FreshRSS — Self-Hosted RSS News Aggregator

What FreshRSS Does

• Feed Aggregation: Subscribe to unlimited RSS/Atom feeds with automatic refresh
• Reading Experience: Clean article view with keyboard shortcuts, themes, and reading modes
• Full-Text Retrieval: Fetch full article content even from partial-content feeds
• Categories & Tags: Organize feeds into categories and tag individual articles
• Search: Full-text search across all articles with filters
• Fever API: Compatible with Fever API clients (Reeder, Unread, etc.)
• Google Reader API: Compatible with Google Reader API clients (NetNewsWire, FeedMe, etc.)
• Multi-user: Multiple accounts with independent feed lists and settings
• Extensions: Plugin system for extending functionality
• WebSub/PubSubHubbub: Real-time push updates from supported feeds

Architecture

┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐     ┌──────────────┐
│  Web UI      │────▶│  FreshRSS    │────▶│  SQLite /    │
│  (PHP)       │     │  Server      │     │  MySQL /     │
├──────────────┤     │  (PHP)       │     │  PostgreSQL  │
│ Mobile Apps  │────▶│  Fever API   │     └──────────────┘
│ (via API)    │     │  GReader API │
└──────────────┘     └──────────────┘

Self-Hosting

Docker Compose

services:
  freshrss:
    image: freshrss/freshrss:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    environment:
      TZ: Asia/Shanghai
      CRON_MIN: "*/15"        # Refresh feeds every 15 minutes
    volumes:
      - freshrss-data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data
      - freshrss-extensions:/var/www/FreshRSS/extensions
    restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
  freshrss-data:
  freshrss-extensions:

With PostgreSQL

services:
  freshrss:
    image: freshrss/freshrss:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    environment:
      TZ: Asia/Shanghai
      CRON_MIN: "*/15"
    volumes:
      - freshrss-data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: freshrss
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: freshrss
      POSTGRES_DB: freshrss
    volumes:
      - pg-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

volumes:
  freshrss-data:
  pg-data:

Key Features

Feed Organization

Categories:
├── 📰 Tech News
│   ├── Hacker News
│   ├── The Verge
│   ├── Ars Technica
│   └── TechCrunch
├── 💻 Dev Blogs
│   ├── Rust Blog
│   ├── Go Blog
│   ├── React Blog
│   └── Cloudflare Blog
├── 🎙️ Podcasts
│   ├── Changelog
│   └── Syntax.fm
└── 📊 Finance
    ├── Bloomberg
    └── Financial Times

Reading Modes

• Normal: Title + summary in feed list
• Global: All articles from all feeds in one view
• Reader: Full article content inline
• Compact: Title-only list for fast scanning

Keyboard Shortcuts

j/k    — Next/Previous article
n/p    — Next/Previous feed
s      — Star/Favorite article
m      — Mark as read/unread
v      — Open original article
Space  — Scroll or next article
r      — Refresh current feed

Mobile Apps (via API)

Configure these apps with your FreshRSS instance:

Full-Text Retrieval

For feeds that only provide summaries:

Settings → Feed → Content retrieval:
  ✅ Retrieve full content
  CSS selector: article.post-content  (optional)

FreshRSS will fetch the full article from the original website.

Extensions

Available extensions:

• YouTube: Subscribe to YouTube channels as RSS feeds
• Reddit: Follow subreddits via RSS
• Image Proxy: Proxy images through your server for privacy
• Reading Time: Show estimated reading time
• Title Wrap: Better title display for long titles
• CustomCSS: Apply custom CSS themes

FreshRSS vs Alternatives

FAQ

Q: How many feeds can FreshRSS handle? A: There's no hard limit. Typical users run smoothly with 100–500 feeds. Beyond 1,000 feeds, switch to PostgreSQL and increase the refresh interval.

Q: Can I subscribe to sites that don't provide RSS? A: Yes, via third-party services. RSS-Bridge or RSSHub can generate RSS feeds for platforms like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and Reddit, which you then subscribe to in FreshRSS.

Q: How do I use it on mobile? A: Enable the Fever API or Google Reader API in FreshRSS settings, then point your mobile RSS reader at your FreshRSS server. On iOS, Reeder or NetNewsWire are recommended; on Android, FeedMe or Read You.

Sources & Credits

• GitHub: FreshRSS/FreshRSS — 14.7K+ ⭐ | AGPL-3.0
• Website: freshrss.org