CommaFeed vs Newsboat
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted rss & news readers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
CommaFeed
Google Reader-inspired self-hosted RSS reader
VS
Newsboat
Terminal RSS and Atom feed reader for text consoles
| Feature | CommaFeed | Newsboat |
|---|---|---|
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Language | Java | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,579 | ★ 3,874 |
| First released | 2013 | 2007 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Feedly |
Why pick each one
Choose Newsboat if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (3.9k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
- Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is CommaFeed or Newsboat better?
Neither is universally better. Newsboat has the larger community, while CommaFeed is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are CommaFeed and Newsboat free and open-source?
Yes. CommaFeed is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Newsboat under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run CommaFeed and Newsboat with Docker?
CommaFeed: yes. Newsboat: check the project docs for container support.