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CommaFeed

Google Reader inspired self-hosted RSS reader, based on Quarkus and React/TypeScript.

preview

Features

  • 4 different layouts
  • Light/Dark theme
  • Fully responsive, works great on both mobile and desktop
  • Keyboard shortcuts for almost everything
  • Support for right-to-left feeds
  • Translated in 25+ languages
  • Supports thousands of users and millions of feeds
  • OPML import/export
  • REST API
  • Fever-compatible API for native mobile apps
  • Can automatically mark articles as read based on user-defined rules
  • Browser extension
  • Compiles to native code for blazing fast startup and low memory usage
  • Supports 4 databases
    • H2 (embedded database)
    • PostgreSQL
    • MySQL
    • MariaDB

Deployment

Docker

Docker is the easiest way to get started with CommaFeed.

Docker images are built automatically and are available at https://hub.docker.com/r/athou/commafeed

Cloud hosting

PikaPods offers 1-click cloud hosting solutions starting at $1/month with a free $5 welcome credit and officially supports CommaFeed. PikaPods shares 20% of the revenue back to CommaFeed.

PikaPods

Download a precompiled package

Go to the release page and download the latest version for your operating system and database of choice.

There are two types of packages:

  • The linux-x86_64 and windows-x86_64 packages are compiled natively and contain an executable that can be run directly.
  • The jvm package is a zip file containing all .jar files required to run the application. This package works on all platforms and is started with java -jar quarkus-run.jar.

If available for your operating system, the native package is recommended because it has a faster startup time and lower memory usage.

Build from sources

./mvnw clean package [-P<database>] [-Pnative] [-DskipTests]
  • <database> can be one of h2, postgresql, mysql or mariadb. The default is h2.
  • -Pnative compiles the application to native code. This requires GraalVM to be installed (GRAALVM_HOME environment variable pointing to a GraalVM installation).
  • -DskipTests to speed up the build process by skipping tests.

When the build is complete:

  • a zip containing all jars required to run the application is located at commafeed-server/target/commafeed-<version>-<database>-jvm.zip. Extract it and run the application with java -jar quarkus-run.jar
  • if you used the native profile, the executable is located at commafeed-server/target/commafeed-<version>-<database>-<platform>-<arch>-runner[.exe]

Configuration

CommaFeed doesn't require any configuration to run with its embedded database (H2). The database file will be stored in the data directory of the current directory.

To use a different database, you will need to configure the following properties:

  • quarkus.datasource.jdbc.url
    • e.g. for H2: jdbc:h2:./data/db;DEFRAG_ALWAYS=TRUE
    • e.g. for PostgreSQL: jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/commafeed
    • e.g. for MySQL: jdbc:mysql://localhost/commafeed?autoReconnect=true&failOverReadOnly=false&maxReconnects=20&rewriteBatchedStatements=true&timezone=UTC
    • e.g. for MariaDB: jdbc:mariadb://localhost/commafeed?autoReconnect=true&failOverReadOnly=false&maxReconnects=20&rewriteBatchedStatements=true&timezone=UTC
  • quarkus.datasource.username
  • quarkus.datasource.password

There are multiple ways to configure CommaFeed:

  • a config/application.properties properties file relative to the working directory (keys in kebab-case)
  • Command line arguments prefixed with -D (keys in kebab-case)
  • Environment variables (keys in UPPER_CASE)
  • a .env file in the working directory (keys in UPPER_CASE)

The properties file is recommended because CommaFeed will be able to warn about invalid properties and typos.

All CommaFeed settings are optional and have sensible default values.

When logging in, credentials are stored in an encrypted cookie. The encryption key is randomly generated at startup, meaning that you will have to log back in after each restart of the application. To prevent this, you can set the quarkus.http.auth.session.encryption-key property to a fixed value (min. 16 characters). All other Quarkus settings can be found here.

When started, the server will listen on http://localhost:8082. The default user is admin and the default password is admin.

Updates

When CommaFeed is up and running, you can subscribe to this feed to be notified of new releases.

Memory management

The Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is rather greedy by default and will not release unused memory to the operating system. This is because acquiring memory from the operating system is a relatively expensive operation. This can be problematic on systems with limited memory.

Hard limit (native and jvm packages)

The JVM can be configured to use a maximum amount of memory with the -Xmx parameter. For example, to limit the JVM to 256MB of memory, use -Xmx256m.

Dynamic sizing (jvm package)

In addition to the previous setting, the JVM can be configured to release unused memory to the operating system with the following parameters:

-Xms20m -XX:+UseG1GC -XX:+UseStringDeduplication -XX:-ShrinkHeapInSteps -XX:G1PeriodicGCInterval=10000 -XX:-G1PeriodicGCInvokesConcurrent -XX:MinHeapFreeRatio=5 -XX:MaxHeapFreeRatio=10

See here and here for more information.

OpenJ9 (jvm package)

The OpenJ9 JVM is a more memory-efficient alternative to the HotSpot JVM, at the cost of slightly slower throughput.

IBM provides precompiled binaries for OpenJ9 named Semeru. This is the JVM used in the Docker image.

Translation

Files for internationalization are located here.

To add a new language:

  • add the new locale to the locales array in:
    • commafeed-client/.linguirc
    • commafeed-client/src/i18n.ts
  • run npm run i18n:extract
  • add translations to the newly created commafeed-client/src/locales/[locale]/messages.po file

The name of the locale should be the two-letters ISO-639-1 language code.

Local development

Backend

  • Open commafeed-server in your preferred Java IDE.
    • CommaFeed uses Lombok, you need the Lombok plugin for your IDE.
  • run ./mvnw quarkus:dev

Frontend

  • Open commafeed-client in your preferred JavaScript IDE.
  • run npm install
  • run npm run dev

The frontend server is now running at http://localhost:8082 and is proxying REST requests to the backend running on port 8083