Feedloft and Feedly solve the same problem from opposite directions: one is source-available software you can own outright for $24, the other is a subscription at $8/mo run entirely on someone else's servers.
Head to head
| Feedloft | Feedly | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $24 once | $8/mo ($96/yr, forever) |
| Hosting | Self-hosted — your data, your box | Their cloud |
| Telemetry | None | Vendor analytics |
| Full-text search | Yes (SQLite FTS5) | Yes |
| Full-text extraction | Yes (Readability) | Yes |
| Keyboard shortcuts | Full vim-style set | Partial |
| Desktop app | Yes (Electron) | Web only |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed |
What Feedloft does well
- Add feeds from any URL — Automatic feed discovery from any webpage (), rename, move to folders, unsubscribe.
- OPML import/export — Import preserves your folder structure; export produces valid OPML 2.0 you can take anywhere.
- Smart polling — Conditional GET (ETag / Last-Modified, honors 304s), per-feed interval overrides, automatic backoff for failing feeds.
- Keyboard-first — Full vim-style set: j/k to move, o to open, m read, s star, / search, ? for the cheat sheet, Shift+A mark all read.
What Feedly still does better
There's a real reason Feedly costs what it does: a bigger team, broader integrations and dedicated support behind it. If that ecosystem is genuinely what you need, it's worth paying for.
Which one should you pick
If your workflow depends on Feedly's specific integrations or you'd rather not run anything yourself, stay put — that's a legitimate call. If you're comfortable owning the tool and want to stop paying $8/mo for a job your own hardware can do, Feedloft pays for itself and then some: break-even vs Feedly Pro is 3 months. By month 12 you're $72 ahead — and it compounds forever, because there's no recurring fee.
Try Feedloft — $24, once
Self-hosted Feedly alternative — folders, OPML, full-text search, one SQLite file.