Newsboat vs RSSBox
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
RSSBox
Generate RSS feeds for sites without native feeds
| Feature | Newsboat | RSSBox |
|---|---|---|
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | C++ | Ruby |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | binary, bare-metal | docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,874 | ★ 814 |
| First released | 2007 | 2016 |
| Replaces | Feedly | RSS-Bridge |
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 RSSBox if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Ruby
Frequently asked questions
Is Newsboat or RSSBox better?
Neither is universally better. Newsboat has the larger community, while RSSBox is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Newsboat and RSSBox free and open-source?
Yes. Newsboat is licensed under MIT and RSSBox under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Newsboat and RSSBox with Docker?
Newsboat: check the project docs for container support. RSSBox: yes.