What is FreshRSS?
FreshRSS is a free, self-hostable RSS and Atom feed aggregator. It collects websites, podcasts, and video channels into one place so you can read them in a single interface. It is aimed at people who want to run their own feed reader rather than depend on a hosted service, and it is released as free software under AGPL 3. If you would rather not install anything yet, you can try it at demo.freshrss.org or sign up to an existing server.
What it does
FreshRSS is built around syndication: you follow sources, and it gathers their feeds for you. The site describes these capabilities:
- Syndication — follow websites, podcasts, and video channels in one place.
- Reader — read your articles directly inside FreshRSS.
- Search — search and save queries for quick access.
- Web scraping — generate feeds by scraping external websites.
- Feeds generation — create new feeds based on your filters.
- OPML — import and export your feeds with OPML.
- WebSub — stay connected to your feeds in real time.
How you run it
FreshRSS is self-hosted, so the normal path is to download the code and follow the installation instructions on your own server. The project frames this as a data question: if you wonder where your data lives, hosting it yourself is the answer. There is no indication on the page of a paid tier, account requirement, or hosted plan from the project itself — the options presented are the demo, an existing third-party server, or your own installation.
Who it suits
The feature set points to a few clear situations:
| If you want to… | FreshRSS offers |
|---|---|
| Keep feeds on your own infrastructure | Self-hosting on your server |
| Follow many sources at once | Support for 50k+ feeds and 1M+ articles |
| Read on phone or desktop | Mobile use with or without a third-party app |
| Track sources that lack a feed | Web scraping and feed generation |
| Change how it looks or works | Themes and extensions |
| Use it in your own language | Translations in more than 15 languages |
The performance claim is notable: FreshRSS is described as able to manage 1M+ articles and 50k+ feeds "without complaining," and as fast and efficient. It also emphasizes being lightweight, easy to work with, powerful, and customizable.
Community and licensing
FreshRSS is free software under AGPL 3 and described as community-friendly. The project invites users to read the guide, contact the team, contribute, and be credited. Testimonials on the site range from users calling it the first and sometimes only place they go on the Internet, to opensource.com listing it among the better RSS readers, to a French-language review calling it exactly the feed reader the author wanted: beautiful, light, simple, installable on your own server, and libre.
If you are deciding whether to adopt it, the practical starting point is the demo to judge the interface, then a self-hosted install if you want to keep your reading data under your own control.