RSS-Bridge 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.
RSS-Bridge
Generate RSS feeds for websites that lack them
VS
selfoss
Multipurpose RSS reader and web scraping aggregator
| Feature | RSS-Bridge | selfoss |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | ≈5-minute setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 83 · Excellent | 68 · Good |
| Category | RSS & News Readers | RSS & News Readers |
| License | Unlicense | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | PHP | HTML |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 128 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal | docker, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 9,249 | ★ 2,470 |
| First released | 2014 | 2012 |
| Replaces | Feedly | Google Reader, Feedly |
What are RSS-Bridge and selfoss?
RSS-Bridge
RSS-Bridge is a PHP project capable of generating RSS and Atom feeds for websites that do not provide them. It includes hundreds of bridges for social networks, news sites, and more.
- Creates feeds for feedless sites
- Hundreds of built-in bridges
- No database required
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
RSS-Bridge vs selfoss: key differences
RSS-Bridge is written in PHP, while selfoss is built with HTML. Licensing differs — Unlicense for RSS-Bridge versus GPL-3.0 for selfoss. Selfoss is the more established project (first released 2012), while RSS-Bridge arrived in 2014. RSS-Bridge has the considerably larger community, at 9,249 GitHub stars versus 2,470.
Why pick each one
Choose RSS-Bridge if…
- Released under the Unlicense license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.2k GitHub stars
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 RSS-Bridge or selfoss better?
Neither is universally better. RSS-Bridge has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are RSS-Bridge and selfoss free and open-source?
Yes. RSS-Bridge is licensed under Unlicense and selfoss under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run RSS-Bridge and selfoss with Docker?
RSS-Bridge: yes. selfoss: yes.