, Reddit Live integration, and much more. It can take a while to find your way around the app, but it's worth the effort if you're a heavy user.

Download: Joey for Reddit (Free, in-app purchases available)

7. Infinity for reddit

Finally, something for the privacy-conscious Reddit user: Infinity. It's free, open-source, and ad-free, so you can use it in the confidence that you aren't constantly being tracked.

Open-source apps don't always have the best reputation for visual prowess, but this one looks nice, with a modern Material-inspired design. It isn't as customizable as most of the other apps on this list but the basics are in place. For example, it offers four layouts for your posts and you can create your own theme. Comments are color-coded and collapsible for easy reading, and there's gesture support so that you can navigate and vote by swiping.

There are some unusual features, too, like the Lazy Mode that automatically scrolls through your feed without you even needing to touch the screen.

Download: Infinity for reddit (Free, in-app purchases available)

Choose Your Perfect Reddit App

The feature set in most of these apps is very similar. The app that works out best for you is likely to be the one that you find the most visually appealing, or which you can get your head around quickest. With so many features, so many ways to customize, and sidebars often sliding in from both sides, they can take a little while to get used to.

We like Sync as a solid all-rounder, and Infinity is great as the privacy option, but the likes of Boost and rif have their strengths too. And while we aren't all that keen on the official app, it's worth keeping it installed alongside one of the others if you want access to everything that Reddit offers.