Newsboat vs Winds
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
Winds
Beautiful open-source RSS and podcast application
| Feature | Newsboat | Winds |
|---|---|---|
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | C++ | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 1,024 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,874 | ★ 9,115 |
| First released | 2007 | 2017 |
| 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 Winds if…
- Released under the MIT license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.1k GitHub stars
- Written in JavaScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Newsboat or Winds better?
Neither is universally better. Winds 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 Newsboat and Winds free and open-source?
Yes. Newsboat is licensed under MIT and Winds under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Newsboat and Winds with Docker?
Newsboat: check the project docs for container support. Winds: yes.