SHSelfHostIndex

RSS & News Readers

Follow the open web on your terms with self-hosted RSS readers and feed aggregators.

56 self-hosted apps · 352 comparisons

All rss & news readers apps

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 417 words

Self-hosted RSS in 2026 is a two-part stack, and most people only shop for half of it. The reader is the visible half; the other half is a feed generator like RSSHub (45,890 stars) or RSS-Bridge, which manufactures feeds for the large slice of the web that stopped publishing them. Pair the two and your reader covers newsletters-turned-feeds, social accounts, and release pages, not just the blogs that still do RSS properly.

How to choose an RSS reader

Users first. FreshRSS is multi-user, so one instance serves a household; Miniflux is deliberately single-user; yarr is single-user by design too. Then the database question, which is really an operations question: Miniflux requires PostgreSQL with no SQLite option — the deployment notes are blunt about it — FreshRSS needs a database of your choosing, and yarr embeds SQLite inside one 64 MB binary, which is why it is the lightest thing here. Third, phone apps. Neither FreshRSS nor Miniflux has to win on its own web UI, because both expose compatible APIs that existing mobile readers sync against; check your preferred app's supported backends before choosing. Both projects date from 2013–2014 and are actively maintained, so longevity does not separate them — temperament does. Miniflux is opinionated and minimal on purpose; FreshRSS is customizable, themable, and extension-friendly. The FreshRSS vs Miniflux comparison goes deeper.

The refresh trap

The classic FreshRSS support thread: everything installs cleanly, feeds import, and then nothing ever updates. The Docker image only polls feeds if CRON_MIN is set in the environment — without it, feeds never refresh on their own. Set it at deploy time (the project suggests values like 13,43) and the problem never exists.

Where to start

FreshRSS for a family instance or anyone who wants extensions and theming, in 256 MB on Docker or any PHP host. Miniflux for a solo reader who wants speed, keyboard navigation, and zero clutter, and who does not mind running Postgres. Add RSSHub alongside either once you notice how much of your reading has no feed; its one honest weakness is that individual routes break as source sites change, so expect occasional gardening.

Default for a first-timer: FreshRSS, with CRON_MIN set on day one. It is the forgiving choice — multi-user when you want to share it, SQLite-capable when you do not want to run Postgres, and compatible with nearly every mobile reader worth using.

Curated picks

Easiest RSS & News Readers to self-hostBest API RSS & News ReadersBest Cli RSS & News ReadersBest Cross-Platform RSS & News ReadersBest Docker RSS & News ReadersBest Free RSS & News ReadersBest Lightweight RSS & News ReadersBest Mobile App RSS & News ReadersBest Multi-User RSS & News ReadersBest No-Database RSS & News ReadersBest Offline-First RSS & News ReadersBest Plugins RSS & News ReadersBest PostgreSQL RSS & News ReadersBest Single-User RSS & News ReadersBest SQLite RSS & News Readers

RSS & News Readers comparisons

352 head-to-head comparisons in this category.

See all comparisons →