Folo vs NewsBlur
Folo and NewsBlur are both RSS reader software. Folo is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 39k GitHub stars. NewsBlur is a commercial product from NewsBlur.
Which to pick
- Pick Folo when
- You want a modern feed reader that also pulls in sites without native RSS and offers AI summaries.
- Pick NewsBlur when
- You want an independent RSS reader with story filtering and the option to self-host.
Side by side
An RSS reader for web, desktop and mobile that follows feeds, RSSHub routes and social sources, with AI summaries and translation.
An RSS reader that shows stories in the site's original layout and learns which stories you like through training filters; the code is open source.
Tied to the Folo cloud service for sync and AI features, and AGPL licensed.
Essentially a one-person operation, and the interface is busy.
Usable
Production-ready
Cloud service, desktop app and mobile app
Cloud service, mobile app and self-hosted server
TypeScript, React, Swift and Vite
Python, Django, MongoDB and PostgreSQL
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Closed source, sold by NewsBlur
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
39k GitHub stars
53 Wikipedia readers a month on phones
Established: started 2 years ago, latest release desktop/v1.17.0.
Not known
Other comparisons
More RSS readers
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.