SHSelfHostIndex

RSS Guard 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?
RS RSS Guard Cross-platform desktop feed reader with plugin support VS RS RSSBox Generate RSS feeds for sites without native feeds
FeatureRSS GuardRSSBox
CategoryRSS & News ReadersRSS & News Readers
LicenseGPL-3.0MIT
LanguageC++Ruby
Setup difficultyEasyEasy
Min. RAM256 MB128 MB
Deploymentbinarydocker
GitHub stars★ 2,711★ 814
First released20132016
ReplacesFeedlyRSS-Bridge

Why pick each one

Choose RSS Guard if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • Active community (2.7k GitHub stars)
  • Written in C++
RSS Guard details

Choose RSSBox if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Written in Ruby
RSSBox details

Frequently asked questions

Is RSS Guard or RSSBox better?

Neither is universally better. RSS Guard has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are RSS Guard and RSSBox free and open-source?

Yes. RSS Guard is licensed under GPL-3.0 and RSSBox under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run RSS Guard and RSSBox with Docker?

RSS Guard: check the project docs for container support. RSSBox: yes.

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