Newsraft vs NewsBlur

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?
FeatureNewsraftNewsBlur
CategoryRSS & News ReadersRSS & News Readers
LicenseGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageCPython
Setup difficultyMediumHard
Min. RAM32 MB2,048 MB
Deploymentbinary, bare-metaldocker
GitHub stars★ 300★ 7,577
First released20222009
ReplacesFeedlyFeedly, Google Reader

Why pick each one

Choose Newsraft if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Written in C
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
Newsraft details

Choose NewsBlur if…

  • Smart story highlighting
  • Good mobile apps
  • Social features
NewsBlur details

Frequently asked questions

Is Newsraft or NewsBlur better?

Neither is universally better. NewsBlur has the larger community, while Newsraft is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Newsraft and NewsBlur free and open-source?

Yes. Newsraft is licensed under GPL-3.0 and NewsBlur under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Newsraft and NewsBlur with Docker?

Newsraft: check the project docs for container support. NewsBlur: yes.

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