Fusion vs Kill the Newsletter
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted rss & news readers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Fusion | Kill the Newsletter |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 86 · Excellent | 87 · Excellent |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary | docker, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 2,184 | ★ 3,105 |
| First released | 2024 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Inoreader | Feedly |
What are Fusion and Kill the Newsletter?
Fusion
Fusion is a lightweight, self-hosting-friendly RSS reader with a fast reading workflow, unread tracking, bookmarks, and full-text search. It can extract full article content and deploys as a single binary or Docker container.
- Full-text article extraction
- Unread tracking and bookmarks
- Built-in search
- Single-binary or Docker
Kill the Newsletter
Kill the Newsletter is a self-hostable service that gives you an email address whose incoming messages are turned into an RSS feed. It lets you read email newsletters in your feed reader instead of your inbox.
- Newsletters to RSS
- Disposable feed addresses
- Self-contained mail handling
- Lightweight
Fusion vs Kill the Newsletter: key differences
Both projects are written in TypeScript. Kill the Newsletter is the more established project (first released 2020), while Fusion arrived in 2024.
Why pick each one
Choose Fusion if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.2k GitHub stars)
Choose Kill the Newsletter if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.1k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Watch out for
- Needs inbound mail config
- Per-newsletter feed setup
Frequently asked questions
Is Fusion or Kill the Newsletter better?
Neither is universally better. Kill the Newsletter has the larger community, while Fusion is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Fusion and Kill the Newsletter free and open-source?
Yes. Fusion is licensed under MIT and Kill the Newsletter under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Fusion and Kill the Newsletter with Docker?
Fusion: yes. Kill the Newsletter: yes.