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14 Best Free Linux News Aggregators (Updated 2021)

It’s been a long time since we covered news aggregators, and there’s been notable entrants and leavers to the scene. With regard to the leavers, Google Reader was discontinued in July 2013. And software like Newsbeuter, RSSOwl, Blogbridge, and Bloglines have been abandoned by their respective developers. Fortunately, there’s a number of great replacements that have filled the void.

A news aggregator is software which collect news, weblog posts, and other information from the web so that they can be read in a single location for easy viewing. With the range of news sources available on the internet, news aggregators play an essential role in helping users to quickly locate breaking news.

For individuals that read lots of weblogs, a news aggregator makes keeping track of them effortless, and particularly useful if the weblogs are only updated occasionally.

There are a number of different file formats which information publishers use. The most frequently ones are RSS and Atom. RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication. It is a defined standard based on XML with the specific purpose of delivering updates to web-based content. In other words, RSS is a Web content syndication format. You can access our feed here.

Using this standard, webmasters provide headlines and fresh content in a succinct manner. Meanwhile, consumers use RSS readers and news aggregators to collect and monitor their favorite feeds in one centralized program or location.

Atom is a format which is similar to RSS in many respects, but offers a number of improvements.

The chart below offers our rating for each software. Not all the applications featured in this group test are dedicated news aggregators. For example, Thunderbird is primarily an email client, but it also offers other functionality including RSS. The rating given to each software represents our view of the application in respect of its ability as a news aggregator only.

Best Free and Open Source News Aggregators

To provide an insight into the quality of software that is available, we have compiled a list of 14 impressive news aggregators. We cover native Linux based clients sporting a graphical interface, as well as console based aggregators, together with web based clients.

Let’s explore the 14 news aggregators software at hand. For each application we have compiled its own portal page, a full description with an in-depth analysis of its features, screenshots, together with links to relevant resources. Start keeping up with the news today.

News Aggregators
FeedReaderHigh quality RSS client for various webservices
AkregatorNews feed reader for KDE
LifereaThree-pane GNOME based news aggregator
NewsFlashFollow your favorite blogs and news sites
RSS GuardSimple, light and easy-to-use RSS/ATOM feed aggregator
NewsboatCLI successor to Newsbeuter
TinyTiny RSSWeb-based news feed (RSS/Atom) reader and aggregator
QuiteRSSQt5-based news aggregator for RSS and Atom news feeds
ThunderbirdPopular free, cross-platform e-mail, RSS and newsgroup client
SnownewsText mode RSS/RDF newsreader
MinifluxMinimalist feed reader written in Go and PostgreSQL
CantoCrank through feeds using a minimal, yet information packed interface
TICKRRSS reader displaying RSS feeds in a ticker bar
newsroomModern CLI software to read the news
Best Free and Open Source SoftwareRead our complete collection of recommended free and open source software. Our curated compilation covers all categories of software.

The software collection forms part of our series of informative articles for Linux enthusiasts. There are hundreds of in-depth reviews, open source alternatives to proprietary software from large corporations like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, IBM, Cisco, Oracle, and Autodesk.

There are also fun things to try, hardware, free programming books and tutorials, and much more.
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Torin
Torin
4 years ago

QuiteRSS is my favorite hands down. I’d put Liferea as my second choice.

Jean-Franocis Messier
Jean-Franocis Messier
4 years ago

I found another RSS aggregator that I installed and I now use few times a day. This is FreshRSS. Very good. This is a great product. Runs with any LAMP server, be it on a VPS, or on your own local Linux server at home.work.

Cédric
Cédric
4 years ago

Personally I am using AKregator and Newspipe.