SHSelfHostIndex

FreshRSS vs RSSBox

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?
FR FreshRSS Free, self-hostable RSS feed aggregator VS RS RSSBox Generate RSS feeds for sites without native feeds
FeatureFreshRSSRSSBox
CategoryRSS & News ReadersRSS & News Readers
LicenseAGPL-3.0MIT
LanguagePHPRuby
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker
GitHub stars★ 15,716★ 814
First released20132016
ReplacesFeedly, Inoreader, Google ReaderRSS-Bridge

Why pick each one

Choose FreshRSS if…

  • Lightweight and fast
  • Works with many mobile apps
  • Actively maintained
FreshRSS details

Choose RSSBox if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in Ruby
RSSBox details

Frequently asked questions

Is FreshRSS or RSSBox better?

Neither is universally better. FreshRSS has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are FreshRSS and RSSBox free and open-source?

Yes. FreshRSS is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and RSSBox under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run FreshRSS and RSSBox with Docker?

FreshRSS: yes. RSSBox: yes.

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