Nextcloud News vs selfoss
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted rss & news readers options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Nextcloud News
RSS and Atom feed reader app for Nextcloud
VS
selfoss
Multipurpose RSS reader and web scraping aggregator
| Feature | Nextcloud News | selfoss |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 82 · Excellent | 68 · Good |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | HTML |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,004 | ★ 2,470 |
| First released | 2012 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Google Reader, Feedly |
What are Nextcloud News and selfoss?
Nextcloud News
Nextcloud News is an RSS and Atom feed reader application that runs as a Nextcloud app. It offers a feed-reading API supported by numerous mobile and desktop client applications.
- Integrated with Nextcloud
- Open feed-reading API
- Many compatible apps
selfoss
selfoss is a multipurpose RSS reader and aggregation web application. It pulls in content from feeds, Twitter, and other sources, presenting them in a clean unified stream.
- Unified content stream
- Mobile-friendly interface
- Plugin sources beyond RSS
Nextcloud News vs selfoss: key differences
Nextcloud News is written in PHP, while selfoss is built with HTML. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Nextcloud News versus GPL-3.0 for selfoss. Selfoss is the lighter option, starting around 128 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Nextcloud News. Selfoss has the considerably larger community, at 2,470 GitHub stars versus 1,004.
Why pick each one
Choose Nextcloud News if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (1k GitHub stars)
- Written in PHP
Choose selfoss if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (2.5k GitHub stars)
Frequently asked questions
Is Nextcloud News or selfoss better?
selfoss is the stronger all-round pick: it has both the larger community and the simpler easy setup. Consider Nextcloud News if its specific feature set fits your needs better.
Are Nextcloud News and selfoss free and open-source?
Yes. Nextcloud News is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and selfoss under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Nextcloud News and selfoss with Docker?
Nextcloud News: yes. selfoss: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Nextcloud News or selfoss?
selfoss has the smaller minimum footprint at 128 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Nextcloud News. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.