FreshRSS vs Instapaper
FreshRSS
freshrss.orgInstapaper
instapaper.comSide by side
| Figure | FreshRSS | Instapaper |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $5/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | Yes | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | — |
| iOS | Yes | Yes |
| Android | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 2 | 4 |
| Spec score · Reading Apps | 8.9 (#5) | 8.6 (#11) |
Plans
Instapaper
- FreeFree
- Premium$5.99 a month
- Premium monthly$5.99 a month
- Premium yearly$59.99 a year
In their own words
FreshRSS
FreshRSS is a free, self-hosted RSS and Atom feed aggregator for following websites, podcasts, and video channels. Users can read and search articles, save searches, and organize items with custom tags. Feed management includes OPML import and export, creating feeds from filters, and scraping websites to make feeds. WebSub provides real-time updates from compatible feeds. The project says the software can manage 1M+ articles and 50k+ feeds. FreshRSS supports multiple users, anonymous reading, themes, extensions, configurable options, and a command-line interface. APIs support mobile clients, and Google Reader and Fever APIs enable use with mobile and native clients. Self-hosting requires a web server, PHP 8.1 or later, and PostgreSQL 10+, SQLite, MariaDB 10.6+, or MySQL 8.0+. The project advises exposing only the ./p/ folder to the web because ./data/ contains personal data. It offers no warranty and welcomes bug reports and feature requests through GitHub issues.
Instapaper
Instapaper saves internet content for later reading and organization. A single action can save articles, videos, recipes, song lyrics, and other pages; saved articles and videos sync across supported devices and can be read offline. Readers can highlight and comment on article text, then store, retrieve, quote, and share selected passages. The free plan includes unlimited article, video, and page saves, folders, synchronization, and API integration, with a limit of five notes per month. Premium adds full-text search, a permanent archive of articles, PDF reading, unlimited notes, Kindle integration, and mobile AI Voices and text-to-speech playlists. Premium costs $5.99 a month or $59.99 a year. Supported platforms include the web, iOS, Android, macOS, and a Chrome extension; listed devices also include Kindle, Kobo, and Boox eReaders. Speed reading is listed as processing articles up to three times faster.