Comparison of RSS Readers

Verdict: the best RSS reader for the PC is RSS Guard. It has the best support for both basic and advanced features. Thunderbird is a close second, but unfortunately most of its advanced features come from being shared with its e-mail functionality, while the UI for basic RSS operations is actually terrible. Vivaldi has basic support for RSS currently, but I feel it might improve in the future, as RSS features such as folder are actively being implemented. Akregator and NewsFlash are similar in their lack of features, but Akregator provides more customizability. It's worth noting that you don't need to use a single RSS reader for all your feeds, specially considering how support for certain features exist in some readers, but not in others. It's perfectly valid to use text-dense readers such as RSS Guard for long-term subscriptions, as they can handle a high number of feeds better, and use Vivaldi's built-in RSS functionality or NewsFlash nice-looking interface for casual reading of RSS feeds that you're most interested in the moment.

Complete Reviews

This article is a summary. For the complete reviews of each application, see:

Platform Support

Let's start by taking a look at the platform support.

Application	Windows	Linux	macOS
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes	✅ Yes
Vivaldi	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes
Thunderbird	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Fluent Reader	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Akregator	❌ No.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
NewsFlash	❌ No.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.

Adding RSS Feeds

When adding a feed, do we need to use the feed URL, or can we use the URL of a webpage? If a webpage declares multiple feeds, does it let we choose which feed, or does it just pick the first one? Can we import and export feeds using OPML?

Application	Webpage URL	Multiple Feeds	OPML
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes
Vivaldi	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes
Thunderbird	❌ No.	❌ No.	✅ Yes
Thunderbird	❌ No.	❌ No.	✅ Yes
Akregator	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	✅ Yes
NewsFlash	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes

Customizing Feeds

Can we customize feeds by specifying a custom update interval, title, or annotate them with a comment?

Application	Update Interval	Rename	Annotate
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Vivaldi	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
Thunderbird	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
Fluent Reader	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
Akregator	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
NewsFlash	❌ No.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.

⚠️ In Vivaldi, you can set an update interval when you create a feed, but you can't change or review it later.

✅ RSS Guard loads a description from the RSS feed by default, but you can replace it with your own description.

⚠️ In Fluent Reader, you can set a limit for how often a feed updates, and there is a global setting to control the actual frequency. This global setting is disabled by default, so even if you change the frequency of a feed, it doesn't do anything because the global value is to never update automatically.

Layout

Does the application support displaying the articles list as a table or card view? The list and content as two horizontal panes or vertical panes?

Application	Table	Cards	Vertical	Horizontal
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Vivaldi	✅ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Thunderbird	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Fluent Reader	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
Akregator	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
NewsFlash	❌ No.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.

⚠️ Vivaldi only supports cards with vertical panes.

⚠️ Fluent Reader's table layout only looks like a table, but doesn't have the typical functionalities of a table, e.g. column headers that you can click and right click on.

Managing Feeds

Does the application support placing feeds into folders to organize them? Can we place folders inside folders? Can we reorder feeds by drag and dropping?

Application	Folders	Subfolders	Reorder
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Vivaldi	⚠️ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	❌ No.
Thunderbird	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
Fluent Reader	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	⚠️ Yes.
Akregator	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
NewsFlash	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	✅ Yes.

⚠️ In Vivaldi, folders were added in a recent version. You still can't reorder.

⚠️ In Fluent Reader, although you can technically reorder feeds, this functionality is hidden in the place where you would last expect: no in the feeds list in the side pane, not in the feeds list where you add feeds, but in the groups tab where you create "groups" (folders), and reordering feeds inside folders can only be done by double clicking a group because feeds inside aren't display by default in this tab specifically.

Tagging Articles

Does the application let you tag articles that interest you, e.g. star them (or mark them as important) or arbitrarily tag them however you want? Can the application load the categories assigned to the article according to the RSS feed?

Application	Star	Tagging	From RSS
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.
Vivaldi	❌ No.	⚠️ Yes.	❌ No.
Thunderbird	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Fluent Reader	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	❌ No.
Akregator	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	❌ No.
NewsFlash	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.

⚠️ Vivaldi lets you tag RSS articles, but you can only filter by them going to the e-mail panel.

✅ RSS Guard hides this functionality by default. It's called "Labels" and to use them you must enable to "Labels" node in the account's setting, but it's possible to use it.

Searching Articles

How powerful is the search functionality of the application?

Application	Title	Content	Date	Category	Feed	Author
RSS Guard	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Vivaldi	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Thunderbird	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.
Fluent Reader	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	❌ No.	⚠️ Yes.	❌ No.
Akregator	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	❌ No.	⚠️ Yes.	✅ Yes.
NewsFlash	✅ Yes.	✅ Yes.	❌ No.	⚠️ Yes.	⚠️ Yes.	❌ No.

⚠️ Thunderbird can only filter by one feed or folder.

⚠️ Vivaldi, RSS Guard, Akregator, and NewsFlash can search a category OR a feed or folder that is currently selected.

⚠️ RSS Guard can only filter by recent articles, e.g. from today, yesterday, this week, or last week.

Not Reviewed

Some RSS clients that weren't reviewed by the author.

FeedDeck

FeedDeck is not a local RSS client. It connects to your FeedDeck account, which would be a paid subscription.

Communique

I couldn't get Communique to run properly through the flatpak, but from what I could see from its interface it's unlikely to be better than NewsFlash.

Raven Reader

The only version of Raven available is no longer maintained.

Working on the new version completely re-written. This version of Raven Reader would no longer be maintained. Stay tuned for more announcements and new repo.

https://github.com/hello-efficiency-inc/raven-reader (accessed 2024-10-25)

QuiteRSS

QuiteRSS looks pretty good, but unfortunately it seems unmaintained since 2020.

Most Linux distributions have deprecated or removed the obsolete QtwebKit because it is unmaintained and has a huge list of very serious security issues. Quirerss depends completely on QtWebKit. The author of QuiteRSS has said he does not have the resources and time to port Quiterss to QtWebEngine.

https://github.com/QuiteRSS/quiterss/issues/1598#issuecomment-1950976291 (accessed 2024-09-26)

RSSOwl

RSSOwl has been unmaintained since 2014.

RSSOwl is unmaintained and has several known vulnerabilities. Please do not use it any more.

[...] Furthermore, RSSOwl does not work with Java 9, but it may still work with Java 8.

https://github.com/rssowl/RSSOwl (accessed 2024-10-25)

BlogBridge

BlogBridge has been unmaintained since 2011.

Other Readers

Some readers that I have heard about but haven't reviewed currently:

• Liferea.
• Fluent Reader.

Other Perspectives

• https://www.tecmint.com/best-rss-feed-readers-for-linux/
  This article lists many readers for Linux, including self-hosted web-based and terminal-based readers which I wouldn't cover.
• https://www.theverge.com/24036427/rss-feed-reader-best
  This article lists many online servers that charge as a subscription