A modern, self-hosted RSS reader that turns information overload into organized, explainable reading.
Documentation · Quick start · Features · Choose a deployment
RSSMonster treats your feeds as a stream of signals rather than a pile of unread items. Keep the familiar feed inbox, then use intelligent organization to decide what deserves attention and how different reports fit together.
- Follow a story without rereading every headline. Semantic Events collect reporting about the same occurrence and let you expand its coverage. Duplicate handling separately identifies repeated content, preserving the distinction between a syndicated copy and another publisher's reporting.
- Understand why something ranks highly. Recommended emphasizes your personal interests; Top Stories surfaces current coverage with broad source support. Inspect the contributing signals, or choose chronological reading when you simply want to catch up.
- Define your own reading views. Declarative Smart Folders turn advanced search expressions into reusable selections. A project watchlist, today's unread articles, and a quality-focused research inbox can each have their own rules without moving articles between collections.
- Read comfortably throughout the day. A three-panel desktop Reader, spacious Expanded view, compact summaries, keyboard navigation, and mobile gestures support both quick scans and longer reading sessions.
- Choose how much infrastructure you need. Start with SQLite for lightweight personal reading, or use MySQL and optional local inference for semantic organization and background analysis. You control storage and provider choices.
The hero shows Reader Mode. These views show other ways to read and explore your library, including features available with inference enabled. Click or tap a screenshot to view it at full resolution. See reading modes for the controls and layout differences.
| Expanded Mode Read article content and compare story sources. |
Summarized Mode Scan short previews in a compact stream. |
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| Events and Topics Inspect story coverage and broader themes. |
Interest Islands Explore recurring interests shaped by reading feedback. |
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| Landscape Keep navigation visible on wider screens. |
Portrait Read a focused stream with compact touch controls. |
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Use Reader, Expanded, or Summarized mode; Headlines offers a denser list, while Summary Bullets displays generated summaries when analysis is available. Bookmark articles, open original sources, and control when articles are marked read. Keyboard shortcuts, portrait bookmark swipes, and light, dark, or system themes support everyday reading.
Install the Progressive Web App on supported devices and optionally enable Web Push for new articles. The app caches its shell; loading articles and saving reading state still require server access.
Arrange subscriptions into categories, label articles with tags, and keep favorites for later. Feed item filters accept or exclude future entries per subscription. Automated actions apply regular-expression rules to bookmark, mark read, tag, hide, or override scores on matching incoming articles.
Search combines words, dates, article state, tags, and supported
score or semantic filters. Save a query such as @today unread:true sort:desc
as a Smart Folder; new matches appear automatically.
Inference-backed score and semantic selections need the corresponding processing
to be enabled and available.
Events connect reports about an occurrence; Topics connect broader themes; Interest Islands learn recurring personal interests from reading feedback. Related-article recommendations use semantic evidence, while expandable story sources keep alternative coverage accessible. Sparse evidence can legitimately produce no recommendations.
Scoring and Ranking documents Recommended, Top Stories, and Quality ordering. Article quality describes writing, tone, and promotional content; FeedTrust describes a subscribed source's recent value. These remain separate signals, and neither is factual verification.
The optional assistant supports conversational discovery and source-based answers about stored articles. It uses an OpenAI provider and is configured separately from local embeddings, summaries, tags, and scoring.
Run with SQLite or MySQL and keep accounts, subscriptions, and reading state scoped to each user. Move subscriptions with OPML import/export, or expose saved selections as private, tokenized generated RSS feeds. Fever and Google Reader compatibility connect supported client workflows; consult their documented contracts and limitations when choosing a client.
Choose the profile before starting: the screenshots showcase capabilities from the broader product, and the default profile deliberately runs without models.
| Deployment | Best for | Included capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| SQLite quick start | Trying RSSMonster and lightweight personal reading | Web reader, scheduled crawling, search, subscriptions, and rule-based organization. No separate database service, inference service, or AI worker. |
| Comprehensive MySQL deployment | Local intelligent processing, multiple active users, and higher write concurrency | MySQL 8.4, crawl and AI workers, Qwen embeddings and generation, and ModernBERT scoring for analysis, semantic organization, and recommendations. |
Saved search-based Smart Folders work in both profiles. Choose the comprehensive profile for local classification, embeddings, scoring, semantic labels, Smart Folder recommendations, and feed rediscovery without an OpenAI API key. These inference-backed features are disabled in the SQLite quick start; the optional OpenAI assistant requires separate configuration. For model downloads, credentials, startup, and readiness checks, follow the MySQL deployment guide.
Database choice and inference settings are separate configuration concerns; these are the two supplied deployment profiles. Read database configuration and model usage before customizing a source installation.
Have Git, Docker Engine or Docker Desktop, and Docker Compose available. The commands below use a POSIX shell and start the default SQLite profile.
1. Clone the repository.
git clone https://github.com/pietheinstrengholt/rssmonster.git
cd rssmonster2. Create application secrets. Create an owner-only .env in the repository
root:
touch .env
chmod 600 .env
openssl rand -hex 32Run the OpenSSL command twice, then add the two different generated values to
.env in place of these placeholders:
JWT_SECRET=replace-with-a-long-random-secret
FEVER_CREDENTIAL_SECRET=replace-with-a-different-long-random-secretKeep these values private and stable across restarts; never commit the file. On systems without POSIX permissions, restrict access using the host's file access controls.
3. Start RSSMonster and create your account.
docker compose up -dOpen http://localhost:3000. Startup initializes the SQLite database and starts the web application and dedicated crawl worker. Create your first account, then add feeds or import an OPML subscription list. The first account becomes the administrator; see First Login.
Persistent data lives in the rssmonster-data Docker volume, mounted at
/app/data. docker compose down stops the deployment while keeping data.
Do not use docker compose down -v unless you intend to delete the database
volume.
The application port binds to host loopback by default. Before exposing it to other machines, follow configuration and reverse-proxy guidance and configure HTTPS. See Getting Started for complete installation instructions, health checks, logs, and production setup.
Use the documentation index to explore the complete guides.
| Topic | Guides |
|---|---|
| Installation and deployment | Getting Started, manual installation, production deployment |
| Configuration and storage | Environment settings and reverse proxies, SQLite and MySQL, Backup and Restore |
| Local inference and models | Inference administration, Model Usage, Assistant and MCP |
| Finding and organizing articles | Search, Smart Folders, feed item filters, Actions |
| Semantic architecture and rankings | How RSSMonster Works, implementation guide, Scoring, FeedTrust |
| Notifications and integrations | Web Push, Fever API, Google Reader API |
| Development and maintenance | Contributing, npm Commands, Server Jobs |
Bug reports, documentation improvements, tests, and focused feature contributions are welcome. Read Contributing for development setup, validation, and pull requests. Describe reproducible issues and include your deployment profile so others can investigate the same behavior.
Created by Piethein Strengholt and contributors. Built with Node.js, Express, Vue 3, Sequelize, SQLite/MySQL, Bootstrap Icons, and feedsmith.
Copyright © 2026 Piethein Strengholt. Released under the MIT License.