Rssguard

Judgement

What it is

Complete system

What it does

A Qt desktop feed reader for RSS, Atom and JSON that also syncs with Nextcloud News, Tiny Tiny RSS, Inoreader, Feedly and Gmail, with a podcast player.

Adopt it when

You want a native desktop reader that connects to many sync services and supports scripting and filters.

Watch out

Feature-dense interface with a learning curve, maintained largely by one developer.

Ready for

Production-ready

Runs as

Desktop app

Built with

C++ and Qt

How established

Established: started 12 years ago, latest release 5.2.5.

What the license allows

Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.

Judged on 2026-11-03 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Built from

Follow it down: Rssguard → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

Open-source alternatives to Rssguard

1. 1
   Folo RSSNext

   🧡 Folo is the AI RSS Reader

   Complete system Usable You want a modern feed reader that also pulls in sites without native RSS and offers AI summaries.

   ★ 39k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed today
2. 2
   FreshRSS FreshRSS

   A free, self-hostable news aggregator…

   Complete system Production-ready You want your own feed server that syncs read state across phone and desktop apps, on cheap PHP hosting.

   ★ 16k AGPL-3.0 PHP Active, pushed today
3. 3
   NetNewsWire Ranchero-Software

   RSS reader for macOS and iOS.

   Complete system Production-ready You use Apple devices and want a fast, free, privacy-respecting feed reader.

   ★ 10k MIT Swift Active, pushed 9 days ago
4. 4
   V2 miniflux

   Minimalist and opinionated feed reader

   Complete system Production-ready You want a fast, low-maintenance feed server and do not need visual frills.

   ★ 9.9k Apache-2.0 Go Active, pushed yesterday
5. 5
   Fluent Reader yang991178

   Modern desktop RSS reader built with Electron, React, and Fluent UI

   Complete system Usable You want a clean desktop feed reader, especially on Windows.

   ★ 9.8k BSD-3-Clause TypeScript Active, pushed 4 days ago
6. 6
   NewsBlur samuelclay

   NewsBlur is a personal news reader that brings people together to talk about the world. A new sound of an old instrument.

   Complete system Production-ready You want a mature hosted feed reader with filtering, or want to study or self-host the full stack.

   ★ 7.7k MIT HTML Active, pushed today
7. 7
   ReadYou ReadYouApp

   An Android RSS reader presented in Material You style.

   Complete system Usable You want a good-looking free feed reader on Android.

   ★ 7.6k GPL-3.0 Kotlin Active, pushed 3 months ago
8. 8
   PlainApp plainhub

   🔥 PlainApp is an open-source app that lets you securely manage your phone from a web browser. Access files, media, contacts, SMS, calls, and more through a simple, easy-to-use interface on your desktop.

   Complete system Usable You want to move files and handle messages on your Android phone from your computer without cloud services.

   ★ 7.1k AGPL-3.0 Kotlin Active, pushed today

Commercial RSS readers

1. 1
   Feedly Feedly

   News aggregator

   Complete system Production-ready You follow many sources and want a polished reader, or a team needs topic monitoring with AI filtering.

   478 readers a month Since 2008 Commercial
2. 2
   Inoreader Innologica

   RSS feed reader

   Complete system Production-ready You are a heavy RSS user who wants rules and search to manage hundreds of feeds.

   135 readers a month Since 2013 Commercial
3. 3
   NewsBlur NewsBlur

   American software company, founded 2009

   Complete system Production-ready You want an independent RSS reader with story filtering and the option to self-host.

   53 readers a month Since 2009 Commercial
4. 4
   Readwise Reader Readwise

   Complete system Production-ready You read a lot online and want highlights and notes from everything flowing into your note-taking system.

   Commercial