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ulam2
Ask HN: Which RSS reader do you use?

Its been some time since this question was asked. Every RSS reader I've used so far sucks. Either the built-in web support is poor or it stops fetching the feeds or renders then poorly. Sorry for my frustration, but I would like to know what everyone else is using and if they are satisfied with their RSS reader.


ksec14 hours ago

I have been using RSS since early 2000s and currently I am settled on Feedly.

> Either the built-in web support is poor or it stops fetching the feeds or renders then poorly.

I guess I am good with Feedly, and Google Reader and everything before that, is because I dont use the RSS Reader to read the content. I am only using RSS as News Headline [1]. And then will either Command Click, Right Click Open New Tab, Simply Click on it, depending on which OS and browser I am using to open them in a new Tab inside Browser.

Which is also the reason why I could end up with hundreds of tabs open. And I read them one by one. For these type of heavy browsing usage I recommend Firefox > Chrome > Safari.

So for my usage I actually think RSS should be a function inside a browser. But I know a lot of people use RSS reader differently.

[1] Which is also how I use Twitter as well. I simply have a list of people I follow and read those list only. So for me I dont ever understand why people are so upset with the For You Tab. But I guess I am the minority and I use it differently.

woleium9 hours ago

i used to use feedly, as they were first out the gate after google reader shut down (word on the street was they had a headsup), but they jacked the pricing and introduced a bunch of needless extra features that i couldn’t turn off, so now i use inoreader.

theoldreader is also good

ksec7 hours ago

>but they jacked the pricing and introduced a bunch of needless extra features that i couldn’t turn off,

I dont use anything other than the basic and I use it for free. Just curious What features are you looking for?

Reading this thread it seems everyone uses RSS so differently I wish we could start another HN thread on this topic.

g1sm2 hours ago

I’m selfhosting both miniflux (after being a paying customer for a while) and freshrss. Main reason for adding freshrss was to test the flaresolverr plugin. I haven’t been able to get it to work, but I kept using freshrss.

If you’re interested in how well-behaved your client is, you can read Rachel’s posts.

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/05/27/feed/

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/05/29/score/

https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2024/08/02/fs/

thallavajhula15 hours ago

NetNewsWire - https://netnewswire.com

I use it with my iCloud and it's synced on my Mac & iPhone. It just works!

ju13 hours ago

sys_647383 hours ago

They upped their prices out of the realm of worthwhileness.

rreyes197911 hours ago

Inoreader FTW!!! Generous free tier and no nonsense UX. Can't say enough good things about it.

ksec7 hours ago

I just checked them up and 150 RSS feeds on free account isn't enough for my usage.

If they have been around for this long and the limit was the same over the years it is likely the reason why I passed them when switching from Google Reader.

nickthegreek10 hours ago

I've been using inoreader since.... (checks email)... 2015! Good service, mobile app is decent and I haven't had to worry about switching or anything and its almost been a decade.

dnel26 minutes ago

Feeder on Android, simple, decent enough.

bayesianbot14 hours ago

Newsboat for reading in terminal / TUI. I've used it for years and it's quite capable for my needs.

https://github.com/newsboat/newsboat

terminaltrove14 hours ago

newsboat is great, we have this on our page on terminal trove for easy installation.

https://terminaltrove.com/newsboat/

As an aside, we have first class support for RSS on our site if you're looking for a feed to add.

https://terminaltrove.com/feeds/

anotherevan3 hours ago

I have been using Newsblur[1] since Google Reader turned up it's toes. I have been very happy with it. Nice and stable.

I use it lots through both the browser and its Android phone app (has an Iphone app, too) and both have been great.

[1] https://www.newsblur.com/

nikdoof14 hours ago

Self-hosted Miniflux, and ReadKit on my Apple devices to access it.

https://miniflux.app https://readkit.app

I've used Miniflux for a long time, and its content manipulation features allows you to work around some of the oddities of RSS feeds you come across.

tarasglek14 hours ago

I love that I can pull whole articles. I wrote https://markdown.download for llm use, but mostly ended up using it with miniflux to fetch full articles from problematic sites

BOOSTERHIDROGEN9 hours ago

Could you please share your Miniflux configuration for fetching full articles?

tarasglek5 hours ago

There is an option in feed settings:

[x] Fetch original content

But most power comes from URL rewrite rules. Here is the one I use for problematic sites:

rewrite("^(.+)$"|"https://markdown.download/$1")

BOOSTERHIDROGEN9 hours ago

How do you have your manipulation configured on a particular website?

DIYgod9 hours ago

I was dissatisfied with the available RSS readers, so I wrote my own called Follow https://follow.is . It addresses several key issues I faced:

- Optimized display for images, videos, audio, and notifications

- Specialized optimization for RSSHub, allowing subscriptions to thousands of websites that don't offer RSS, such as X, Instagram, and Telegram

- AI-powered translation, summaries, and a daily important news summary

hutattedonmyarm14 hours ago

Reeder on iOS / macOS: https://reederapp.com/classic/

With Inoreader as backend: https://www.inoreader.com/

rswerve7 hours ago

Another vote for Reeder. Very nice app and note that you can use iCloud as the backend and don’t need a separate service.

hutattedonmyarm6 hours ago

True, but I want to use RSS on non-Apple devices as well. So I was looking for something with a web interface. That’s also why I’m still using the classic version

oofdoof13 hours ago

I also really like Reeder but use miniflux as the backend

parski11 hours ago

This is what I use as well. It's not perfect but it's the best I've tried so far.

saeedesmaili15 hours ago

I've been using Inoreader for a few years now and I'm pretty happy with it. Its reliability and feature set is the right balance for me. I've written about its pros and cons [1], the main pros for me are:

- Very smooth experience between web, android, and iOS apps (I’m mentioning this first, as many other apps I’ve tried are flaky)

- Mark as read while scrolling (Very useful for quickly shortlisting items from the feed. This is probably the main reason I’ve been able to replace Inoreader with social media apps.)

- Rules to auto-delete duplicated items or if the title contains specific words.

[1] https://saeedesmaili.com/posts/my-content-consumption-workfl...

johnea25 minutes ago

Sadly, I'm another one on thunderbird email client.

It's not great, but it generally works.

My major complaint is that articles are not locally stored, so if the online article goes away, its just gone.

I found this ironic, given that as an email client, a major function is local storage of messages.

dingdongthe13 hours ago

After Google Reader was shut down, I found TTRSS and use it since then. It works and there are some great extensions like FeedIron available to process RSS feeds before the will integrated into the UI

kieranhunt13 hours ago

I really like Mailbrew. Daily email digests from RSS feeds (and a bunch of other stuff).

https://mailbrew.com/

Scottn114 hours ago

https://bazqux.com/

Five years now.

davidivadavid14 hours ago

Same here.

PikachuEXE15 hours ago

https://freshrss.org

I self-host it

sys_647383 hours ago

I moved to this when InoReader started charging 60 bucks per year. Never looked back.

TheDcoder14 hours ago

It's the best option if you use multiple devices and have the ability to self-host IMO.

snapplebobapple8 hours ago

i used to think this until i tried commafeed. the webapp is so nice i never bother with a client

rcarmo14 hours ago

But being PHP means there is a lot of moving parts. Miniflux is a lot easier to maintain…

ulrischa14 hours ago

You can use any cheap webhosting

Hamuko14 hours ago

Not a lot to worry with the Docker container.

TheDcoder13 hours ago

Even without a container it's pretty easy to run PHP with a HTTP server like Caddy, there's no need for any extra configuration aside from passing the required directives in the server config for your setup. You can find many examples in the docs.

sys_647383 hours ago

Yeah it's why containers are beautiful. Zero hassle to replicate.

dkwr14 hours ago

Same here. I self-host it since 3 years and didn't feel the need to change it. A stable application which doesn't have any problems which OP mentioned. I use it as a PWA on mobile.

bjoli13 hours ago

Same Here. The web use is non-intrusive and works well on both desktop and mobile.

btschaegg11 hours ago

Same here. Plus FeedMe as a client on Android.

moustachehedron14 hours ago

I use the Feedbro [1] extension in the browser and the Flym [2] app on Android. I'm quite satisfied with both.

[1] https://nodetics.com/feedbro/

[2] https://github.com/FredJul/Flym

akkartik6 hours ago

Shucks, Flym is archived. This seems to be the pattern on mobile: the good apps die young.

sausagefeet14 hours ago

I use feed2mail, which is a Python program that turns RSS Feeds into Maildir emails. I have my own patchset on top to address some issues.

https://hg.sr.ht/~mmatalka/feed2mail/rev/mmatalka-patchset

stevekemp7 hours ago

Back in the day I used r2e, which was an old python scrip for the same purpose.

I actually removed it primarily because it was the last package on my system at the time to need python, and removing it let me purge a whole bunch of python packages and save a lot of space!

These days I still read feeds via RSS, via a static golang binary. It lets me do filtering, and similar things:

https://github.com/skx/rss2email/

windlep7 hours ago

Self-hosted FreshRSS, NetNewsWire on Mac, Fluent reader on linux/windows/ios. Any reader compatible with Google Reader API works with FreshRSS, and Fluent was the nicest UI I've seen (hasn't been updated recently, but I don't need new features).

sebastienbarre3 hours ago

I’ve been using the following RSS aggregators since the mid-2000s:

* Google Reader – until it was shut down.

* The Old Reader – from early 2015 until I became dissatisfied with its lack of features. I was a paying user, and while the developer was always courteous over email, no amount of feedback convinced them to add functionalities that had become standard among competitors, such as filtering by keywords.

* Bazqux – since a week after the November 2024 U.S. election. For my own mental health, I decided to filter out any news containing keywords like "Trump" or "Elon", and it has worked great so far.

How I Read My Feeds:

* On my laptop, I actually enjoy using Bazqux on the web, though I slightly customize its CSS using Stylus.

* On iOS, I use FeeddlerPro, which previously served me well when connected to my The Old Reader subscription.

Evaluations & Alternatives:

* During my search for the right RSS aggregator back in November, I evaluated Feedbin, Feedbro, Feedly, Inoreader, NetNewsWire, NewsBlur, ReadKit, and a few others.

* One bridge I haven’t crossed yet is consuming YouTube via RSS. Since every channel already has an RSS feed, this approach would allow me to filter videos by keywords as well.

virtualcharles8 hours ago

Big RSS user. Loved Google Reader till it shut down, then switched to Feedly which I liked well enough, but it keeps cramming in business features I don’t need. Switched to Inoreader last year and have loved it. Writing this comment in its web view right now.

tsbischof6 hours ago

https://www.theoldreader.com

Great reader, I have been using it since Google Reader went away.

perilunar15 hours ago

Feedly. It's fine.

AndrewDucker14 hours ago

Yup. Site is fine, Android app is fine, it works reliably. Been paying for it happily since Google Reader went away.

schnubbidubb15 hours ago

"Feeder" on Android. Built-in web is the Android web client. But I let it open the links with Firefox anyway. I just use the RSS Reader to get the list, actual reading I do in the Browser.

kevincox13 hours ago

I've been using email since the Google Reader shutdown. The short versions is that I filter (almost all) feeds into a few folders that have no notifications. Now I have a offline-first reader that is already synced to all of my devices.

The long form: https://kevincox.ca/2013/06/27/email-as-rss-reader/

cstuder14 hours ago

I'm still running a self-hosted Fever instance, it still didn't break down with newer PHP versions.

Using Reeder Classic as an RSS client. Also something threatened by unwanted updates.

derekzhouzhen9 hours ago

If you are this picky, then write your own. That's what I did:

https://airss.roastidio.us/

You are welcome to use but don't complain the lack of functionality. I wrote it to suit my own need.

renegat0x013 hours ago

I use my own RSS reader [0]

Recently I also extracted web reading into a separate library which should make writing new projects like RSS readers easier [1]

[0] https://github.com/rumca-js/Django-link-archive

[1] https://github.com/rumca-js/crawler-buddy

DamonHD15 hours ago

Brief in Firefox (on my Mac laptop).

Also Feeder on Android: https://github.com/spacecowboy/Feeder

sychou9 hours ago

I've used almost all of the ones listed including rolling my own RSS to ePub script. I've been using Readwise Reader lately which has been a great blend of vimish keys, read it later, tagging, and AI summaries.

timbit424 hours ago

QuiteRSS, available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and OS/2.

ElectronBadger13 hours ago

The Old Reader (https://theoldreader.com) in the browser.

Yie1cho10 hours ago

The Old Reader in browser and as backend for FeedMe on phone.

0fflineuser14 hours ago

Newsraft, before I was using Newsboat.

https://codeberg.org/newsraft/newsraft

Here is a video to see how it works. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gE-PhXnvp30

mnode13 hours ago

seafoamteal14 hours ago

Miniflux (miniflux.app)

I used to use FreshRSS, but there were some minor pain points that eventually pushed me to find an alternative. Miniflux has been great so far. It's very minimalistic, which also makes it very lightweight to self-host, as I do, but you can also subscribe to the hosted version for about a dollar a month.

pyromaker12 hours ago

Anyone looking to mix up their own RSS feeds? I've recently launched Mashups

https://www.mashups.io

It's the good ole Yahoo Pipes clone! Would love for those who want to mix RSS feeds to try it out!

gaws4 hours ago

confusing347813 hours ago

I self host freshrss (https://www.freshrss.org/), super easy to set up via docker and it doesn't required some over provisioned dependency setup (DB servers, etc...). It has nice/familiar keyboard shortcuts and a clean and fast interface. My only complaint is that the cloudflare-ifiation (aka enshittification) that is slowly ruining and rotting the internet prevents the fetching of RSS feeds from some news sites from your presumably affordable non hyperscaler VPS instance.

When using mobile I use https://capyreader.com/ which has first class intigration with freshrss; meaning you can add/remove/view feeds via the app and have the changes sync with freshrss. Also, probably my favorite feature of capy reader, is that when you want to view the content of an rss article that is only a summary or headline (because few people publish the full content of their articles in the rss feed anymore), you can just press a button and it will fetch it for you and display it in the reader without sending you to a browser. So much happier and more accurately informed since moving back to RSS where I can choose what I want to see vs having it filtered/fed to me via some biased algorithm.

onli13 hours ago

Freshrss is a great choice I think.

I use the freshrss web interface on my phone, that works quite well I feel. The app might not be necessary.

BTW, Freshrss also has a function to fetch the full article content directly. I think it's not especially clever, just uses a selector, but worked well for me for the one or two feeds where I enabled it.

confusing347812 hours ago

Oh nice! I didn't know that FreshRSS could do that via the web app, that was pretty much the only reason I used the capy reader app. I'll have to test it out, thanks!

lormayna10 hours ago

I tried several after Google Reader closing. At the end I went to selfhosting a miniflux instance. I like a lot the minimalistic interface.

airspresso13 hours ago

Feedi (https://github.com/facundoolano/feedi)

Self-hosted. I like the news feed design and deboosting of already-seen entries.

antfie14 hours ago

I use FoxBot (https://github.com/antfie/FoxBot) which delivers important RSS topics to my Slack. Nb I created this tool.

unknown32114 hours ago

For me it's Thunderbird, "Blogs & News Feeds" section. After version 120-something it stopped resizing images on article load - this is the part I find unsatisfying. Otherwise it just works.

AnonC12 hours ago

I use NetNewsWire on Apple’s platforms and Mozilla Thunderbird on Windows. Both are free. Thunderbird is a bit more…unrefined…compared to NetNewsWire, but it works fine.

evansj12 hours ago

I use NetNewsWire on iOS / iPadOS, as a front end to a self hosted instance of FreshRSS. I host FreshRSS using docker on an old Raspberry Pi.

dmje14 hours ago

Self hosted Fresh RSS but Reeder as client on Mac and iDevices

ripap14 hours ago

I’ve been using Feedbin since Google Reader shut down. Been very happy with it. I access it through the web on desktop and using Reeder 4 on iOS; both work well.

alaq8 hours ago

Exactly the same. Haven't bothered with Reeder 5.

jurijtokarski14 hours ago

I use https://fidder.app, which works in the browser and Installs it as PWA on mobile.

ndsrf14 hours ago

thefz14 hours ago

Tiny Tiny RSS, self hosted on a cheap virtual server.

andyjohnson09 hours ago

FeedMe on my Android phone pulling down feeds from FreshRSS on a VPS.

raalapas16 hours ago

NewsBlur

Eighth14 hours ago

Newsblur has been stable and consistent since the Google Reader shutdown. Has plenty of goodies. Samuel Clay, the creator, is responsive to feedback.

Can't fault it.

benrapscallion7 hours ago

The best $36 I pay every year.

mikequinlan14 hours ago

throw18142814 hours ago

Wrote my own in Elixir, needed some features like auto-star. I'll possibly release it in the future.

rpgbr14 hours ago

Miniflux via NetNewsWire. Both are great — I could gladly live with Miniflux’s web UI; it’s that nice.

BerislavLopac14 hours ago

xerp291412 hours ago

Is it me or are RSS feeds making a comeback on HN? Very happy to see this trend!

sys_647382 hours ago

I believe HN has always supported RSS.

Davidbrcz14 hours ago

I have my own Next loud instance with the RSS plugin enabled a d the companion app on my phone

Works fairly well.

david_sluijs14 hours ago

If I’m on iOS I regularly use “feeeed”: https://feeeed.nateparrott.com/

It has some extra functionality for certain websites like HackerNews so it shows points, etc.

ceb3314 hours ago

I used tinyrss self hosted until had some issue updating Since then îm very happy with selfoss https://selfoss.aditu.de/ self hosted

Saphyel11 hours ago

Inoreader, it's free and works like a charm

Gumminess114 hours ago

Self-hosted FreshRSS instance. I use FeedMe in Android to connect to it.

snapplebobapple7 hours ago

is feedme ouen source? i dont see it on fdroid

tennisflyi14 hours ago

Inoreader

akkartik15 hours ago

Feedbro lets me read on my regular browser. No need to put up with special UI.

zaruvi14 hours ago

Feedbro is great. It has none of the arbitrary limitations that many of the web-clients impose for monetisation reasons.

The only downside (or upside depending on your perspective) is that it is a local solution. You can only access it on a specific device, and it won't be syncing when that device is turned off.

seba_dos19 hours ago

Self-hosted CommaFeed. Works great.

draven14 hours ago

Elfeed (emacs package.)

dotcoma7 hours ago

Only NetNewsWire (iOS)

frizlab13 hours ago

NetNewsWire (Apple platforms only but excellent)

sdeer14 hours ago

Self hosted miniflux via the excellent web UI.

Expletive413814 hours ago

impure14 hours ago

I built my own called Stratum.

gmoore8 hours ago

The Old Reader

a_con14 hours ago

The Old Reader with FeeddlerPro as mobile client, since Google Reader shut down.

maxxcan14 hours ago

Elfeed on Emacs of course.

rcarmo14 hours ago

I use Reeder Classic on iOS and the Mac (the pre-enshittified version that does not have a subscription model). I will likely stick to it until it’s completely unsupported (which it isn’t), although a key part of the experience for me is read item syncing via Feedly.

I also use Feeder for Android on my Supernote Nomad. It has the nice side benefit of creating EPUBs I can save/annotate/share.

I very much prefer to use a native app, and have no use for web-based RSS readers (I have created my own GPT-based AI summarizer that generates custom digests - https://taoofmac.com/space/blog/2025/01/12/1730#daily-news-d...)

I’ve also got a soft spot for NetNewsWire, but don’t really use it since the above works for me to skim the equivalent of 200+ feeds over breakfast (I’m posting this from inside Reeder on my iPad mini).

dvh14 hours ago

Wrote my own.

the_third_wave13 hours ago

Nextcloud News, still using v24.0 - which is no longer supported but for which I made a patch to make it work in current Nextcloud versions - instead of the current v25.0 rewrite since the former is functionally superior over the latter for my use case.

kkfx13 hours ago

TT-RSS, I do not like it much, but it's the more apt ready-made to quickly skim many posts from many feeds...

Hamuko14 hours ago

Reeder Classic on Macs and iOS. https://reederapp.com/classic/

I use self-hosted FreshRSS as the sync backend.

xvfLJfx914 hours ago

Self-hosted FreshRSS. Simple and reliable. It just works.

maxxcan14 hours ago

Elfeed on Emacs of course

cixtor14 hours ago

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rtfi_of5 hours ago

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joehacker11 hours ago

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joehacker11 hours ago

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