Grok, I am abounding my experiment of giving you web sites and pulling the Top ten stories. I am looking for something that looks like RSS Feeds. I want to choose the websites and have them give me a News feed. I really do not know what I am looking for but similar to RSS Feeds. Do you have any suggestions?
Yes, I understand exactly what you’re looking for.You want a clean, reliable, set-it-and-forget-it news feed system where you choose the websites once, and then get a steady stream of headlines (and preferably short summaries) without having to visit each site or ask me to scrape them every day. Something that feels like classic RSS.Here are the best practical options right now (August 2026), ranked from simplest to most powerful:1. Best Overall Solution for Most People: Inoreader or Feedly
- Both are excellent modern RSS readers.
- You can add any website’s official RSS feed or create custom feeds from almost any page.
- Clean interface, folders, filters, search, mobile apps, and daily digests by email if you want.
- Inoreader is generally preferred by power users because it has better tools for creating feeds from sites that don’t officially support RSS.
2. Easiest Way to Turn Any Website into an RSS FeedUse these free/paid tools to generate RSS feeds from the sites you care about (Newsmax, Fox News, Townhall, Just the News, Cord Cutters News, etc.):
|
Tool
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Best For
|
Notes
|
Cost
|
|---|---|---|---|
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RSS.app
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Easiest & most reliable
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Point at any page → get clean RSS feed
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Free tier + paid
|
|
FetchRSS
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Very good for news sites
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Strong at extracting headlines
|
Free + paid
|
|
FiveFilters
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Full-text extraction
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Can pull full articles
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Free/self-host
|
|
Feed43
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Advanced users
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More control, but steeper learning curve
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Free
|
|
RSS-Bridge
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Self-hosted / privacy-focused
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Open-source, very powerful
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Free
|
Once you generate the feeds, you just paste them into Feedly, Inoreader, or any other reader.3. Recommended Setup for You
- Go to RSS.app or FetchRSS.
- Create feeds for:
- Newsmax homepage or Politics section
- Fox News homepage / Politics / World
- Townhall.com
- Just the News
- Cord Cutters News
- Import all those feeds into Inoreader (or Feedly).
- Create a folder called “My News Feed.”
- Optionally turn on email digests (morning and/or evening) so the headlines come to you automatically.
4. Other Strong Alternatives
- NewsBlur — Great if you want social features and training the reader on what you like.
- The Old Reader — Closest to classic Google Reader feel.
- FreshRSS or Miniflux — Self-hosted (best privacy and control).
- Ground News or AllSides — If you want bias ratings + aggregation, though less customizable to exact sites.
- Browser extensions like RSS Preview or Feedbro for quick checking.
Quick Start RecommendationStart with this combination today:
- RSS.app → create feeds from your preferred sites.
- Inoreader (free account is fine to begin) → import those feeds.
- Set up a daily email digest if you want the headlines delivered without opening an app.
Would you like me to:
- Walk you through creating feeds for the specific sites you’ve been using?
- Suggest the exact pages/URLs that usually produce the cleanest feeds?
- Recommend a completely free self-hosted option?
- Or show you how to get full-article content instead of just headlines?
Just tell me your preference (simplest possible, free only, full articles, email delivery, etc.) and I’ll give you the exact next steps.
How to create custom RSS filters
Explore self-hosted RSS options
Explore self-hosted RSS options
Thought for 25s
Self-hosted RSS options give you full control over your news feeds: no algorithms, no ads, no subscription limits, complete privacy, and the ability to add any site (even those without official RSS via scrapers or bridges).Here are the strongest self-hosted RSS readers available in 2026, based on current comparisons and community consensus:Top Recommendations
|
Rank
|
Reader
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Best For
|
Key Strengths
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Drawbacks
|
Resource Use
|
Stack
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
1
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FreshRSS
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Most people
|
Feature-rich, themes, extensions, multi-user, excellent mobile app support via APIs
|
Slightly heavier than pure minimalists
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Low–moderate
|
PHP + SQLite/MySQL/PostgreSQL
|
|
2
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Miniflux
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Minimalists & speed
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Extremely fast & lightweight, clean UI, strips trackers, privacy-focused
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Very sparse interface (by design), fewer customization options
|
Very low
|
Go + PostgreSQL
|
|
3
|
Tiny Tiny RSS
|
Power users
|
Highly configurable, powerful filters/plugins, dense three-pane layout
|
Steeper learning curve, older UI feel, more complex setup
|
Moderate
|
PHP + PostgreSQL
|
Detailed Breakdown1. FreshRSS (Most Recommended for Beginners to Intermediate Users)
- Lightweight yet full-featured.
- Supports themes, extensions (e.g., full-text scraping, AI summaries, read-later integrations).
- Works great with third-party mobile apps (Reeder, FeedMe, Fluent Reader, etc.) via Google Reader API and Fever API.
- Can run on a simple SQLite database (no separate DB server needed to start).
- Active development and large community.
- Ideal if you want something that feels close to Feedly/Inoreader but fully under your control.
2. Miniflux (Best if You Prefer Simplicity and Speed)
- Single Go binary — very easy to run and extremely efficient.
- Deliberately minimal: focused purely on reading, no bloat.
- Excellent built-in full-text article fetching and tracker stripping.
- Also supports Fever and Google Reader APIs for mobile clients.
- Perfect if you hate cluttered interfaces and want the lightest possible footprint (great for a Raspberry Pi or small VPS).
3. Tiny Tiny RSS (tt-rss)
- Longest-running major option.
- Extremely powerful filtering, scoring, and plugin system.
- Best if you want advanced automation or a classic dense newsreader layout.
- Official Android app available.
- More maintenance-heavy than the other two.
Other Notable Options
- CommaFeed — Clean Google Reader-inspired interface.
- Yarr or Fusion — Ultra-lightweight single-binary Go readers (even simpler than Miniflux).
- Nextcloud News — Convenient if you already run Nextcloud.
- Selfoss — Simple multipurpose aggregator.
- Glance — More of a customizable dashboard that can include RSS feeds.
How to Get Started (Easiest Path)Almost everyone uses Docker (or Docker Compose) for these:
- Spin up a cheap VPS (or use a home server / Raspberry Pi / NAS).
- Use the official Docker images (all three top options have excellent ones).
- Import your feeds via OPML.
- Connect mobile apps using the Fever or Google Reader API.
Pairing with feed generators is important for modern sites:
Use RSS-Bridge, RSS.app, FetchRSS, or FreshRSS’s built-in scraping to create feeds from sites that don’t offer official RSS (many news sites fall into this category).Quick Recommendation for You
- Start with FreshRSS if you want a balanced, user-friendly experience with room to grow.
- Go straight to Miniflux if you value speed, minimalism, and the absolute lowest resource use.
Would you like:
- Step-by-step Docker Compose examples for FreshRSS or Miniflux?
- Guidance on generating RSS feeds for specific sites (Newsmax, Fox, Townhall, etc.)?
- Recommendations for mobile apps that work best with self-hosted servers?
- Help choosing a cheap hosting provider or home setup?
Just tell me your technical comfort level (complete beginner, some Docker experience, etc.) and preferred style (feature-rich vs. minimal), and I’ll give you exact next steps.
Docker Compose setup guide
RSS bridge alternatives