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Best Productivity ResourcesBy Shushant LakhyaniVerified creator

Desktop App

Newsboat

Read your RSS and Atom feeds in a fast text-only terminal reader.

Visit Newsboat4.4

  • Rating

    4.4 / 5

  • Pricing

    Free

  • Difficulty

    Advanced

  • Works on

    macOS, Linux

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What is Newsboat?

Newsboat is an RSS and Atom feed reader for the text console. It has a built-in HTML renderer so you can read text entries without opening a browser, lets you filter articles by title, author or content, and offers macros that run a sequence of actions with just two keystrokes.

Third-party open-source projects. We are not affiliated with their authors; repositories are provided as-is by their maintainers. Review each project's license, code and security before installing. See our Disclaimer.

Pros: what Newsboat does well

  • Distraction-free reading with no ads or pages
  • Powerful filters to cut noise
  • Keyboard-driven and quick

Cons: where it falls short

  • Runs in a terminal
  • Setup needs editing a config file

Who Newsboat is for

Readers who follow many blogs and want a calm, fast way through them.

Who can skip it

Anyone who prefers a visual reader app.

Newsboat alternatives

Not sold on Newsboat? These do a similar job, and each card says what it has in common.

All Reading resources

RSS Guard

Focus: rss reader, news feeds and podcasts. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Windows and Offline. Same 4.4 rating.

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.4Visit

FreshRSS

Focus: rss reader, news aggregator and feeds. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. A web app, not a desktop app. Adds Web. Rated 4.6 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.6Visit

SumatraPDF

Focus: pdf reader, ebook reader and lightweight. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. A Windows app, not a desktop app. Adds Windows. Rated 4.6 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Windows AppFreeWindows
4.6Visit

Glance

Focus: dashboard, start page and self-hosted. Shares rss and open source with Newsboat. A web app, not a desktop app. Adds Web. Rated 4.7 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Web AppFreeWeb, Cross-Platform
4.7Visit

NetNewsWire

Focus: rss reader, mac app and news. Shares open source with Newsboat. Adds iOS. Rated 4.7 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, iOS
4.7Visit

Foliate

Focus: ebook reader, epub and annotations. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Offline. Rated 4.6 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreeLinux, Offline
4.6Visit

Free alternatives to Newsboat

Want to spend nothing? These free picks cover similar ground.

Kiwix

Focus: offline wikipedia, reference and offline reading. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Windows and Offline. Rated 4.6 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreeWindows, Linux
4.6Visit

Readest

Focus: ebook reader, epub and annotations. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Windows, iOS and Android. Rated 4.6 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreeWindows, macOS
4.6Visit

Sioyek

Focus: pdf reader, research papers and keyboard. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Windows. Rated 4.6 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreeWindows, macOS
4.6Visit

Fluent Reader

Focus: rss reader, news feeds and reading. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Windows. Rated 4.5 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreeWindows, macOS
4.5Visit

Thorium Reader

Focus: ebook reader, epub and accessibility. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Adds Windows and Offline. Rated 4.5 (Newsboat: 4.4).

Desktop AppFreemacOS, Windows
4.5Visit

Zathura

Focus: document viewer, pdf and keyboard driven. Shares open source and github with Newsboat. Same 4.4 rating.

Desktop AppFreeLinux
4.4Visit
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