FreshRSS vs RSS-proxy
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted rss & news readers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
FreshRSS
Free, self-hostable RSS feed aggregator
VS
RSS-proxy
Turn any website into an RSS, Atom, or JSON feed
| Feature | FreshRSS | RSS-proxy |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 95 · Excellent | 20 · At risk |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 16,126 | ★ 1,923 |
| First released | 2013 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Inoreader, Google Reader | Feedly |
What are FreshRSS and RSS-proxy?
FreshRSS
FreshRSS is a free, self-hostable RSS and Atom feed aggregator that is fast, lightweight, and highly customizable. It targets users who want full control over their news reading. It is deployed via Docker or a PHP stack.
- Fast feed aggregation
- Multi-user support
- Mobile app API compatibility
- Extensions and themes
RSS-proxy
RSS-proxy is an open-source tool that generates RSS, Atom, or JSON feeds from websites that do not offer them, by analyzing page markup to detect article lists. It runs as a self-hosted service via Docker; its successor project is feedless.
- Creates feeds from any page
- JSON and Atom output
- Self-hosted aggregation
FreshRSS vs RSS-proxy: key differences
FreshRSS is written in PHP, while RSS-proxy is built with TypeScript. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for FreshRSS versus MIT for RSS-proxy. FreshRSS is the more established project (first released 2013), while RSS-proxy arrived in 2019. FreshRSS has the considerably larger community, at 16,126 GitHub stars versus 1,923.
Why pick each one
Choose FreshRSS if…
- Lightweight and fast
- Works with many mobile apps
- Actively maintained
Watch out for
- Requires a database
- Interface is functional, not flashy
Choose RSS-proxy if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.9k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is FreshRSS or RSS-proxy better?
FreshRSS is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider RSS-proxy if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are FreshRSS and RSS-proxy free and open-source?
Yes. FreshRSS is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and RSS-proxy under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run FreshRSS and RSS-proxy with Docker?
FreshRSS: yes. RSS-proxy: yes.