Running a FreshRSS Instance through Pikapods

Around Fall 2024, I started exploring RSS feeds again after a long time away. All the old services I'd depended on were either gone (Google Reader) or walled up (i.e. Feedly). I liked the idea of a local program - local to my machine, not just on someone else's cloud - so I decided to give Thunderbird a shot, which I had started using for email.

Thunderbird's RSS capabilities aren't bad at all; a bit clunky but certainly usable. But their mobile app doesn't support RSS, and recently I've found that to be a real drawback.

So I've been looking for a new option.

FreshRSS is a FOSS RSS aggregator that is intended to be self-hosted, meaning it lives on a server of your choice. This means you control your data and have a lot more control over how the aggregator's settings. There are a number of mobile apps that are friendly with FreshRSS, too.

I don't have a home server but while looking at the documentation for FreshRSS, I immediately thought of Pikapods.

Pikapods is a service that hosts open source apps on your behalf. It's a lot like having your own server, it just lives and is maintained by someone else. I already use a Pikapod to host an Etherpad instance, which I use primarily for teaching. I looked to see if FreshRSS was supported via Pikapods and sure enough, it is.

Some of the documentation for how to tweak apps hosted via Pikapods can be vague or absent, so I'll keep track of anything I learn here.

Setting this up was ridiculously easy. A quick outline of my steps:

1. Log in to Pikapods (or make a new account).
2. Click on "Add Pod" and choose FreshRSS. Give the pod a name (but honestly, this doesn't matter much).
3. Choose where the server is hosted. I use EU as I currently trust their data protection laws more than those of the US.
4. Under the ENV menu, be sure to set a username and password.

At this point, you can open your pod - your instance of FreshRSS - and start adding feeds.

I couldn't find a seamless way of transferring feeds from Thunderbird to FreshRSS. I exported OPML files from Thunderbird, imported them in FreshRSS, but it turned each feed into its own category. I have a feeling this is a consequence of Thunderbird's export, not a FreshRSS problem, but I didn't feel like jumping through hoops -- so I bit the bullet and spent a few extra minutes reorganizing the feeds after import.

Part of the goal was to sync this with a mobile app. I opted for Readrops, which includes FreshRSS as an account option.

After downloading Readrops, I added a new FreshRSS account. There are some good instructions at the FreshRSS documentation for mobile options.

Again, I had no problems with setup. I'll come back and update this note in a few days with a few comments about my experience with the apps themselves.