I've written a review about my views on feedlounge right here:

http://www.brokenkode.com/archives/feedlounge-review/
 

FeedLounge is fast, accessible, good-looking, and does everything I expect in a good feedreader. I have tried different online feedreaders, but none of them match FeedLounge in any area.

FeedLounge isn't free, which I guess will put some people off. Personally I'd rather pay the $4.20 pr month FeedLounge will cost me and have a good service that I know will be maintained, improved, and backed up by good hardware. I'm all for free services as long as they work properly, but let's face it - hardware costs money. So if my fifty bucks pr year can help Alex and Scott maintain a good serverpark and keep FeedLounge as fast as it is now, I'll pay up with a smile on my face...
 

I love FeedLounge. It's fast, it has neato-AJAXy features (hello, tags for individual entries), and I can access it anywhere.

Oh, and by the way. FeedLounge has a River of News view. :)

I have a brief post about FeedLounge opening to the public, and my feelings on it. Entry here:
http://www.joshteeters.org/blog/2006/01/09/feedlounge-doors-open/
 

I have used many newsreaders over the past couple years. I started on Sage and loved it but needed a solution for multiple computers (work and home). I tried pluck, bloglines, Newsgator, Google reader, and even got an invite to FeedLounge.

I can say that the Newsgator service is by far the best service I have used for a few reasons. Bloglines is too ugly and doesn't do what I want it to, and it's also really really ugly. Feedlounge is gorgeous and designed with an amazing workflow in mind, but when its all said and done, it just doesn't deliver. A lot of feeds take hours, even days to update, especially if it's a less 'popular' feed. Also, in my experience, the service has been unbearably slow. I used the service for a few weeks as my only reader and I had to stop because of the performance. I really wanted to like the service, but I couldn't. Seems performance has improved somewhat since when I was using it, but now they will be charging, too.

Newsgator is really what I wanted. The interface is pretty good, not as good as the FeedLounge interface, but *way* better than Bloglines. The feeds get updated instantly, I have no idea how they do it, but they do, and now there will be FeedDeamon integration (not to mention NetNewsWire integration), so you can read it in your favorite reader at home and online on the road. It's also free. I would take a serious look at Newsgator. Good luck finding the one that’s right for you.
 

Forgot to say that NewsGator has a river-of-news view, if I understand that term correctly.
 

I've been privileged to be one of the alpha testers for feedlounge and I have to say that I am completely sold on it. It is by far the best feedreader i've used on my desktop or the web. I love the interface and everything loads very fast.

I thought about going down the route you suggest of using feeddemon and syncing it with newsgator but that seemed so cumbersome compared to just always going to the same webpage. Sure feedlounge doesn't have all of the features of other desktop readers but to me those aren't very important. The most important part of a feed reader is seeing your feeds and new posts and feedlounge does this very well. I will definitely be signing up for a paid subscription once it goes live. I hope that helps your decision.
 

FeedLounge is great. It's far and wide the best web-based feed reading experience I've ever had. Scott and Alex have put so much time and effort into the AJAX approach to web-based development that it's really more like reading feeds in NetNewsWire (or FeedDemon for you Windows folks) than it is reading them in NewsGator Online or (heaven forbid) Bloglines.

I'd count Bloglines out of the running instantly, given the issues people like Ed Bott have been having. The 2 or 3 times I've ever logged in to check them out in the past year I've instantly run screaming into the night.

NewsGator Online was my long-time favorite, as I was laptop-less and moving between machines at home and work frequently. A desktop reader wasn't feasible, and NG Online came through for me in a pinch. It's no doubt reliable and time-tested to be there when you need your fix. Still, there's not a whole lot else... It's just a basic online reader. There aren't any exciting features that make users go 'Wow!'. Still, once NNW and FD get synch'ing with the online service, it'll be kick ass for sure to have exactly the same material available everywhere. Still, the online version is like Linux - very stable, but very basic. Oh yeah, and they've got some well-received and efficient communication, much like FeedLounge.

I've blogged about FeedLounge a lot over the past few months. I started off with my initial review / walkthrough after being accepted to the alpha testing program. It's got some commentary, some wishes, some wants, and a few complaints, along with a whole smattering of screenshots from the first release. Some of the content is no longer true, since Scott and Alex are very responsive to user requests and problems.

Next we've got the Alpha 6 Screenshots and Walkthrough. This is basically a stripped-down version of the first review with more screenshots, displaying the updates to the user interface and some new features that made up the Alpha 6 release.

Finally there's my pledge to support FeedLounge next week when they open their (virtual) doors for public consumption.

I can't recommend FeedLounge strongly enough. It's a great program that I can't imagine anyone not loving, and it's got two great developers working day and night to bring you a better feed reading experience. Heck, they use it themselves, you know they're going to work hard to make it the best they can. It's worth the $5 to give it a try for a month, I promise. Who knows, you might even be able to con our ever-loving developers into giving you a free month to try it out.