Nextcloud News vs yarr
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
yarr
Yet another RSS reader as a single binary
| Feature | Nextcloud News | yarr |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 82 · Excellent | 89 · Excellent |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | PHP | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,004 | ★ 4,049 |
| First released | 2012 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Feedly, Google Reader | Feedly, Google Reader |
What are Nextcloud News and yarr?
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
yarr
yarr is a minimal, self-contained RSS and Atom feed aggregator that runs as a single binary with an embedded web UI. It targets users wanting the simplest possible feed reader. It is deployed as a binary or via Docker.
- Single self-contained binary
- Embedded web interface
- SQLite storage
- Cross-platform
Nextcloud News vs yarr: key differences
Nextcloud News is written in PHP, while yarr is built with Go. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Nextcloud News versus MIT for yarr. Yarr is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 512 MB for Nextcloud News. Nextcloud News is the more established project (first released 2012), while yarr arrived in 2020. Yarr has the considerably larger community, at 4,049 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 yarr if…
- Extremely simple to run
- Tiny footprint
- No dependencies
Watch out for
- Single-user only
- Minimal feature set
Frequently asked questions
Is Nextcloud News or yarr better?
yarr 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 yarr free and open-source?
Yes. Nextcloud News is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and yarr under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Nextcloud News and yarr with Docker?
Nextcloud News: yes. yarr: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Nextcloud News or yarr?
yarr has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 512 MB for Nextcloud News. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.