FreshRSS vs NewsBlur
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
NewsBlur
Open-source RSS reader with trainable story filters
Where they differ
- FreshRSS is free. NewsBlur starts at $36 per year (Premium).
- Only NewsBlur lists iOS and Android apps.
- NewsBlur also covers read later.
At a glance
| FreshRSS | NewsBlur | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free | Free plan |
| Starts at | Free | $36 per year (Premium) |
| Free plan | Free software under the GNU AGPL 3 license, installed on your own server. The project has no paid plan; hosted instances come from independent providers. | Follow up to 64 sites with real-time updates, training by author, tag and title, saved stories, a public blurblog, and the iOS and Android apps. |
| Free trial | None listed | 30-day premium trial on every new account, no credit card required |
| Web | ||
| iOS | ||
| Android | ||
| Made by | FreshRSS community | NewsBlur, Inc. |
| Price read from | freshrss.org | newsblur.com |
| Checked | Oct 6, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
FreshRSS
- People who want to run their own RSS reader on a small server
- Households or groups sharing one multi-user installation
- Following sites that publish no feed, using the built-in scraping
NewsBlur
- Readers who want to train their own filters rather than rely on an algorithm
- People who prefer open-source software or want to self-host
- Professionals who need feeds polled every few minutes
Worth knowing
FreshRSS
- You install and maintain it yourself: it needs a web server, PHP 8.1 or newer and a PostgreSQL, SQLite, MariaDB or MySQL database.
- The project runs no hosted service of its own; public and managed instances come from independent providers with their own prices.
- Reading in a native app depends on third-party clients that connect through the Google Reader or Fever API.
- The README says the web interface works on mobile browsers except for a few features.
NewsBlur
- The free plan is limited to 64 sites.
- Search, River of News and text view start at Premium; web feeds, Ask AI and the archive need Premium Archive.
- Premium and Premium Archive are priced per year only, while Premium Pro is priced per month.
- Native apps are listed for iOS and Android; desktop use is through the web app or third-party clients.
Key features
FreshRSS
- Feeds, podcasts and video channels
- Follows websites, podcasts and video channels in one place, imports and exports OPML, and receives instant updates from sources that support the WebSub standard.
- Web scraping and generated feeds
- Creates feeds for sites that offer none by scraping pages with XPath or reading JSON documents, and can generate new feeds from your own filters.
- Search, saved queries and tags
- Articles can be searched, searches can be saved as queries for quick access, and custom tags organize what you want to keep.
- Multi-user with several login methods
- One installation serves several users and offers an anonymous reading mode, with login by web form, HTTP authentication or OpenID Connect.
- APIs for mobile and desktop apps
- Google Reader and Fever compatible APIs let third-party apps on Android, iOS, Linux, macOS and Windows sync with a FreshRSS server. A command-line interface is included.
- Themes, extensions and sharing
- Themes and extensions from a dedicated repository customize the reader, and selections of articles can be reshared as HTML, RSS or OPML.
NewsBlur
- Intelligence Training
- Mark authors, tags and title keywords with a thumbs up or down to highlight matching stories or fade them out. Full-text training needs Premium Archive.
- Web Feeds
- On Premium Archive, NewsBlur builds a feed for a web page that has no RSS by monitoring the page for changes.
- Search and story archive
- Premium adds full-text search across subscriptions. Premium Archive keeps every story indefinitely and back-fills the history of newly added feeds.
- Ask AI and Daily Briefing
- Premium Archive can ask questions about a story using Claude, GPT, Gemini or Grok, and receives an AI-written daily summary of top stories.
- Email newsletters
- Forward newsletters to a personal NewsBlur email address and they appear as a feed that can be trained, tagged and searched like any other.
- Open source and open API
- The server and both mobile apps are open source on GitHub, and the API supports third-party clients such as Reeder, ReadKit and Unread.
Plans
FreshRSS
FreshRSS$0
The complete aggregator, self-hosted on a web server with PHP and a PostgreSQL, SQLite, MariaDB or MySQL database.
NewsBlur
Free$0
Follow up to 64 sites, with real-time updates, training by author, tag and title, saved stories, a public blurblog, and the mobile apps.
Self-Hosted$0
The open-source code from GitHub, run on your own server with a single Docker command. Hosting is your own responsibility.
Premium$36
per year
1,024 sites, feeds updated up to 5x more often, River of News, search, text view, tagged saved stories, and blurblog privacy options.
Premium Archive$99
per year
4,096 sites, web feeds for sites without RSS, a permanent searchable archive, Ask AI, daily briefing, story clustering, and the MCP server and CLI.
Premium Pro$29
per month
10,000 sites, every feed fetched every 5 to 15 minutes, training with regular expressions, and priority support.
