I have a reading problem. Not that “I don't read enough” — but I have too many avenues of reading. I want to reduce distractions and points of leakage in my reading workflow.
So I built a pipeline.
The setup
It consists of two tools. Both self-hosted. Both boring and hence work really well.
Miniflux is my knowledge lake. RSS feeds, newsletters, blogs I care about – it all lands here. I don't read from Miniflux. I just let it collect.
Readeck is where I actually read. Clean interface, great annotation support, no distractions. If Miniflux is the inbox, Readeck is the reading chair.
There's also a browser extension. Anything I stumble on while browsing – a random blog post, a good thread, a long read someone linked – goes straight to Readeck from Chrome. No detour.
The flow
There are roads into Readeck.
Miniflux → Readeck for the feeds I follow. Miniflux has native Readeck integration.
Chrome → Readeck for everything else I find on the internet.
That one small action — is this worth my reading chair? — happens at both. The pipeline doesn't care where the article came from.
Why self-hosted?
I've tried Pocket, Instapaper, and Readwise. They're fine. But every few years, one of them changes pricing, kills a feature, or gets acquired — and your reading history becomes a negotiating chip you don't hold.
With this setup, I own the data. Postgres on my server, backups on Cloudflare R2. Nobody can change the deal for me.
There's also something quieter happening. When you control your reading infrastructure, you start thinking about what you read differently. No algorithm nudging you. No “trending” sidebar. Just the feeds you chose.
It's cheap, too
This whole thing costs me a <1$ a month. No subscriptions, no upsells, no “upgrade to annotate more than 10 articles.” Setup feels like good old 90s tech; it is built to help you achieve your goal and not to constantly make money for itself.
Annotations are the whole point for me; annotations allow me to do deep reading.
The internet will always have more to read than you have time for. The pipeline doesn't solve that. It just makes the choice mine.