Papyrss is an RSS Reader with a Flutter frontend, a Flask backend, and a GraphQL API. It uses the feedparser Python library to scrape and parse RSS Feeds, and the flutter_widget_from_html Flutter package to render the HTML of the feeds in Flutter. It is ultimately meant to be a free alternative to the freemium feed readers that populate the current RSS market.
As an RSS reader, Papyrss allows users to combine feeds from various news sources and blogs into one inbox (or multiple)
Currently a demo of the app is in hosted at https://expertify.samcowan.net/. I have been building this app since January 2024 and plan to continue adding features in the near future.
- Curate an inbox by building categories of feeds you like
- Add feeds to the crowdsourced database of feeds
- Save articles/posts you like and read them any time
- Search for feeds you're interested in and discover what others are reading
Frontend: Flutter
API: GraphQL
Backend: Flask
Database: MongoDB Atlas
Core Python Libraries: Feedparser
Core Flutter Packages: flutter_widget_from_html, graphql_flutter, flutter_secure_storage
Hosted on: Azure
Cloudflare and other hosts and websites are particularly strict about bot policies, and by default block any traffic coming from Azure VMs like the one this app is hosted on. Due to this, I am currently updating the feeds locally using a systemd daemon as follows:
Description=RSS Feed Updater
After=network.target
[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/bash -c 'source /PATH/TO/VENV/bin/activate && exec python3 /PATH/TO/PROJECT_ROOT/api/rss/server.py'
Restart=always
User=<MyUSER>
WorkingDirectory=/PATH/TO/PROJECT_ROOT/api/rss/
Environment="PATH=/PATH/TO/VENV/bin"
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
Obviously, this solution is not ideal. The process only runs when my personal laptop is turned on, and even then is not consistent (for reasons I'm not quite sure of). So as of now, the feeds update only sporadically, often at my manual restart of the daemon.
Eventually, I plan to try to register Papyrss on Cloudflare's list of verified bots, which should fix the problem for a number of sites. Building my own scraper as part of this process will also help.
If you aren't a complete nerd and/or were born after 1980, you may need an explanation of what RSS is and why it's so useful.
This link helped me when I first stumbled upon RSS.