SMF·INOREADER
Can a prompt replace Inoreader?
Read it later & RSS — RSS reader + monitoring
Exhibit tracking slip
Verdict
A single-user RSS reader with keyword rules and alerts is a real weekend build on top of well-understood feed-parsing libraries, though it won't match Inoreader's scale or years of polish. What it does cover is the actual daily loop: fetch feeds, apply rules, get alerted, search everything you've read.
Exhibit A — The prompt
Received on30.07.2026Build a single-user RSS reader with rules and alerts: fetch a list of feeds on a schedule, parse new items, and dedupe them by their feed-provided ID. Import an existing OPML export on first run so nothing has to be retyped, and support exporting the current subscription list back out. Build a three-pane reading UI — folders, article list, reading pane — with keyboard navigation and per-folder unread counts. Add keyword rules scoped to a feed or a folder, matching on title or body text, with actions to tag, mark read, or send an alert by email or push notification. Build full-text search across every stored article. Mark a feed as failing after several consecutive fetch errors so broken feeds don't silently go stale.
Do not build mobile apps, article translation, or third-party integrations — adding a new feed means editing the OPML or the UI directly, which is a fine trade for owning your reading list and rules.Opening prefills the prompt — press enter to run it.
Exhibit B — What you lose
- B.1 enterprise-scale feed handling
- B.2 mobile apps
- B.3 third-party integrations
- B.4 article translation
- B.5 years of search polish
Prior art
Exhibit C — Why people still pay: data ingestion/integrations
People pay for reliability and a power-user rules engine that keeps working even as individual feeds break or change — not because RSS parsing itself is hard.
Questions
Can I import my existing Inoreader subscriptions?
Yes — Inoreader exports a standard OPML file with your feeds and folders, and importing that on first run is exactly how this build expects to be set up.
Will it work on my phone?
As a responsive web page, yes, if hosted somewhere reachable. There's no dedicated mobile app or offline sync.
What does it cost to run?
Hosting and a database, typically a few dollars a month — genuinely inexpensive since RSS traffic and storage are both small.
What's the one thing that doesn't survive the rebuild?
Scale and polish under load. Inoreader handles thousands of feeds reliably with years of edge-case handling; a personal build works well at a personal feed count but hasn't been stress-tested the way a mature product has.
Related tools
Receipt