Rationale

For years I've been searching for a perfect RSS aggregator. I tried desktop ones (Straw, Blam!, Liferea) - while nice programs they usually lacked something or were overencumbered with features. Also, desktop aggregators can't solve the problem of keeping read feeds in sync between different machines.

I tried server-side aggregators, several ones. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything that felt usable, they had all the problems of classical web applications - clunky interface, no realtime updates, just not designed the way I like it, etc.

Well, then the obvious solution was to write an aggregator myself. I also felt the need to exercise in simple XmlHttpRequest web application programming, so TT-RSS was born. While obviously being (circa 2005) on early stages on development and pretty much unfinished it offers a lot of functionality of desktop application while staying on server-side with all the benefits it provides.

Brief history of TT-RSS in screenshots

First interface mockup, Aug 2005

First semi-functional release (0.1)

First release actually ready for public usage (1.0.3)

Two years later, version 1.2.11