The Android reader that speaks Nextcloud News
Also FreshRSS and Miniflux. Your server, your articles, your phone. Bought once.
There is nothing to download yet. Capstan is finished enough to use and not yet released. This page exists because the privacy policy and support pages below have to be public before it can be submitted anywhere.
The problem
If you run Nextcloud News, your choices on Android are thin. The readers people recommend either do not speak it, or are not on the Play Store at all and want you to install F-Droid first.
And if you have used a reader for years, you know the other ending: the app you paid for stops getting updates while its developer builds the subscription version.
How it works
- Point it at your server. Nextcloud News, FreshRSS or Miniflux. Your username and an app password — never your account password.
- Clear the queue. Swipe right, swipe left, or let articles mark themselves read as they scroll past. Every swipe can be undone.
- Keep what matters. Save to Read Later, tag it, find it again.
What it does
- Nextcloud News sync. The most-asked backend among Android readers' own users, and the reason this app exists.
- Save a link from any app, and tag it. Share into Capstan from a browser, a chat, anywhere. Tag it. Find it by tag later.
- Three servers, one app. Nextcloud News, FreshRSS and Miniflux, all pushing changes back the moment you are online again.
- Works offline, honestly. Read what you have; changes queue and go when the network returns. Nothing is lost quietly.
- Read articles do not disappear. They stay for 30 days after you read them — a week, three months or a year if you prefer — and starred or saved articles are never removed at all.
- Reader view for feeds that only give you a paragraph.
- Gestures you choose. Bind each swipe, or turn one off.
- Readable at any size. Every control is a real 48dp target with a label, checked automatically on every build.
- No ads, no account, no tracking. Nothing leaves your phone except to your own server.
Pricing
14 days free, then US$9.99 once. No subscription.
Why pay, when good free readers exist?
Capy Reader and FeedMe are both free and both good. If they speak the server you run, use them. Capstan is for Nextcloud News, which they do not do — and for people who want the saving-and-tagging half to be as good as the reading half.Why $9.99 and not $4.99?
Because a price that cannot pay for maintenance is how an app ends up abandoned, which is the thing its users complain about afterwards. This one is priced to still be here in three years.
Questions
- Does it work with Nextcloud News? Yes — that is the reason it exists. Use an app password from Nextcloud, not your account password.
- FreshRSS? Yes, over the Google Reader API. Use the API password from your FreshRSS profile.
- Miniflux? Yes, with an API token.
- Feedbin, Inoreader, NewsBlur, Tiny Tiny RSS? Not yet.
- No server at all? It works on its own: add feeds by address and it fetches them directly.
- Can I bring my feeds? Yes — OPML import and export, both ways.
- Is there a subscription? No. One payment, and the app is yours.
- Do read articles get deleted? Not for 30 days, counted from when you read one rather than from when it was published — so clearing a backlog does not clear your history. Starred and saved articles are kept regardless, unread ones are never touched, and the window is yours to set.
- What do you collect? Nothing. There is no account and no server of ours. The policy says how that is checkable.
No testimonials here
There are no user counts, star ratings or press logos on this page, because Capstan has no users yet. An empty space is better than a borrowed one. When there are people using it and they are willing to be quoted, this is where they will go.