Website to RSS Feed Generator

Convert any website into a fully compliant RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, or JSON Feed. This actor crawls a target URL, automatically detects article patterns on the page, and generates a structured feed you can subscribe to in any feed reader. Perfect for monitoring websites that don't offer their own RSS feeds, integrating blog updates into automation workflows, or aggregating content from multiple sources.

Features

• Auto-detection of article patterns — works out of the box on most blogs, news sites, and content pages without any configuration
• Custom CSS selectors for precise extraction when auto-detection isn't enough
• JavaScript rendering via Playwright for single-page applications and dynamically loaded content
• Multiple output formats — RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0, and JSON Feed 1.1
• Markdown conversion — article content is available as both HTML and clean Markdown
• Relative date parsing — handles "2 hours ago", "yesterday", ISO 8601, and dozens of other date formats

How It Works

1. The actor loads the target URL (using Cheerio for static sites, or Playwright for JS-rendered sites)
2. If no custom selectors are provided, it scans the page for common article patterns (<article>, .post, .entry, [class*="article"], etc.)
3. Within each detected article container, it extracts the title, link, date, content, author, and thumbnail image
4. The extracted items are pushed to the dataset and assembled into a feed file stored in the Key-Value Store

Input Configuration

Field	Type	Default	Description
url	string	required	Website URL to convert into an RSS feed
feedTitle	string	auto	Custom feed title (uses site title if empty)
feedDescription	string	auto	Custom feed description
maxItems	integer	20	Maximum items to include (1-100)
articleSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for article containers
titleSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for titles within articles
linkSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for links within articles
dateSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for dates within articles
contentSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for content/summary
authorSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for author names
imageSelector	string	auto	CSS selector for thumbnail images
renderJs	boolean	false	Enable Playwright for JS-rendered sites
outputFormat	enum	rss2	Output format: rss2, atom, or json

Output

Key-Value Store

The generated feed is saved under the key feed in the default Key-Value Store. Access it via the Apify API or download it directly from the run's storage tab.

Dataset

Each extracted article is stored as a structured record:

{
  "title": "How to Build a Web Scraper",
  "link": "https://blog.example.com/web-scraper-guide",
  "pubDate": "2026-03-10T14:30:00.000Z",
  "author": "Jane Smith",
  "content": "<p>In this tutorial, we'll build a web scraper...</p>",
  "contentMarkdown": "In this tutorial, we'll build a web scraper...",
  "thumbnail": "https://blog.example.com/images/scraper-thumb.jpg",
  "guid": "https://blog.example.com/web-scraper-guide"
}

Use Cases

• Content monitoring — Track updates on competitor blogs, industry news sites, or government portals that lack RSS feeds
• Automation — Pipe new articles into Slack, email digests, or databases via integrations with Make, Zapier, or n8n
• Research — Aggregate content from multiple sources into a single feed reader for efficient review
• Archiving — Store structured snapshots of published content with dates, authors, and full text

Tips for Best Results

• Start with the defaults — auto-detection works on most sites without any selectors
• If articles aren't detected, inspect the page HTML and provide a custom articleSelector
• Enable renderJs only when needed — it uses more compute but is required for SPAs
• Use the maxItems parameter to control costs on pages with many articles
• The feed file in KV Store can be served directly as an RSS endpoint when combined with a webhook or scheduled run

FAQ

What if auto-detection fails?

Open the target page in your browser, right-click an article, select "Inspect," and note the CSS selector for the article container. Set that as articleSelector in the input. You can similarly override any sub-selector (title, link, date, etc.).

Can I schedule this to run periodically?

Yes. Set up a scheduled run on Apify and the feed in the Key-Value Store will be updated on each run. You can point your feed reader at the KV Store URL for a self-updating RSS feed.

How does pricing work?

This actor uses Pay-Per-Event pricing at $3.00 per 1,000 feed items extracted. You only pay for successfully extracted articles, never for failed requests or empty pages.