Self-hosted open source RSS readers

I think I’ve tried pretty much all of them. After the Google Reader-pocalypse, one of the primary requirements was that I could host it myself. Bonus points go to apps that have configurable keyboard navigation (“j” to open the next item must be distinct from “space” to just scroll down in the browser), as well as decent integration on mobile. Here’s a roundup of the ones I’ve tried.

Newsblur

Awesome platform, but way too big for someone looking to host their own personal solution. I tried upgrading it once and broke it. No idea what I did wrong or how to even figure out how why it wasn’t working. Seems very well designed for a massive multi-user operation, though, if you’ve got the Python chops to figure everything out. Newsblur website.

Commafeed

Commafeed is also a larger piece of software, but requires many fewer components than Newsblur. You need Java, some java tools like maven, a DB and of course more than a little bit of RAM.

TT-RSS (Tiny Tiny RSS)

Nice, but not as configurable as I’d like. This and the rest of the readers listed are written in PHP. There are three larger downsides to tt-rss:

• I had quite a bit of trouble trying to get it to run from a subdirectory on Nginx. This is not necessarily specific to tt-rss, many apps are hard to config this way.
• The primary developer is not friendly. He seems to take pleasure in ridiculing people in the support forums.
• Although it’s supposed to be tiny, and the application part is, it requires Postgres or MySQL with InnoDB support. I would prefer something that uses less memory on the DB side, either MyISAM tables or better yet SQLite.

SelfOSS

I ran SelfOSS for a while and liked it. However, I didn’t like the Android experience (what, no swipe?) so I went looking for something else.

FreshRSS

I’m currently running FreshRSS and it’s really, really good. But I’m starting to get discouraged by a few nagging bugs and the lack of recent updates to the github repo.

Miniflux

I ran Miniflux for a short time a while back and my memory is a bit hazy on the experience (after a while RSS reader experiences tend to blend in with one another). I think I’m going to give it another shot. On his site, reading down the list of what Miniflux is not vs what it is makes me take heart. The developer is clearly trying to convey a no-BS attitude with his intentions for this app. One thing that gives me a spark of hope is that there was a new point release this month. I will update this post with any news with Miniflux.