The Old Reader vs Tiny Tiny RSS
We give The Old Reader a 3.0 GPA and Tiny Tiny RSS a 3.2, out of 4.0. The Old Reader grades higher on ease of use. Tiny Tiny RSS grades higher on value for money, the free plan and features. They get the same grade on platforms.
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
How we grade them
| 3.0GPAThe Old ReaderVery good | 3.2GPATiny Tiny RSSVery good | |
|---|---|---|
| Value for money | BWe can't tell you what Premium costs. The price isn't on the public pages, and the terms say fees are stated at the time of purchase. So this is the middle mark we give when a listing can't say. Premium removes ads and adds full-text search and up to 500 feeds. | AFree software under the GNU GPLv3, with no paid plan and no hosted version from the project. The only bill is for whatever server you run it on. |
| Free plan and trial | BFree accounts work, with ads. Unread posts are kept for up to 2 months, capped at 300 per feed, and the listing can't say how many feeds a free account may follow. There's a 14-day Premium trial at sign-up. | AThe complete reader is free, with nothing kept back for payers. There simply isn't a paid tier. |
| Features | BSolid basics: folders, OPML import, a list view of titles, keyboard shortcuts and a bookmarklet. The social side is the unusual bit, with following, likes and comments. But full-text search, faster feed refreshes and Instapaper integration are Premium only. | AFolders inside folders, regex filters that act on articles, and scoring that pushes articles up or down the list. Nearly any view can be republished as an Atom or JSON feed. Plugins add full-text extraction and sharing, and there's a daily email digest of unread headlines. |
| Ease of use | BIt has no app of its own, so there's no App Store rating on record and a B is as high as we go. Adding a feed is typing in a site's address, and feeds and folders are rearranged by drag and drop. | DIt's self-hosted only: you run, back up and update the server yourself. Installation expects Docker, and the site says support may be limited if you do it any other way. |
| Platforms and integrations | BA web app with a Google Reader-style API. There are no first-party mobile or desktop apps. The apps page lists third-party clients like Reeder, Vienna, Liferea and FeedMe that sync with your account. | BA web app with a documented JSON API for third-party clients. But the Android client is no longer maintained and its APK downloads are gone, so in practice you read in the browser. |
| Best for | sharing what you read with friends | heavy feed loads on your own server |
The GPA is the average of the five grades: an A is 4 points, an F is none. The full reasons are on each tool's page: The Old Reader and Tiny Tiny RSS. How we grade
Where they differ
- Tiny Tiny RSS is open source and self-hostable, according to its own site.
In commonFree planWebPublic APIRSS reader
At a glance
| The Old Reader | Tiny Tiny RSS | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | Not published | Free |
| Free plan | Free accounts show ads and keep up to 2 months of unread posts, capped at 300 posts per feed. Premium removes ads and adds search and up to 500 feeds; its price could not be read. | Free software under the GNU GPLv3 license, run on your own server. There is no paid plan and no hosted version from the project. |
| Free trial | 14-day Premium trial offered at sign-up | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | The Old Reader, Inc. | tt-rss contributors; created by Andrew Dolgov |
| Price read from | Not confirmed | tt-rss.org |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 6, 2026 |
Who each one suits
The Old Reader
- Readers who want a plain web-based feed reader with folders
- Groups of friends who share and comment on the posts they read
- People who pair a web reader with a third-party app such as Reeder
Tiny Tiny RSS
- Self-hosters who already run services with Docker
- Readers who want regex filters and scoring to sort a heavy feed load
- People who want to republish selections of articles as feeds
Worth knowing
The Old Reader
- The Premium price is not shown on the public pages; the terms say fees are stated at the time of purchase.
- Free accounts show ads and keep unread posts for up to 2 months, capped at 300 posts per feed.
- Full-text search, faster feed refreshes and Instapaper integration are limited to Premium.
- There are no first-party mobile or desktop apps; the apps page lists third-party clients that use the API.
Tiny Tiny RSS
- The original project was retired on 2025-11-01; the current code is a fork begun on 2025-10-03 by a long-time contributor.
- Installation expects Docker, and the site says support may be limited if you run it any other way.
- The Android client is no longer maintained and its APK downloads are gone, so reading happens in the web interface.
- It is self-hosted only: you run, back up and update the server yourself.
Key features
The Old Reader
- Feeds and folders
- Add a feed by entering a site's address, or import an OPML file with its folders intact. Feeds and folders are rearranged by drag and drop.
- List view and keyboard shortcuts
- A list view collapses posts to their titles so only the interesting ones need opening, and keyboard shortcuts cover navigation.
- Sharing with friends
- Follow friends to see the posts they share, like posts, and comment on shared items. Shared, liked and commented posts are stored permanently.
- Send To and bookmarklet
- The Send To button passes a post's title and address to a sharing service you configure, and a bookmarklet adds posts from any site.
- API for third-party apps
- A Google Reader-style API lets outside apps sync with an account. The apps page lists clients such as Reeder, Vienna, Liferea and FeedMe.
- Premium extras
- Premium removes ads and adds full-text search, faster feed refreshes, up to 500 subscriptions, a year of post storage and Instapaper integration.
Tiny Tiny RSS
- Folders, OPML and deduplication
- Feeds are organized into folders and subfolders, imported and exported as OPML, and deduplicated, with a plugin that uses perceptual hashing for repeated images. Podcasts are supported.
- Content filters and scoring
- Filters match articles against regular expressions and then apply actions. Score-changing filters move articles up or down the headline list and can mark very low scores as read.
- Generated feeds and publishing
- Almost anything shown in the headline list, such as a feed, label or category, can be re-published as an Atom or JSON feed protected by a random key.
- Share anything
- A bookmarklet shares arbitrary web pages into your Published feed, and combined with Readability this lets tt-rss work like a read-it-later site.
- Plugins and themes
- Plugins share articles to other sites, extract full article text with Readability, change hotkeys or handle unusual feeds, and themes restyle the interface.
- Email digests and JSON API
- Users can opt into a daily email digest of unread headlines, and a documented JSON API is available for third-party clients.
Plans
The Old Reader
Pricing could not be confirmed. See theoldreader.com.
Tiny Tiny RSS
Tiny Tiny RSS$0
The complete reader, self-hosted from the project's Docker images and kept current from the main branch.
