Liferea vs FeedHQ
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted rss & news readers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | Liferea | FeedHQ |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 82 · Excellent | 14 · At risk |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | GPL-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Language | C | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | binary | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 922 | ★ 579 |
| First released | 2003 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Google Reader, Feedly |
What are Liferea and FeedHQ?
Liferea
Liferea is a desktop news aggregator for online news feeds and weblogs. It supports RSS and Atom feeds, offline reading, and synchronization with services like TinyTinyRSS and TheOldReader.
- Long-standing GNOME reader
- Offline feed reading
- Sync with online services
FeedHQ
FeedHQ is a web-based feed reader that you can self-host, with support for the Google Reader API. This makes it compatible with many third-party mobile and desktop reader apps.
- Google Reader API compatibility
- Works with many apps
- Keyboard-driven interface
Liferea vs FeedHQ: key differences
Liferea is written in C, while FeedHQ is built with Python. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Liferea versus BSD-3-Clause for FeedHQ. Liferea is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for FeedHQ. Liferea is the more established project (first released 2003), while FeedHQ arrived in 2012. FeedHQ lists first-class Docker deployment; Liferea does not.
Why pick each one
Choose Liferea if…
- Released under the GPL-2.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in C
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose FeedHQ if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Python
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Liferea or FeedHQ better?
Liferea is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider FeedHQ if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Liferea and FeedHQ free and open-source?
Yes. Liferea is licensed under GPL-2.0 and FeedHQ under BSD-3-Clause. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Liferea and FeedHQ with Docker?
Liferea: check the project docs for container support. FeedHQ: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Liferea or FeedHQ?
Liferea has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for FeedHQ. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.