Minimalist, Opinionated, and Self-Hosted: Meet Miniflux, the Anti-Social Feed Reader
Remember when reading blogs and news sites felt simple? You'd open your feed reader, see a clean list of new articles, and just read. No algorithms, no "engagement" metrics, no social media noise. For many of us, that simple, text-centric web still exists—it just requires the right tool to access it.
Enter Miniflux. It’s a minimalist, opinionated feed reader that strips the experience back to its essentials. If you're tired of bloated web apps and want to reclaim your reading time, this might be the project you've been waiting for.
What It Does
Miniflux is a self-hosted web-based news feed reader. In practice, this means you run it on your own server, point it at your favorite RSS or Atom feeds, and get a fast, clean, and text-focused interface for keeping up with your reading. It follows the "Unix philosophy"—it does one thing (aggregate and display feeds) and aims to do it extremely well.
Why It's Cool
So, what makes Miniflux stand out in a sea of feed readers? Its opinionated nature is its greatest strength.
- It's Fast and Lightweight: Written in Go, Miniflux is incredibly snappy. It's designed to be resource-efficient, making it perfect for running on a small VPS or even a Raspberry Pi.
- No Frills, Just Reading: The UI is purposefully sparse. You get your feeds, a list of articles, and the content. There are no social features, no "trending" sections, and no visual clutter. It's built for people who want to read, not be distracted.
- Opinionated and Smart: Miniflux has strong defaults. It automatically refreshes feeds, can fetch full article content via a built-in readability tool, and supports a host of integrations (like sending articles to Pocket, Instapaper, or Pinboard). It respects your intelligence and your time.
- API-First and Scriptable: A full JSON API is included, which means you can integrate your feed reading into your own scripts and workflows. This is a developer's dream for automation.
- Just Works: It handles feed discovery, filtering, and parsing with a focus on correctness. You add a site's URL, and it usually just figures out the rest.
How to Try It
The best way to experience Miniflux is to run it yourself. The official documentation is excellent and provides several installation methods.
The quickest way to get started is with Docker. You can spin up a complete instance with a command like this:
docker run -d --name miniflux -p 8080:8080 \
-e DATABASE_URL=postgres://user:password@host/dbname?sslmode=disable \
-e RUN_MIGRATIONS=1 \
miniflux/miniflux:latest
You'll need a PostgreSQL database for it to connect to. Once it's running, navigate to http://your-server:8080, create an admin account, and start adding your feeds.
For detailed setup instructions, including how to set up the database, check out the Miniflux v2 GitHub repository.
Final Thoughts
In a world of information overload, Miniflux feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s a tool that gives you back control. It’s not for everyone—if you want a social, algorithmically-curated experience, look elsewhere. But if you're a developer or a power user who values speed, privacy, and a no-nonsense approach to consuming information, Miniflux is nearly perfect. It’s the kind of focused, efficient software that makes you remember why you loved the internet in the first place.
Found on Twitter via @githubprojects