A deep dive into the rss feed reader landscape

RSS feeds and, in one form or another, feed readers, have existed for more than 20 years. Their main purpose is enabling their users to consume content from various sources in one place. And especially in recent years, also helping users deal with content overload.

Back then there were only a handful of relevant products. Today it's different, there are products for many different situations and use-cases. When first getting into RSS and feed readers, it can be difficult to find out which of this wide range of products are the right ones to use.

This article describes the landscape so you can find out which product fits best for your use-case.

Side-note: I'm using RSS as a synonym for all web feed standards (Atom, JSON Feed)

Classification

I attempted a classification of feed readers based on 2 axes:

• Deployment model: local (phone or PC), browser extension, self-hosted, hosted
• Business model: free, one-time payment, SAAS

The deployment model is based on where data is stored and feed fetching happens. Some products have a web app and mobile apps, but feed fetching happens on the server. In this case it's classified as hosted.

The business model categorization is based on the cheapest option that gives access to the full feature set of the product. A self-hostable product with a hosted option is categorized into free. A freemium SAAS product is categorized as paid (SAAS).

Hosting models

Browser extension

Feed readers deployed as browser extensions can be installed through the respective stores of the browsers, usually either the Chrome Web Store or the Firefox Add-ons.

• Setup and maintenance: Setup typically only requires installing the extension, not even an account is needed. There is no maintenance required beyond the occasional update, which usually happens automatically.

• Data control and storage: Data is stored locally, with browser storage functionality (local storage or IndexedDB). How much data can be stored depends on the storage of the device. Browser extensions can only store as much data as the browser allows itself to use. But for most users this is easily enough.

• Feed fetching: Feeds are fetched on the device itself. Because the extension only runs if the browser runs, feeds are only fetched if the browser is open. This can lead to missed posts, depending on the publishing frequency of the feed and how often the browser is active.

• Availability: Since all data is stored on the device, by default it's available only on the device where the extension is installed. If users enable it, the extension supports it, and the user is signed in, browsers can sync data to other devices that have the extension. Storing all data on the device also means that it is accessible offline.

• Functionality: Extensions can integrate deeply with the browser, and offer features like automatic feed finding of visited websites. Extensions can also provide a comprehensive feature set. Their only limitations are more compute-intensive features (e.g. requiring machine learning), or features that require special infrastructure to run (e.g. emails).

Products (free)

In this category I only found one product. Smart-RSS was another one, but was discontinued in February.

On-device

On-device products are separate applications and installed on the device you want to use them. Either on your iOS or Android phone or tablet, or on your Windows, Mac, or Linux computer. They fetch feeds and store data on that device.

• Setup and maintenance: In general setup is done by installing the application. Some products may require an account, but that is not the norm. Maintenance is similar to browser extensions, the occasional updates. Some applications require manual update installations, others do that automatically.

• Data control and storage: Data is stored locally on the device, which gives total control over the data. The maximum amount of feeds and articles stored only depend on the available storage of the device.

• Feed fetching: Feeds are fetched on the device. For that to happen the application must be running. Some products may implement a background fetching service, in that case only the device must be turned on. Similar to browser extensions, this limitation may lead to missed posts.

• Availability: Typically the data of on-device feed readers are only available on the device where it's installed. Data sync would need to be done manually or via operating system specific mechanisms (e.g. iCloud), which not all products support. Since data is stored on the device, it's also available offline.

• Functionality: On-device products can use the full computing power of the device. Combined with the comparatively small storage requirements of one user, it means that some features can be significantly faster than other categories. The exact features depend on the application, and mobile apps are typically less powerful than desktop apps. Limitations are only features that require multiple users (e.g. recommendations) or specific infrastructure (e.g. newsletter subscriptions).

Products

Self-hosted

Self-hosted products all fall into the open-source and free category. They are designed to be installed on a server to run continuously, though it is possible to install them on a PC as well. They fetch feeds and store data on the server, and make it available through a web interface.

• Setup and maintenance: Setup requires a server, installing the application, and depending on how it should be accessible, possibly also domain and reverse proxy setup. This needs significantly more technical knowledge than the other options, but with ChatGPT (or others) it should be possible also for fairly non-technical people. This setup is generally more complex with more failure points than the other options, but with a correct setup failures happen rarely, if at all.

• Data control and storage: The application stores data on the server it runs on. Since users control their server, they also have total control over the data stored on it. Applications typically use well-established databases, which allows users to inspect and change data with common tools. The amount of data that can be stored is only limited by the available storage on the server. Most servers start at 20 GB, which is enough for most feed reading use-cases. Often, storage can be dynamically extended if more space is needed.

• Feed fetching: Feeds are fetched on the server. Since it runs continuously, there is no break in feed fetching, and even high frequency feeds are no problem.

• Availability: The application and all its data is accessible from any device with a web browser by navigating to the server's URL. Data is stored on the server, therefore automatically synced between all devices that use it, but also require internet access.

• Functionality: On average self-hosted products have a wider feature set than browser extension or on-device feed readers. There is no theoretical limit on the feature set, but typically they keep the infrastructure as simple as possible, to keep setup and maintenance straightforward. This makes them slightly less powerful than hosted alternatives.

Products

Self-hosted products are all open-source and free. The only costs are for the server, and the cheapest VPS plans start at ~2$/month.

Hosted

Hosted feed readers are managed services. It's required to create an account to get access to them. All of them are paid SAAS products, and most offer a free plan.

On average they have the most polished user experience and most comprehensive feature sets, since they're backed by companies that invest in continuous development.

• Setup and maintenance: Beyond creating an account, no setup is required. The same for maintenance. Service providers make sure the products work as intended, and deal with everything required to keep the service running, including infrastructure setup, monitoring, backups, etc.

• Data control and storage: Since data is stored on the servers and databases of the company running the product, users don't have direct control. But through laws like GDPR users have the right to export all their data, or request deletion. Storage is essentially unlimited, though most products have limits to avoid abuse. These limits are mentioned on their pricing page.

• Feed fetching: Similar to self-hosted products, feeds are fetched on the server, which runs continuously and ensures that even high-frequency feeds don't pose a problem. The fetching interval is usually dynamic, based on the popularity of a feed and the publishing frequency.

• Availability: Hosted products are primarily available as web application, and some offer native apps as well. Since data is stored on the server, it's natively synced between devices. Some hosted feed readers also offer offline support.

• Functionality: Hosted feed readers serve many customers at the same time, which makes it necessary to have more complex infrastructure setups. This also enables features that other types of products cannot do, like email receiving, recommendations, or historic feed contents. Consequently hosted options are generally more powerful than other categories, though the specific feature set depends on the product.

Products

All hosted products are SAAS products and charge monthly. Folo is an outlier, they currently don't have any paid features, but the terms of service indicate that this will come in the future. At that point it will join the others in the Paid (SAAS) category.

App support and offline access for products that don't offer it natively

Many of the self-hosted or hosted products don't provide apps or offline access by themselves. However, with the right setup, it's still possible to access the articles offline.

Most of these products provide APIs. This can be a proprietary API, or an API based on the old Google Reader API.

Mobile apps, for example ReadKit or Fiery Feeds, can not only subscribe to feeds, but also connect to other products through their APIs. They download contents, store them locally, and sync changes back to the connected products.

These apps make it possible to use a native mobile app for products that don't provide an app themselves, and get offline access at the same time.

FreshRSS, for example, has a list of native apps that support it.

A note on newsletters

Newsletters are a growing mechanism for delivering (blog) content. Some, but not all, hosted feed readers support newsletters out of the box. But on-device products can't do that at all because of their infrastructure limitations.

Even if a feed reader doesn't support newsletters by itself, it's still possible to get newsletters into the feed reader, through services that convert newsletters into RSS feeds.

These services generate an email address and give you a corresponding feed URL. Emails to the generated address are added to the feed as new entry. So after signing up to the newsletter and adding the feed URL, the newsletter is added to the feed reader even without native email support.

Services that do this are Kill the Newsletter and the Lighthouse Newsletter to RSS tool. Both are free.

Products

The descriptions highlight the defining and unique aspects of the products, for the full feature list please go to their respective websites. Where available I used the screenshots for their websites, to represent the products as best as possible (test account screenshots wouldn't be as good).

NetNewsWire (on-device, free)

NetNewsWire is a free, on-device feed reader for Mac and iOS. By default it stores data on the device itself, but can sync via iCloud and using other products as storage. And it provides a Safari extension for easy feed-adding. Notably, it supports AppleScript, which makes it possible to automate certain workflows.

Fiery Feeds (on device, paid SAAS)

Fiery feeds is a Mac and iOS app. The download is free, and to get the premium features it costs ~15$/year (varies by region). By default it stores data on the device itself, but can sync via iCloud and using the API of other products (e.g. FreshRSS). The main distinguishing features are the customization options of the app, like custom themes.

Reeder (on-device, SAAS)

The current version of Reeder is a Mac and iOS app. The download is free, and to get the premium features it costs ~10$/year. The previous version of Reeder, now called Reeder Classic, is still available as one-time purchase. It also stores data on-device, and can sync via iCloud.

The main distinguishing feature is the unified timeline, which includes RSS, podcasts, social media, and more.

FreshRSS (self-hosted, free)

FreshRSS is a self-hosted feed reader and once set up, it's available as a web app. It is quite powerful, and in addition to normal feed subscriptions offers WebSub as well. It's possible to customize it with themes and extensions, and it's translated into more than 15 languages.

Together with Miniflux they're the most-recommended self-hosted options.

Miniflux

Miniflux is a self-hosted feed reader as well, and available as web app after setup. It's focus is on staying simple and fast instead of adding fancy features. It also offers a hosted version, which is 15$/year and has a 15 day trial period.

Together with FreshRSS they're the most-recommended self-hosted options.

Folo (hosted, free)

Folo is a relatively new product developed by the creators of RSS Hub. It's a free hosted feed reader, with apps available for every major platform. Their terms of service suggest that at some point they will charge a monthly fee for some premium features, but at the time of writing there were no paid features.

Folo is also open-source and therefore theoretically self-hostable, but I haven't found documentation for it.

It has a huge feature set, including newsletter support, transforming websites into feeds, AI summaries, and much more.

Feedly (hosted, SAAS)

Feedly is the most widely-known product and has the most users of all feed readers. It has a comprehensive features set, and offers a free plan as well. For the past couple of years, it seems that Feedly has focused more on AI features and enterprise customers, but their core product remains solid.

Inoreader

Inoreader is the second most widely-known product, after Feedly. It too offers a free plan. Their feature list is impressive, with social media support for subscriptions, automation and AI features, public API and integrations. And of course much more.

What stands out on Reddit are complaints about price hikes. Though Inoreader probably has tens or hundreds of thousands of users who don't have issues and think the product is great.

Readwise Reader

Readwise Reader is a relatively new product, from the creators of the original Readwise. It's a great feed reader, though were it really shines is the reading experience. They also have reading views for PDFs, eBooks, and more.

The website mentions that it's in beta, but it has been in beta for years now and at this point is a stable product, and has been for awhile.

Tiny Tiny RSS

Tiny Tiny RSS deserves an honorable mention in this list. It was, and still is, used by many, and has been for a long time, and was often recommended on the RSS subreddit.

On October 3rd the maintainer announced that he's going to stop working on it, and will remove all infrastructure on November 1st. Forks of the project with other maintainers may pop up, but at the moment it's too soon to tell what the future of Tiny Tiny RSS will be.

Lighthouse

Lighthouse is also a relatively new product. It's in beta, which refers to the fact that it doesn't yet have all features necessary to fulfill its vision, which goes beyond simple feed reading.

The main differentiator is that it focuses on articles over feeds, and has a separate view for curating articles (the inbox). It's focused on finding high-value content.

Similar product categories

Feed readers are powerful products, which require manual setup to make them work well. Subscribing to feeds is mandatory, adding tags, filtered views, and rules can make them work even better. But for some use-cases, other product categories are simpler and might work better.

News aggregators

News aggregators automatically collect and curate news from a large variety of sources. They usually provide some customization options, but focus on news and don't allow arbitrary feed subscriptions like feed readers do.

They focus on providing an overview of the most relevant news stories.

Examples are Kagi News, Ground News, and SmartNews.

Reading lists

Reading lists, also called read-it-later apps, are for saving and organizing links you found somewhere on the web. Many feed readers can do the same, but reading lists are optimized for that purpose.

Examples are Instapaper and Matter.

How to choose

For most people, going with one of the hosted products is the best option. They're generally the most polished and most powerful products, owing to the fact that they have companies behind them with full-time engineers. They generally also offer a free plan, so if you stay within the limits of those, they will even be free to use.

For more specific requirements, products of the other categories can work better. They have different characteristics, and can work better in some situations. For example, if you want total control over your data, self-hosted options are the way to go.

It's probably easiest to first decide on the category, and then check out multiple products, or maybe even try them out. Virtually all products support OPML import and export, so moving feed subscriptions from one product to the next is almost zero effort.