NewsBlur vs Newsboat
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?
NewsBlur
Personal news reader with training and sharing
VS
Newsboat
Terminal RSS and Atom feed reader for text consoles
| Feature | NewsBlur | Newsboat |
|---|---|---|
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Python | C++ |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 32 MB |
| Deployment | docker | binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,577 | ★ 3,874 |
| First released | 2009 | 2007 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Feedly |
Why pick each one
Choose Newsboat if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Active community (3.9k GitHub stars)
- Written in C++
- Tiny footprint — runs in 32 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is NewsBlur or Newsboat better?
Neither is universally better. NewsBlur has the larger community, while Newsboat is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are NewsBlur and Newsboat free and open-source?
Yes. NewsBlur is licensed under MIT and Newsboat under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run NewsBlur and Newsboat with Docker?
NewsBlur: yes. Newsboat: check the project docs for container support.