Self-host FreshRSS

updated Sep 2026deployed by usprices checked · Jul 2026Install verified on Ubuntu 26.04 · Sep 2026 · how we test

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A free, self-hosted RSS aggregator — fast, themeable, and extensible, with built-in scraping for sites that dropped their feeds. Owns your reading, ad-free.

Key facts

CategoryRSS reader

LicenseAGPL-3.0

StackPHP

Min RAM256 MB

Official imageyes

Measured idle RAM16 MB

Difficulty

Sourcegithub.com/FreshRSS/FreshRSS

Websitefreshrss.org

Our recommendation

Pick FreshRSS when you want a full-featured web reader — themes, extensions, built-in scraping for pages that dropped their feed, a Google Reader-compatible API for mobile apps — on the smallest possible box: upstream says its "requirements are really low" and it "should run on most shared host servers". It is AGPL-3.0 PHP; the official image is Apache + PHP with SQLite by default and PostgreSQL 10+ or MariaDB 10.6+/MySQL 8+ as options. If you would rather have a single Go binary with no extensions and no scraping, Miniflux is the opinionated alternative — but it makes Postgres mandatory.

What you need

Any VPS with at least 256 MB of RAM
A domain you control — most self-hosted setups need HTTPS in front of them
Under an hour if you've used Docker before

Where to host itaffiliate disclosure

Hetzner Cloudrun it on

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DigitalOceanalso works on

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Install

Run these commands on your server:

# FreshRSS — official Docker README "Quick run" (rolling :edge channel; :latest is the versioned release)
# CRON_MIN is off by default — without it feeds never refresh on their own
docker run -d --restart unless-stopped --log-opt max-size=10m \
  -p 8080:80 \
  -e TZ=Europe/Paris \
  -e CRON_MIN=1,31 \
  -v freshrss_data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data \
  -v freshrss_extensions:/var/www/FreshRSS/extensions \
  --name freshrss \
  freshrss/freshrss:edge
# open http://SERVER_IP:8080 to complete the installation in the web UI

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What you take on

FreshRSS is easy to run and easy to run wrong; the Docker README names the traps:

non-negotiableFeeds do not refresh on their own. The built-in cron is off by default — "CRON_MIN: (default is disabled)" — and our snippet does not set it, so nothing updates until you add -e CRON_MIN=1,31 (the README's example) or run app/actualize_script.php from a host cron. The script will not refresh any feed more than once every twenty minutes, so scheduling it more often is wasted.

non-negotiableFirst visit runs the web installer; there is no default account. Finish it in the browser, or drive it with the FRESHRSS_INSTALL and FRESHRSS_USER env vars, which take CLI arguments for cli/do-install.php and user creation.

non-negotiable1.30.0 (September 2026) is a breaking security release: it "disallow[s] access to local networks such as 127.0.0.1 by default". If you pull feeds from other services on your LAN or Docker network, allow them under System configuration or with INTERNAL_HOST_ALLOWLIST; * restores the old behaviour and upstream labels it unsafe.

non-negotiableBehind a reverse proxy set TRUSTED_PROXY to the proxy's ranges and, for sub-path hosting, send X-Forwarded-Prefix. Mobile apps need two switches: the admin option "Allow API access (required for mobile apps)" and a separate per-user API password set in each profile — check /api/ → "Check full server configuration" before blaming the app.

non-negotiable:latest is "the latest versioned release" and :edge is the rolling git branch; our snippet pulls untagged, i.e. latest, though upstream's 1.30.0 notes recommend edge for faster security patches. The 256 MB floor is our estimate — FreshRSS publishes no RAM figure, only the "really low" statement.