NewsBlur vs Newspipe
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
Newspipe
Web-based news aggregator and notification service
| Feature | NewsBlur | Newspipe |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 91 · Excellent | 0 · At risk |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | Python | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 2,048 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | docker | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 7,627 | ★ 7 |
| First released | 2009 | 2010 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Feedly, Google Reader |
What are NewsBlur and Newspipe?
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
Newspipe
Newspipe is a web-based news aggregator that lets you follow RSS and Atom feeds in a clean interface. It supports per-user feed lists, full-text search, and email notifications.
- Multi-user feed aggregation
- Full-text search
- Email notifications
NewsBlur vs Newspipe: key differences
Both projects are written in Python. Licensing differs — MIT for NewsBlur versus AGPL-3.0 for Newspipe. Newspipe is the lighter option, starting around 256 MB of RAM against 2,048 MB for NewsBlur. NewsBlur has the considerably larger community, at 7,627 GitHub stars versus 7.
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 Newspipe if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 256 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is NewsBlur or Newspipe better?
Neither is universally better. NewsBlur has the larger community, while Newspipe is simpler to set up (medium difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are NewsBlur and Newspipe free and open-source?
Yes. NewsBlur is licensed under MIT and Newspipe under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run NewsBlur and Newspipe with Docker?
NewsBlur: yes. Newspipe: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, NewsBlur or Newspipe?
Newspipe 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.