Following up on my recent posts about RSS [1, 2] here’s an article on everything (and probably more) that you ever wanted to know about RSS readers. It turns out that there’s all sorts of readers: paid, hosted, self hosted, on device, browser based, and more.
The article considers readers along two axes:
- Deployment Mode
- on device, browser extension, hosted, self hosted
- Business Model
- free, one time fee, subscription
In other words, where the data is stored and how much you pay. The article looks at over 30 RSS readers, classifies them according to the two axis, and briefly describes many of them.
They don’t, of course, talk about the best feed reader, elfeed. That’s understandable. Not even I would expect someone to adopt Emacs just for an RSS reader. I’ve used Reeder and Feedly and they were fine. When I used it, Reeder was free but is paid now. Feedly was always paid but I have a lifetime subscription from getting in early. They’re both hosted solutions
For me, elfeed hits to sweet spot. It’s free, on device, has a ton of features, and since it’s open source can be customized as needed. If you’re an Emacs user, you really should be using it. And who knows, maybe Org mode, magit, and elfeed will be enough to get you to give Emacs a try.
In any event, if you’re looking for an RSS reader, this is a useful article to find out what’s available and what their capabilities are.