Preview. These maps are our reading of public sources and haven't been checked with the projects' maintainers yet.
RSS readers
Feed readers, read-later apps, and reading tools.
20 projects95% active75% build on a shared standardMapped 2026-10-26
What they agree on
- Is it actively maintained? active (95% of 20)
- Who is it for? non-developers (80% of 20)
- How does it mainly sync your reading between devices or apps? its own account, or the platform's cloud (iCloud, Chrome sync) (70% of 20)
What they argue about
How is the main thing licensed?
How is it mainly sustained?
Can it run entirely on your own device or infrastructure, without the maker's servers?
Do you need an account to use it?
Which shared standard or format does it mainly build on?
What does a reader put into it?
What decides which items you see first?
What's the most AI does to what you read? (pick the first that applies)
Can you move your subscriptions in and out with OPML?
Where do you mainly use it?
What does a regular reader pay?
Is reading private, or shared with other readers?
Does the maker collect analytics on how you read?
Where do you mainly read the article itself?
Projects
| Project | Status | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| BoredReading | Active | A hosted discovery site that collects new long-form posts from hundreds of personal blogs every hour, with votes, categories and a reading… |
| Columnary | Active | A Chrome extension that turns a long article into full-height, horizontally scrolling columns that fill the screen, with bookmarks for your… |
| Cutthroat News | Active | A news site that publishes two AI-written digest editions a day, condensed from many feeds with every sentence linked to sources; readers c… |
| Ferry | Active | A free iPhone, iPad and Mac RSS reader that ranks stories by how many outlets are covering them instead of by arrival time. |
| FetchMark | Active | A hosted read-later and bookmark app that archives a clean copy of each saved article, with highlights, Markdown export, offline reading an… |
| FreshRSS | Active | A free, community-built, self-hostable feed aggregator (PHP) with extensions, web scraping, and Fever and Google Reader APIs that many mobi… |
| Gotcha RSS Feed | Active | A paid native RSS and Atom reader for Mac, iPhone and iPad that keeps everything on the device, with no account. |
| Lectura | Active | A deliberately old-school, server-rendered RSS reader website: a chronological list of titles that link out to the original sites, with no… |
| Lettura | Active | A paid iPhone, iPad and Mac app for reading feeds from your own FreshRSS server, with on-device AI summaries and a customizable reader. |
| NetNewsWire | Active | A free, open-source RSS reader for Mac, iPhone and iPad, around since 2002 and now led by its original author, Brent Simmons. |
| PageForth | Active | A Mac news reader that pulls articles from any site (feed or not) and shows an on-device Apple Intelligence summary of each, with a For You… |
| Particle | Active | A self-hosted read-later app: paste a URL and it extracts the article (or PDF, with OCR) into a clean, searchable SQLite library. |
| Reader (markweb) | Maintenance | A tiny static web page that re-renders any article URL as clean Markdown-style text, with paragraph bookmarks saved in the browser. |
| ReadMini | Active | A web tool that takes an article and removes the filler with AI, keeping the author's words, claims and caveats, and says how much reading… |
| Readplace | Active | A read-it-later app (web, browser extensions, iPhone) that saves articles, newsletters and PDFs and puts an AI TL;DR on top of each so you… |
| Readwise Reader | Active | A paid read-it-later and RSS app from Readwise that puts articles, newsletters, RSS, PDFs and EPUBs in one place, with highlighting and the… |
| RSScal | Active | A hosted feed tracker and social news aggregator that ranks stories by how many Bluesky and Mastodon accounts cite them, with personal feed… |
| Sifted | Active | A web tool where you paste links and an AI model (TypeSafe's Jev) scores every block of each page, showing only the parts above your strict… |
| Sunred | Active | An open-source, self-hostable RSS reader with a web app, terminal UI and CLI, plus following and sharing between readers over the AT Protoc… |
| wallabag | Active | An open-source, self-hostable read-it-later app that extracts and archives articles, with official hosting at wallabag.it and apps, extensi… |
Where they meet
- NetNewsWire Discourse forum forum
Linked from netnewswire.com; latest topics posted 2026-10-24 and 2026-10-25. - FreshRSS GitHub Discussions GitHub discussions
Enabled on the repo (gh api has_discussions=true). Client app makers such as Lettura and Ferry build against FreshRSS's API. - Miniflux GitHub Discussions GitHub discussions
Linked as 'Forum' from miniflux.app; enabled on the repo. Miniflux itself was left out of the map to keep four reference projects. - wallabag Matrix room chat
Linked from wallabag.org; the project also held an in-person meetup in Paris on 2026-07-29. - ALL about RSS awesome list
Large curated list of RSS readers and tools; about 5,900 stars, last push 2026-09-01. - Show HN forum
Where every candidate in this map launched (2026-07-27 to 2026-10-25), usually with a handful of points.
Follow
RSS for this community: projects added, status changes, and later polls and discussions.
Follow the whole community: OPML of every project's own release feed (where we found one) · OPML of every project's Poll Position feed.
The poll
Every project above was answered against these questions. Core questions are shared by all communities; the rest are this community's own.
- Is it actively maintained? core
active · active, but changed direction (pivot, fork, or rename) · maintenance or slowing · dormant, sunsetting, or archived - How is the main thing licensed? core
permissive open source (MIT/Apache/BSD) · copyleft or source-available with restrictions · open parts around a closed core · proprietary or closed source - How is it mainly sustained? core
individual side project, no revenue · individual with revenue (paid app, tier, ads, or donations) · community, foundation, or research · company with a paid product, tier, or ads · company or startup with a free product (no revenue yet) · big company side project - Can it run entirely on your own device or infrastructure, without the maker's servers? core
yes · yes, but it calls a third-party service you choose (your own API key or account) · partly (some features need the maker's servers) · no, it needs the maker's servers · not applicable - Do you need an account to use it? core
no account · optional account · account required - Who is it for? core
developers · non-developers · both - Is there public evidence it's built with AI coding agents? core
yes, the repo shows it (agent instruction files or agent co-authored commits) · yes, the maker says so · no public evidence - Which shared standard or format does it mainly build on? core
RSS, Atom, or JSON Feed · the Google Reader or Fever sync API · Pocket or Instapaper export files (read-later libraries) · none of these (its own format or interface) · not applicable - What does a reader put into it? approach
feeds or sites to follow · links or articles saved to read later · both feeds and saved articles · nothing: the maker picks the sources · one page at a time, to read right now - What decides which items you see first? value
newest first (chronological) · the reader's own saved list · votes, coverage counts, or social signals · AI or a personal algorithm · not applicable (one page at a time) - What's the most AI does to what you read? (pick the first that applies) value
AI picks, ranks, rewrites, or cuts what you see · AI summaries are shown by default · only optional AI extras (summaries, tags, or questions you ask for) · no AI - How does it mainly sync your reading between devices or apps? approach
it serves a common sync API (Fever or Google Reader) that other apps use · it signs in to another reader service (FreshRSS, Feedbin, Inoreader, etc.) · its own account, or the platform's cloud (iCloud, Chrome sync) · no sync - Can you move your subscriptions in and out with OPML? approach
import and export · import only · no OPML · not applicable (no subscriptions) - Where do you mainly use it? approach
website or web app run by the maker · web app you host yourself · native app (Mac, iPhone, iPad) · browser extension - What does a regular reader pay? value
nothing, and no ads · nothing, but there are ads · free core, with a paid tier or paid hosting · paid (after any trial) - Is reading private, or shared with other readers? value
private · some sharing (public lists, public subscriptions, or share links) · social is central (follows, likes, votes) - Does the maker collect analytics on how you read? value
no, it says it collects none · only self-hosted or cookieless page counts · yes, third-party analytics or ad trackers · not applicable (it runs on your own device or server; nothing reaches the maker) · not stated - Where do you mainly read the article itself? approach
on the original site (it links out) · in its own clean reader view · as an AI-condensed version first · not applicable
Sources
Show HN posts 2026-07-27 to 2026-10-25 in this kind, plus well-known reference projects.
53 sources across 20 projects, read on 2026-10-26. Each project page lists its own. Poll version: core-v4.