Opinionated?

Miniflux is a minimalist software. The purpose of this application is to read feeds. Nothing else.

Focus on Simplicity ¶

Having a gazillion features makes the software hard to maintain, troubleshoot, and increases the number of bugs.
This software doesn’t try to satisfy everyone’s needs.

Developing software takes a lot of time. Don’t expect anyone to work for free.
As mentioned above, the number of features is intentionally limited. Nobody likes bloatware.
Improving existing features is more important than adding new ones.

Go is probably the best choice for self-hosted software:

Go is a simple programming language.
Running code concurrently is built into the language.
It’s faster than scripting languages like PHP or Python.
The final application is a statically compiled binary without any dependencies.
You just need to drop the executable on your server to deploy the application.
You don’t have to worry about what version of PHP/Python is installed on your machine.
Packaging the software using RPM/Debian/Docker is straightforward.
No dependency hell.

Miniflux is compatible only with PostgreSQL.

Supporting multiple databases increases the complexity of the software.
We do not have the resources to test the software with all major versions of MySQL, MariaDB, SQLite, and others.
SQLite is excellent, but it has limited support for ALTER TABLE, and the Golang driver requires CGO and GCC. Miniflux 2 was initially designed as a Twelve-Factor App to run in ephemeral containers.
PostgreSQL is powerful, rock solid, and a great independent open-source software.
Miniflux does not use ORMs because they abstract away powerful features provided by the database.
Miniflux uses hstore/jsonb/inet data types, window functions, full-text search, and handles user timezones with PostgreSQL.

Miniflux uses Javascript only where it’s necessary.

Server-side template rendering is very simple and fast enough for this kind of application.
Using Javascript frameworks increases complexity.
The Javascript ecosystem is constantly changing; sticking to the standard is more sustainable.
Having too many dependencies is challenging to maintain in the long term and can introduce security vulnerabilities.

Miniflux uses ECMAScript 6 and the Fetch API.

All modern browsers support ES6 nowadays.
Only Internet Explorer doesn’t support ES6, but who cares?
Using a Javascript transpiler introduces another set of unnecessary dependencies.

Using the web UI on your smartphone is not so bad:

Miniflux is a progressive web app.
The layout adapts to the screen size (responsive design).
You can add the application to the home screen like any native application.
You can swipe entries horizontally to change their status.
The web browser is a pretty good sandbox; the application cannot access the data stored on your phone.
It’s cross-platform: works on iOS and Android.

The development of mobile clients is left to the open-source community:

Developing a native mobile application for each platform (iOS and Android) and different devices (smartphones and tablets) takes a lot of work.
The main developer of Miniflux is not a mobile application developer.
You have to pay a fee to publish your app on the store, even if your app doesn’t make any money.