$ sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose
$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

$ mkd...

📅 2026-Jan-12 ⬩ ✍️ Ashwin Nanjappa ⬩ 🏷️ rss ⬩ 📚 Archive

FreshRSS is a free RSS feed aggregator that can be used to read RSS feeds online and also exposes an API that can be used with desktop/mobile RSS apps. Its source code can be seen on Github.

Install

Instead of using it from source code, I find it easier to use its pre-built Docker container. To get it running from Docker container:

• Prepare the Docker packages and user setup:

$ sudo apt install -y docker.io docker-compose
$ sudo usermod -aG docker $USER

Log out and log back in for group changes to take effect.

• Create a directory for it and enter it:

$ mkdir ~/freshrss
$ cd ~/freshrss

• Create a ~/freshrss/docker-compose.yml file and add these lines to it:

version: '2.4'
services:
freshrss:
image: freshrss/freshrss:latest
container_name: freshrss
hostname: freshrss
restart: unless-stopped
logging:
options:
max-size: 10m
volumes:
- ./data:/var/www/FreshRSS/data
- ./extensions:/var/www/FreshRSS/extensions
environment:
TZ: America/Los_Angeles  # Change to your timezone
CRON_MIN: '*/20'         # Checks for updates every 20 mins
ports:
- "80:80"

• Launch the container:

$ docker-compose up -d

• Go to http://<public-ip> to access the FreshRSS online setup wizard for the first time. You will need to provide a login and password. Go with default options and let it pick SQLite as the database to make life easy.

Usage

In your browser, go to http://<public-ip>. You can add feeds, that appear under Uncategorized category unless you create and move them to new categories.

API access

To read RSS feeds from desktop and mobile apps through FreshRSS, we need to enable API access.

In the online interface go to the gear icon in the top-right corner.

In Authentication, enable Allow API access.

In Profile, go to API password and add a password. Go to http://<public-ip>/api/ to check the API access is working.

Go to your RSS application and provide the username, API password and the API path. For Google Reader compatible API, the path is http://<public-ip>/api/greader.php.

API access can be used by your favorite application to add or remove feeds, mark as read or favorite and all other normal operations possible through the FreshRSS UI.