NewsBlur vs RSS-proxy
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted rss & news readers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
NewsBlur
Personal news reader with training and sharing
VS
RSS-proxy
Turn any website into an RSS, Atom, or JSON feed
| Feature | NewsBlur | RSS-proxy |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 20 · At risk |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Python | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,627 | ★ 1,923 |
| First released | 2009 | 2019 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Feedly |
What are NewsBlur and RSS-proxy?
NewsBlur
NewsBlur is a personal news reader that brings together feeds with intelligent training to highlight stories you care about. It targets readers who want a smart, social feed reader. It is deployed via Docker Compose.
- Story training and filtering
- Social sharing of stories
- Original site view
- Mobile apps
RSS-proxy
RSS-proxy is an open-source tool that generates RSS, Atom, or JSON feeds from websites that do not offer them, by analyzing page markup to detect article lists. It runs as a self-hosted service via Docker; its successor project is feedless.
- Creates feeds from any page
- JSON and Atom output
- Self-hosted aggregation
NewsBlur vs RSS-proxy: key differences
NewsBlur is written in Python, while RSS-proxy is built with TypeScript. RSS-proxy is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for NewsBlur. NewsBlur is the more established project (first released 2009), while RSS-proxy arrived in 2019. NewsBlur has the considerably larger community, at 7,627 GitHub stars versus 1,923.
Why pick each one
Choose NewsBlur if…
- Smart story highlighting
- Good mobile apps
- Social features
Watch out for
- Complex multi-service stack
- Heavy to self-host
Choose RSS-proxy if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1.9k GitHub stars)
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is NewsBlur or RSS-proxy better?
Neither is universally better. NewsBlur has the larger community, while RSS-proxy is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are NewsBlur and RSS-proxy free and open-source?
Yes. NewsBlur is licensed under MIT and RSS-proxy under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run NewsBlur and RSS-proxy with Docker?
NewsBlur: yes. RSS-proxy: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, NewsBlur or RSS-proxy?
RSS-proxy has the smaller minimum footprint at 256 MB of RAM, compared to about 2,048 MB for NewsBlur. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.