# Best Damn RSS to JSON Converter (`josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json`) Actor Convert RSS, Atom and JSON Feed into clean, consistent JSON items: title, link, author, date, content, images and podcast enclosures. Paste a site URL and it finds the feed for you. Pay per item; failed feeds are free. - **URL**: https://apify.com/josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json.md - **Developed by:** [Joshua Smith](https://apify.com/josh99smith) (community) - **Categories:** News, Automation, Open source - **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks - **User rating**: No ratings yet ## Pricing $0.50 / 1,000 feed item delivereds This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events. Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event ## What's an Apify Actor? An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes. In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours, and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store. In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server. Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md. ## How to integrate an Actor? If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects. You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready. Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run. For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below. Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`). # README ![rss-feed-to-json banner](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/josh99smith/apify-actor-assets/main/banners/rss-feed-to-json.png?v=bd1) **RSS to JSON** converter and RSS feed parser API: turn any RSS, Atom or JSON feed into clean, consistent JSON. Paste feed URLs (or website URLs; the Actor finds the feed) and get one normalized record per article, episode or post: title, link, author, date, categories, HTML and plain-text content, lead image and media enclosures. Built for **developers, content teams, newsletter builders and automation users**: a small flat price per item, no monthly subscription, and feeds that cannot be found, fetched or parsed are reported **free of charge**. ### Features - Convert RSS or Atom feeds to JSON with one API call - RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, RSS 1.0 (RDF) and JSON Feed parsed into the same item shape - Automatic feed discovery from a website URL - Full article HTML and plain text for LLM and RAG pipelines - Podcast enclosures, media files and lead images - Only items published after a given date - Monitor mode: only items new since the last run, so alerts never repeat ### What can you do with Best Damn RSS to JSON Converter? - **Content aggregation**: dozens of blogs, news sites and podcasts merged into one dataset for a newsletter, news app or digest. - **Competitor and industry monitoring**: hourly runs with monitor mode on, pushing new posts to Slack, email or a webhook. - **AI and RAG pipelines**: `contentText` is ready for embeddings, summarisation or classification. - **Replace Zapier / Make RSS triggers**: cheaper on a schedule, with the full item history in your own dataset. - **Podcast and media tooling**: enclosure URLs, MIME types and file sizes. - **SEO and content research**: publishing frequency, authors and categories across sites. ### How it works Each URL is downloaded (gzip and redirects handled) and its feed format detected. For a web page, the Actor reads the `` / `atom+xml` / `feed+json` head tags, otherwise probes common paths such as `/feed`, `/rss.xml` and `/atom.xml`, and uses the first working feed. CDATA, escaped HTML, entities, `content:encoded`, `dc:creator`, categories, `media:content`, `itunes:image` and enclosures are normalized into one item shape, and dates become ISO 8601. ### How to use it 1. Paste feed or website URLs into **Feed or website URLs**, one per line. 2. Optionally set **Max items per feed** and **Published after**, or switch off **Include full HTML content** (`contentText` stays available). 3. Click **Start**; items appear in the **Output** tab within seconds as JSON, CSV, Excel or XML, with Google Sheets, Slack, Make, Zapier and webhooks in the **Integrations** tab. 4. For recurring runs, add a **Schedule** and turn on **Only new items since the last run** (see Monitor mode). ```json { "feedUrls": ["https://blog.apify.com/rss/", "https://hnrss.org/frontpage", "https://www.theverge.com"], "maxItemsPerFeed": 100, "publishedAfter": "2026-01-01", "includeContent": true, "plainText": true } ``` ### Output ![Sample output of rss-feed-to-json](https://raw.githubusercontent.com/josh99smith/apify-actor-assets/main/previews/rss-feed-to-json.png) One record per feed item (trimmed): ```json { "feedUrl": "https://blog.apify.com/rss/", "feedTitle": "Apify Blog", "feedType": "rss", "id": "64884d212b8e8a0001df7576", "title": "12 LangChain alternatives for building AI agents in 2026", "url": "https://blog.apify.com/langchain-alternatives/", "author": "Theo Vasilis", "publishedAt": "2026-09-15T12:00:00.000Z", "updatedAt": null, "summary": "LangChain is a powerful framework for developing LLM apps, but it's not without its disadvantages. So what are the alternatives?", "contentHtml": "\"...\"

LangChain is still the most widely used framework ...

", "contentText": "LangChain is still the most widely used framework for building LLM applications ...", "categories": ["AI", "Tool comparisons"], "enclosures": [{ "url": "https://storage.ghost.io/.../langchain-alternatives-1.png", "type": null, "length": null }], "imageUrl": "https://storage.ghost.io/.../langchain-alternatives-1.png", "fetchedAt": "2026-09-18T19:55:04.974Z", "isNew": true } ``` Failed feeds are recorded too: ```json { "feedUrl": "https://example.com/no-feed-here", "success": false, "errorType": "not-found", "error": "No RSS, Atom or JSON feed found for this page", "fetchedAt": "..." } ``` ### Output fields | Field | Description | | --- | --- | | `feedUrl` | Parsed feed URL; `discoveredFrom` is the page it was discovered from. | | `feedTitle` / `feedType` | Feed title and format: `rss`, `atom`, `rss1` or `json`. | | `id` | `guid`, Atom `id` or JSON `id`, falling back to the link. | | `title` / `url` / `author` | Title (HTML stripped), absolute link, author (`dc:creator`, `author`, Atom `author/name`, or feed-level author). | | `publishedAt` / `updatedAt` | ISO 8601 timestamps, or `null`. | | `summary` | Plain-text summary (`description`, Atom `summary`, JSON `summary`), max 5,000 characters. | | `contentHtml` | Full HTML body (`content:encoded`, Atom `content`, JSON `content_html`), max 50,000 characters; `null` with **Include full HTML content** off. | | `contentText` | Plain-text body with paragraph breaks, max 5,000 characters; `null` with **Add plain-text content** off. | | `categories[]` | Categories, tags or `dc:subject` values, de-duplicated. | | `enclosures[]` | `url`, `type` (MIME) and `length` (bytes) from enclosures, Media RSS and JSON Feed attachments. | | `imageUrl` | Lead image: Media RSS, `itunes:image`, an image enclosure or the first `` in the content. | | `isNew` | `true` unless an earlier run with the same state store delivered the item; always present. | | `errorType` | Failures only: `invalid-url`, `not-found`, `invalid-feed`, `http-error`, `blocked`, `dns`, `timeout`, `network` or `other`. | ### Use it from the API, Python, JavaScript or an AI agent One HTTP call: ```bash curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/josh99smith~rss-feed-to-json/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=" \ -H "Content-Type: application/json" \ -d '{"feedUrls": ["https://blog.apify.com/rss/"], "maxItemsPerFeed": 20}' ``` Python ([apify-client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python)): ```python from apify_client import ApifyClient client = ApifyClient("") run = client.actor("josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json").call( run_input={"feedUrls": ["https://hnrss.org/frontpage"], "maxItemsPerFeed": 20, "publishedAfter": "2026-09-01"} ) for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items(): print(item.get("publishedAt"), item.get("title"), item.get("url")) ``` JavaScript or TypeScript ([apify-client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js)): ```javascript import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client'; const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '' }); const run = await client.actor('josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json').call({ feedUrls: ['https://blog.apify.com/rss/', 'https://www.theverge.com'], maxItemsPerFeed: 20, includeContent: false, }); const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems(); console.log(items.map((item) => [item.title, item.url])); ``` #### Use it from Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT or any MCP client The Actor is exposed as a tool by the [Apify MCP server](https://mcp.apify.com), so an AI agent can call it by name. Add this to your MCP client configuration (Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code, Windsurf and others): ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json", "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer " } } } } ``` Then ask, for example: *"Fetch the latest 10 items from https://blog.apify.com/rss/ with josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json."* The agent fills in the input, runs the Actor and reads the dataset back; you pay the same per-result price as in the Console. The Actor can also be scheduled, or connected to Zapier, Make, n8n and Google Sheets in the **Integrations** tab. ### Monitor mode: only new items since the last run With **Only new items since the last run** on, the Actor stores the id of every delivered item (feed `guid` or `id`, else the link, else a hash of title and date) in a named key-value store (`rss-feed-to-json-seen` by default). The first run returns everything; later runs return **only items not seen before**. Skipped items are never billed. Unlike **Published after**, this needs no date bookkeeping between runs and also catches items without a publication date. The store is shared by all runs in your account, so give each feed group its own **State store name** (for example `competitor-blogs` and `podcasts`). Ids absent for **Forget seen items after (days)** (default 90) are dropped and count as new if they return; the store holds at most 100,000 ids. With monitor mode off, `isNew` still marks previously seen items. `SUMMARY` in the key-value store reports `newItems`, `alreadySeen` and `stateStoreName`. ### Pricing: how much does it cost to convert a feed to JSON? You pay a **flat price per delivered item** (shown next to the Start button); 2,000 items cost about $1. Nothing is charged for Actor start-up, items skipped by monitor mode or feeds that fail. **Max items per feed** and **Published after** limit what is fetched; the Actor stops when a run reaches the maximum cost you set. **How it compares (September 2026).** Comparable feed readers charge $0.00115 per item plus a $0.035 start fee, or $0.008 per item. This Actor charges $0.0005 per item with no start fee, supports RSS, Atom, RSS 1.0 and JSON Feed, discovers feeds from a plain site URL, and offers monitor mode so scheduled runs return only new items, with skipped items never billed. ### Tips - **Blocked feeds**: some publishers block cloud IP addresses. Enable **Proxy configuration > Apify Proxy** in the Advanced section (proxy traffic is billed by Apify separately). - **Websites instead of feeds**: pasting `https://www.theverge.com` is enough; if a site advertises several feeds the first working one is used, so paste the exact URL for a specific feed. ### FAQ #### Which feed formats can be converted to JSON? RSS 2.0 (including podcast feeds with iTunes and Media RSS extensions), Atom 1.0, RSS 1.0 / RDF and JSON Feed 1.0 and 1.1, gzip-compressed or behind redirects. #### Why is `contentHtml` short or missing for some items? The Actor reads feeds only, never linked articles, so you get what the feed contains: full text for most blogs, a summary for many news sites. For full articles, pass the `url` values to a content-extraction Actor. #### How are feed dates handled? RFC 822 (`Tue, 10 Jun 2003 04:00:00 GMT`), ISO 8601 and common timezone abbreviations become UTC ISO 8601. Unparseable dates give `publishedAt: null` and are never filtered by **Published after**. #### What are the limits on items, content size and feeds? **Max items per feed** goes up to 10,000 per run (default 100). `contentHtml` is capped at 50,000 characters, `summary` and `contentText` at 5,000 each. Feed files may be up to 32 MB, up to 10 feeds are fetched in parallel, and each request times out after at most 120 seconds. #### How do I reset the seen list? Delete the store named in **State store name** (`rss-feed-to-json-seen` unless you changed it) under **Storage > Key-value stores** in Apify Console; the next run returns everything again. Or set a new **State store name** to keep the old watchlist. #### Is it legal to parse RSS feeds? Feeds are published for syndication and read as a feed reader would (a couple of requests per feed); only what the publisher includes is stored. Complying with the publisher's terms and applicable law is your responsibility. #### Will the output fields change between runs? No. Existing fields are never renamed or removed without a major version bump announced in the changelog; new fields are only ever added. ### Integrate Best Damn RSS to JSON Converter and automate your workflow Best Damn RSS to JSON Converter plugs into the tools you already use through [Apify integrations](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations), so results can flow on without anyone downloading a file. Ready-made connectors include: - [Make](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/make) - [Zapier](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/zapier) - [n8n](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/n8n) - [Slack](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/slack) - [Airbyte](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/airbyte) - [GitHub](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/github) - [Google Drive](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/drive) - and [many more](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations). You can also attach [webhooks](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/webhooks) to trigger your own endpoint whenever a run succeeds, fails or times out. For example, forward new feed items to Slack or Discord, or append them to a Google Sheet as they are published. ### Related Actors by the same developer - [Best Damn Tech Stack Detector](https://apify.com/josh99smith/tech-stack-detector): what a website is built with. - [Best Damn Website Screenshot API](https://apify.com/josh99smith/website-screenshot-api): full-page screenshots and PDFs. - [Best Damn Google Autocomplete Scraper](https://apify.com/josh99smith/google-autocomplete-scraper): Google search keyword suggestions. - [Best Damn App Reviews Scraper](https://apify.com/josh99smith/app-reviews-scraper): app reviews from both stores. - [Best Damn PageSpeed Insights Audit](https://apify.com/josh99smith/pagespeed-insights-audit): Core Web Vitals via Google's API. - [Best Damn Remote Jobs Aggregator](https://apify.com/josh99smith/remote-jobs-aggregator): remote job listings in one dataset. - [Best Damn PDF Text Extractor](https://apify.com/josh99smith/pdf-text-extractor): text and metadata from PDF URLs. - [Best Damn Sitemap URL Extractor](https://apify.com/josh99smith/sitemap-url-extractor): all URLs from XML sitemaps. - [Best Damn YouTube Comments Scraper](https://apify.com/josh99smith/youtube-comments-scraper): comments and replies from YouTube videos and channels. - [Best Damn YouTube Scraper](https://apify.com/josh99smith/youtube-scraper): videos, channels, playlists and search results with statistics. ### Support and feedback Found a feed that is not parsed correctly? Open a ticket in the **Issues** tab with the feed URL. Open source under the MIT licence. The full source code is on GitHub: [josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json](https://github.com/josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json). Stars and pull requests are welcome. # Changelog This Actor's version history is a separate document: https://apify.com/josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json/changelog.md # Actor input Schema ## `feedUrls` (type: `array`): One URL per line. RSS 2.0, Atom, RSS 1.0 (RDF) and JSON Feed URLs are parsed directly. If a URL is an ordinary web page, the Actor looks for the feed it advertises (`` and similar) and common paths such as `/feed` or `/rss.xml`. Duplicates are removed automatically. ## `maxItemsPerFeed` (type: `integer`): Deliver at most this many items from each feed (newest first, in feed order). ## `publishedAfter` (type: `string`): Optional. Skip items published before this date. ISO 8601, e.g. `2026-01-31` or `2026-01-31T12:00:00Z`. Items without a publication date are kept. ## `includeContent` (type: `boolean`): Add the article body as HTML (`contentHtml`, capped at 50,000 characters). Switch off for a smaller dataset when you only need titles and links. ## `plainText` (type: `boolean`): Strip HTML from the article body into `contentText` (capped at 5,000 characters). Handy for search indexes, LLM prompts and spreadsheets. ## `onlyNew` (type: `boolean`): Monitor mode. The ids of every item delivered are remembered in a named key-value store, so scheduled runs return only items not seen before. The first run returns everything; later runs return only new posts. Items filtered out as already seen are never billed. Every record also carries an `isNew` flag, whether or not this is on. ## `timeoutSecs` (type: `integer`): Give up on a feed after this many seconds. ## `stateStoreName` (type: `string`): Name of the key-value store that remembers seen item ids for **Only new items since the last run**. Leave empty for the automatic name `rss-feed-to-json-seen`. Use different names to keep separate watchlists (e.g. one per group of feeds). Letters, digits and dashes only. ## `seenTtlDays` (type: `integer`): Ids not seen in any run for this many days are dropped from the state store, which keeps it small. An item that reappears after that is reported as new again. Use 0 to keep ids forever (up to 100,000 ids, oldest dropped first). ## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`): Optional. Route requests through Apify Proxy if a site blocks cloud IP addresses. Proxy usage is billed by Apify separately from the per-item price of this Actor. ## Actor input object example ```json { "feedUrls": [ "https://blog.apify.com/rss/", "https://hnrss.org/frontpage", "https://www.theverge.com" ], "maxItemsPerFeed": 100, "includeContent": true, "plainText": true, "onlyNew": false, "timeoutSecs": 30, "stateStoreName": "", "seenTtlDays": 90, "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false } } ``` # Actor output Schema ## `results` (type: `string`): One normalized record per feed item (title, link, author, dates, content, categories, enclosures, image), plus free failure records for feeds that could not be loaded. ## `summary` (type: `string`): Counts of requested feeds, parsed feeds, delivered and billed items, new vs. already-seen items (monitor mode) and failures. # API You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup. ## JavaScript example ```javascript import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client'; // Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token // Replace the '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = { "feedUrls": [ "https://blog.apify.com/rss/", "https://hnrss.org/frontpage", "https://www.theverge.com" ], "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false } }; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json").call(input); // Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any) console.log('Results from dataset'); console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`); const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems(); items.forEach((item) => { console.dir(item); }); // 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs ``` ## Python example ```python from apify_client import ApifyClient # Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token # Replace '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = { "feedUrls": [ "https://blog.apify.com/rss/", "https://hnrss.org/frontpage", "https://www.theverge.com", ], "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": False }, } # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}") for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items(): print(item) # 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start ``` ## CLI example ```bash echo '{ "feedUrls": [ "https://blog.apify.com/rss/", "https://hnrss.org/frontpage", "https://www.theverge.com" ], "proxyConfiguration": { "useApifyProxy": false } }' | apify call josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,josh99smith/rss-feed-to-json" } } } ``` The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer ` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations). ## OpenAPI specification Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/TvQymTXztxsRx2n8E/builds/vv1fz36ey9CJPsdIo/openapi.json