Files

MajorLinux b81c8feda0 wiki: add alternatives section with SearXNG, FreshRSS, and Gitea

Add three new articles to 03-opensource/alternatives/:
- SearXNG: private metasearch, Open WebUI integration
- FreshRSS: self-hosted RSS, mobile app sync, OPML portability
- Gitea: lightweight GitHub alternative, webhook pipeline

Article count: 33 → 36. Open source section: 6 → 9.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-03-14 00:37:42 -04:00

2.6 KiB

Raw Blame History

FreshRSS — Self-Hosted RSS Reader

Problem

RSS is the best way to follow websites, blogs, and podcasts without algorithmic feeds, engagement bait, or data harvesting. But hosted RSS services like Feedly gate features behind subscriptions and still have access to your reading habits. Google killed Google Reader in 2013 and has been trying to kill RSS ever since.

Solution

FreshRSS is a self-hosted RSS aggregator. It fetches and stores your feeds on your own server, presents a clean reading interface, and syncs with mobile apps via standard APIs (Fever, Google Reader, Nextcloud News). No subscription, no tracking, no feed limits.

Deployment (Docker)

services:
  freshrss:
    image: freshrss/freshrss:latest
    container_name: freshrss
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "8086:80"
    volumes:
      - ./freshrss/data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data
      - ./freshrss/extensions:/var/www/FreshRSS/extensions
    environment:
      - TZ=America/New_York
      - CRON_MIN=*/15   # fetch feeds every 15 minutes

Caddy reverse proxy

rss.yourdomain.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:8086
}

Initial Setup

Browse to your FreshRSS URL and run through the setup wizard
Create an admin account
Go to Settings → Authentication — enable API access if you want mobile app sync
Start adding feeds under Subscriptions → Add a feed

Mobile App Sync

FreshRSS exposes a Google Reader-compatible API that most RSS apps support:

App	Platform	Protocol
NetNewsWire	iOS / macOS	Fever or GReader
Reeder	iOS / macOS	GReader
ReadYou	Android	GReader
FeedMe	Android	GReader / Fever

API URL format: https://rss.yourdomain.com/api/greader.php

Enable the API in FreshRSS: Settings → Authentication → Allow API access

Feed Auto-Refresh

The CRON_MIN=*/15 environment variable runs feed fetching every 15 minutes inside the container. For more control, add a host-level cron job:

# Fetch all feeds every 10 minutes
*/10 * * * * docker exec freshrss php /var/www/FreshRSS/app/actualize_script.php

You control the feed — no algorithm decides what you see or in what order
No engagement optimization — content ranked by publish date, not outrage potential
Portable — OPML export lets you move your subscriptions to any reader
Works forever — RSS has been around since 1999 and isn't going anywhere

2.6 KiB Raw Blame History