Switched from NewsBlur to FreshRSS
I've been a paying user of the RSS feed reader service NewsBlur for 11 years1 I used the free plan at first. First signing up on January 25, 2013. and it's done its job well.#
And whilst it has some nifty features I'm sure,2 I noticed quite a few new ones when I checked last week. Mainly AI-based stuff. I've always just used it for syncing the read/unread status of my feed subscriptions so NetNewsWire is in sync on my Mac and iPhone.#
Each year when it was due for renewal I'd look at its competitors and they were always similarly priced. And then I'd look at the self-hosted options, which there were always quite a few. But they were either not supported by NetNewsWire or looked like a faff to install and maintain. So I just let NewsBlur renew.#
But this year AI is a powerful tool. So when I noticed NetNewsWire supports the self-hosted FreshRSS I just asked Claude Code to install it on my Linode VPS. Forty minutes later it was up and running.3 I went overkill and used Claude Fable 5.1 on the task. Forty minutes is a long time. But it did a bunch of tests and it went away and even freed up storage on my Linode VPS.#
I'm happier self-hosting an RSS syncing service than most other things because it's so easy to backup. I just need to export the OPML file and I can easily move to another platform if FreshRSS doesn't work out.#
I feel a bit bad for leaving NewsBlur. It's just run by a guy and his dog. And for years he would try and convince you to sign up to the premium plan by saying that it would "feed his dog" Shiloh. It was cute. Sadly it looks like Shiloh has died.4 And it looks like he has a new dog now, called Lyric. But I like to think he got his money's worth out of me.5 It started at $24/yr in 2015. Now it looks like it's $36/yr. And who knows, maybe I'll be back when my Linode server blows up (I hope not – it's the same server that powers this blog).#