Newsboat vs rss2email
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?
Newsboat
Terminal RSS and Atom feed reader for text consoles
VS
rss2email
Get RSS and Atom feeds as email messages
| Feature | Newsboat | rss2email |
|---|---|---|
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | C++ | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,874 | ★ 453 |
| First released | 2007 | 2004 |
| Replaces | Feedly | 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
Choose rss2email if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is Newsboat or rss2email better?
Neither is universally better. Newsboat has the larger community, while rss2email is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Newsboat and rss2email free and open-source?
Yes. Newsboat is licensed under MIT and rss2email under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Newsboat and rss2email with Docker?
Newsboat: check the project docs for container support. rss2email: check the project docs for container support.