A clean, minimalist web-based RSS reader. Follow anyone who writes — blogs, newsletters, Substack, Medium, personal sites. Read distraction-free. Listen while you work.
Live: https://perch-web-self.vercel.app
- RSS Autodiscovery — paste any blog URL, we find the feed automatically
- Clean reader — distraction-free reading with adjustable font size
- Text to Speech — listen to any article with speed controls
- Bookmarks — save articles to your library
- Highlights — highlight text with color coding and notes
- Unread filter — track what you haven't read yet
- Dark theme — easy on the eyes
Frontend: React 19, Vite, TanStack Query, Zustand, React Router, Tailwind CSS v4
Backend: Node.js 24, Express 5, Prisma 7, PostgreSQL, Redis, JWT
Infrastructure: Vercel (frontend), Render (backend), Neon (Postgres), Upstash (Redis)
perch-web/
apps/
api/ Express backend
web/ React frontend
docker-compose.yml
render.yaml
Prerequisites: Node 22+, pnpm, Docker Desktop
git clone https://github.com/HirenGajjar/perch-web.git
cd perch-web
docker compose up -d
pnpm install
cd apps/api && pnpm dev
cd apps/web && pnpm dev
Backend: http://localhost:3001 Frontend: http://localhost:5173
- Author model — follow a person across all their platforms
- Background feed polling
- Highlights UI in reader
- AI article summaries
- Human-like TTS
- Search
- Google + GitHub OAuth
- OPML import/export
MIT
Perch was originally built by Michael McGuiness as a native app. When the company shut down, I missed it enough to rebuild it as a web app. This is my tribute to that product — and my attempt to keep the reading experience it stood for alive.
