Rossel

It has a ton of features and polish, and the UX is very good. Mainly that, value is subjective, but I'm willing to pay the dev for a good app.

Also, Sync is one dev working full time by himself, not a big corp.

Isn't Liftoff the clone, considering Sync is 10+ years old?

You can customize caching in data options, to use mobile data, WiFi only or never precache.

Settings shortcut: Settings > Data options

Toggle these 3 on. Settings shortcut: General > Transparent statusSettings shortcut: General > Autohide ToolbarSettings shortcut: General > Autohide bottom navigation

As for why I prefer Sync, I love the consistent Material You theming and animations, the advanced filters that allow you to filter posts per keywords, the QoL stuff like automatically removing AMP links and preloading posts and comments in case you lose your internet signal, the inline link previews in comments and posts, the endless customization, that yeah, can be overwhelmed but also very comprehensive, and the excellent support that the app recieves, constantly being updated with community requested features.

Free as in speech, not necessarily free as in no money exchanged. The GPLv3 explicitly allows commercial use to both the creator and third parties.

Tap and hold a setting and it generates a link.

Depends. Something like Krita? Absolutely. LibreOffice? Not so much.
I'm on team Sync on this one, it just has the advantage of 10+ years of maturity.

Here Settings shortcut: View type > Preview full width Settings shortcut: View type > Show a border around selftext

It's quite polished, mainly that. Even for a beta, there's almost no bugs, it respects Android Material You specs including animations, and it's highly customizable, allowing advanced filtering for example. It also adds very nice QoL features like automatically removing AMP links for full links.
Value is subjective, I personally consider it worthy of my money.

LJ, the dev of Sync, makes a living off it. It's not a side project like most Lemmy apps are for their devs. This means that yes, it's monetized, but also, it's one of the most polished and frequently updated apps.

He went MIA when people hated v20, apparently he was a bit burnt out already and the response to the update was the tipping point. But LJ does make a living out of Sync.