Beyond RSS: 5 Self‑Hosted Ways to Fetch Your Daily News (Proven by r/selfhosted Users)

The Community Spark #

The r/selfhosted thread “How do you get your NEWS? (Except for RSS method)” exploded after a user announced they were ditching RSS for privacy reasons. Within hours, dozens of seasoned self‑hosters chimed in, sharing scripts, Docker images, and even homemade newsletters. The core question? How can you stay informed without relying on third‑party RSS aggregators?

Synthesized Community Perspectives #

The community’s lived experience shows that a hybrid approach—combining federated feeds, self‑hosted newsletters, and lightweight push bots—covers most use‑cases while preserving sovereignty.

Deep‑Dive Actionable Guide #

Below are the five most‑voted solutions, each with a concise, reproducible setup.

1. Self‑Hosted Email Newsletters with Listmonk #

Listmonk turns a mailing list into a private newsletter. Pair it with a simple scrape‑and‑mail script.

# 1️⃣ Install Listmonk via Docker
docker run -d --name listmonk \
  -p 9000:9000 \
  -e "LISTMONK_DB_HOST=postgres" \
  -e "LISTMONK_DB_PORT=5432" \
  -e "LISTMONK_DB_USER=listmonk" \
  -e "LISTMONK_DB_PASSWORD=securepwd" \
  -e "LISTMONK_DB_NAME=listmonk" \
  ghcr.io/knadh/listmonk:latest

# 2️⃣ Python scraper (newsscrape.py)
pip install newspaper3k
cat > newsscrape.py <<'PY'
import newspaper, smtplib, os
from email.message import EmailMessage

urls = ["https://example.com/tech", "https://example.org/world"]
msg = EmailMessage()
msg["Subject"] = "Your Daily Self‑Hosted Digest"
msg["From"] = "digest@yourdomain.com"
msg["To"] = "you@yourdomain.com"

body = ""
for u in urls:
    article = newspaper.Article(u)
    article.download()
    article.parse()
    body += f"📰 {article.title}\n{article.summary}\n{u}\n\n"

msg.set_content(body)
with smtplib.SMTP("localhost") as s:
    s.send_message(msg)
PY

# 3️⃣ Cron job (run at 07:00)
0 7 * * * /usr/bin/python3 /home/user/newsscrape.py

Result: Every morning you receive a plain‑text digest in your inbox, stored on your own mail server (Postfix/Dovecot). No third‑party trackers.

2. Federated Social Streams via Mastodon #

If you already run a Mastodon instance, you can follow news accounts and pull their ActivityPub timelines with a single API call.

# Get your access token (replace with your credentials)
TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST https://mastodon.yourdomain/api/v1/apps \
  -d "client_name=NewsBot" -d "scopes=read" -d "redirect_uris=urn:ietf:wg:oauth:2.0:oob" \
  | jq -r .client_id)

# Fetch home timeline (JSON)
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  https://mastodon.yourdomain/api/v1/timelines/home?limit=20 > home.json

Parse home.json with jq or a tiny Go program to render a static HTML page (/var/www/news/index.html). The page can be served by Nginx and cached for offline reading.

3. Telegram Bot Digest with Gotify + Python‑Telegram‑Bot #

Gotify is a lightweight push notification server you host on the same VPS. Combine it with a Telegram bot that forwards selected articles.

# Gotify via Docker
docker run -d --name gotify -p 8080:80 \
  -e "GO_ENV=production" \
  ghcr.io/gotify/server

# Minimal bot (bot.py)
pip install python-telegram-bot requests
cat > bot.py <<'PY'
import telegram, requests, os, time
BOT = telegram.Bot(token=os.getenv("TG_TOKEN"))
GOTIFY_URL = "http://localhost:8080/message?token=gotify_token"

def send_news():
    # Example: pull headlines from Hacker News API
    resp = requests.get("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json")
    ids = resp.json()[:5]
    for i in ids:
        item = requests.get(f"https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/item/{i}.json").json()
        text = f"{item['title']}\n{item['url']}"
        BOT.send_message(chat_id=os.getenv("TG_CHAT"), text=text)
        # Also push to Gotify
        requests.post(GOTIFY_URL, json={"title":"HN", "message":text})

while True:
    send_news()
    time.sleep(86400)  # daily
PY

# Run as systemd service

Result: You receive a Telegram message and a Gotify push on any device (Android, iOS, desktop).

4. Static Site Generator + Scrapy (Python) #

For users who love reading in a browser, generate a static site each night.

# Scrapy project (news_spider.py)
pip install scrapy
cat > news_spider.py <<'PY'
import scrapy

class NewsSpider(scrapy.Spider):
    name = "news"
    start_urls = ["https://example.com/tech", "https://example.org/world"]

    def parse(self, response):
        for article in response.css('article'):
            yield {
                "title": article.css('h2::text').get(),
                "url": article.css('a::attr(href)').get(),
                "summary": article.css('p.summary::text').get(),
            }
PY

# Run and render with Jinja2 template
scrapy runspider news_spider.py -o articles.json
jinja2 template.html articles.json > /var/www/news/index.html

Host the directory with Nginx and enable Cache‑Control headers for offline access.

5. Push‑Only Alerts with Gotify + Bash #

If you only need headlines, a pure Bash solution may suffice.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
TOKEN="gotify_token"
URL="https://news.ycombinator.com/rss"

# Extract titles (no RSS parser, just grep)
curl -s "$URL" | grep -oP '(?<=<title>).*?(?=</title>)' | tail -n +2 | head -5 |
while read -r line; do
  curl -s -F "title=HN" -F "message=$line" "http://localhost:8080/message?token=$TOKEN"
done

Add to cron (30 8 * * * /home/user/hn_gotify.sh) for a quick 8 am push.

Pros & Cons Comparison #

The Verdict / Expert Advice #

1. If email is your lifeline – Deploy Listmonk. Its UI makes list management painless, and the script can be expanded to any source.
2. If you already run a Fediverse instance – Leverage Mastodon’s native ActivityPub feed; you stay in the same privacy sandbox.
3. If you crave instant alerts on phone and desktop – Combine a Telegram bot with Gotify for dual push channels.
4. If you prefer a clean, ad‑free web archive – Build a static site with Scrapy; host it on any cheap VPS.
5. If you want the simplest “headline‑only” solution – The Bash‑Gotify one‑liner is unbeatable.

Mix and match: many community members run Listmonk for daily digests and Gotify for urgent breaking news, achieving a balanced workflow.

Frequently Asked Questions #

Q1: Can I replace RSS completely with these methods?
Yes. All five solutions fetch content directly via HTTP APIs or web scraping, bypassing RSS entirely while keeping data on your own server.

Q2: Do I need a dedicated VPS for each tool?
Not necessarily. Docker Compose lets you spin up Listmonk, Gotify, and even Mastodon on a single VPS (2‑4 GB RAM recommended). The static‑site generator runs as a cron job on the same host.

Q3: How do I keep the scrapers from breaking when sites change layout?
Use robust libraries like newspaper3k (for articles) or Scrapy selectors that target semantic HTML (e.g., article tags). Version‑control your spider and add a nightly test that alerts you via Gotify if parsing fails.

Q4: Is there a way to encrypt the newsletters sent by Listmonk?
Configure Postfix/Dovecot with TLS (STARTTLS) and enable S/MIME or PGP signing in your mail client. The content stays on your server, and transport encryption prevents eavesdropping.