Self-Hosted Proxy

Your feeds, your server

Deploy your own proxy for unlimited feed fetching, complete privacy, and full control over your reading experience

Why Self-Host?

The power of independence

Our browser extension is the easiest way to use Blogs Are Back without limits. But if you can't install extensions, or want complete control, a self-hosted proxy gives you the same benefits.

Your proxy runs on your own infrastructure—feeds are fetched directly between your proxy and the blogs you follow. We never see your reading activity.

Unlimited requests

No rate limits. Follow as many blogs as you want.

Complete privacy

Your feeds never touch our servers

Content extraction

Parse articles for clean reader view

Full independence

Works even if our service is unavailable

How It Works

  1. Deploy your proxy to any platform (takes 2 minutes)
  2. Configure the proxy URL in Blogs Are Back settings
  3. Read with unlimited, private feed fetching
Choose Your Platform
Connect to Blogs Are Back

Step 1: Copy Your Proxy URL

After deployment, you'll have a URL like:

https://bab-proxy.yourusername.workers.dev

Step 2: Configure in Settings

  1. Open Blogs Are Back and go to Settings
  2. Find the Custom Proxy section
  3. Paste your proxy URL
  4. If you set an API key, enter it here too
  5. Click Validate to test the connection

That's it!

Blogs Are Back will now use your proxy for all feed fetching and content parsing.

Platform Capabilities
FeatureWorkersVercelDocker
Feed fetching (/fetch)
Content parsing (/parse)
Free tier100k/day100k/monthUnlimited
Cold startsNone~200msNone
CPU limit10ms free10sNone

Note on Workers CPU limit: The /parse endpoint uses linkedom for content extraction. Very complex pages may exceed the 10ms free tier limit. If parsing fails, the app falls back to showing feed excerpts. Paid Workers ($5/month) increases the limit to 50ms.

Troubleshooting

"Validation failed" when connecting

Cause: Proxy URL incorrect or not deployed

Fix: Double-check the URL. Make sure deployment completed successfully. Try accessing /health in your browser.

"Invalid API key" error

Cause: API key mismatch between proxy and app settings

Fix: Ensure the exact same key is set in both your proxy environment and Blogs Are Back settings.

Parsing fails on some articles

Cause: Complex pages exceeding CPU limits (Workers) or memory limits

Fix: This is expected on free tiers. The app will fall back gracefully. Consider Docker for heavy parsing.

Slow response times

Cause: Cold starts (Vercel) or geographic distance

Fix: Vercel has ~200ms cold starts. Workers has none. For Docker, choose a server location near you.

Prefer something simpler?

Our browser extension provides the same unlimited, private reading experience with zero setup required.

Get the ExtensionRead the FAQ