Liferea vs Yarrharr
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 | Yarrharr |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 82 · Excellent | 69 · Good |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | GPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | C | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | binary | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 922 | ★ 3 |
| First released | 2003 | 2014 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Feedly, Google Reader |
What are Liferea and Yarrharr?
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
Yarrharr
Yarrharr is a self-hosted RSS and Atom feed reader written in Python and Django. It offers a clean, mobile-friendly interface for reading feeds organized into labels.
- Mobile-friendly reading
- Label-based organization
- Django-based backend
Liferea vs Yarrharr: key differences
Liferea is written in C, while Yarrharr is built with Python. Licensing differs — GPL-2.0 for Liferea versus GPL-3.0 for Yarrharr. Liferea is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Yarrharr. Liferea is the more established project (first released 2003), while Yarrharr arrived in 2014. Liferea has the considerably larger community, at 922 GitHub stars versus 3. Yarrharr 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 Yarrharr if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Liferea or Yarrharr better?
Liferea is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Yarrharr if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Liferea and Yarrharr free and open-source?
Yes. Liferea is licensed under GPL-2.0 and Yarrharr under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Liferea and Yarrharr with Docker?
Liferea: check the project docs for container support. Yarrharr: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Liferea or Yarrharr?
Liferea has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Yarrharr. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.