# RSS Feed Scraper & Extractor - RSS to JSON & CSV (`nodeflow/rssfeedscraperextractor`) Actor

Scrape, filter, and convert public RSS, Atom, and JSON feeds into clean structured JSON/CSV data. Fast, reliable, and AI-ready.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/nodeflow/rssfeedscraperextractor.md
- **Developed by:** [NodeFlow](https://apify.com/nodeflow) (community)
- **Categories:**
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: 5.00 out of 5 stars

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 results

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## RSS Feed Scraper & Extractor — RSS, Atom & JSON Feed

Turn news, blog, podcast and release feeds into structured data for newsletters, research, monitoring and AI workflows.

Paste feed URLs, choose a result limit, and run. It reads RSS 2.0, Atom 1.0 and JSON Feed 1/1.1 without a browser or a third-party API key. It returns normalized entries and a separate source health report so you can distinguish an empty feed from a failed source.

### Try it

```json
{
  "feedUrls": ["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"],
  "maxItems": 10
}
```

Use the actual feed URL, not a publisher homepage. Independently tested examples include BBC News RSS, NASA's `https://www.nasa.gov/feed/`, and Node.js releases at `https://github.com/nodejs/node/releases.atom`. Publisher availability can change.

### What you get

- Normalized titles, article URLs, feed-provided text, dates, authors and categories.
- Attachment URLs and MIME types, including podcast enclosures when present.
- Stable hashed identifiers and URL-based deduplication across feeds within the run.
- Case-insensitive keyword matching and an optional UTC publication-date filter.
- A RUN\_REPORT record with counts and the status of every requested source.
- JSON, CSV and other exports through the Apify dataset interface.

The use cases are newsletter curation, keyword-based news tracking, podcast metadata collection and release monitoring. Schedule the Actor using Apify schedules and connect its dataset to your workflow. Scheduled runs are independent: cross-run deduplication and notification delivery belong to your downstream workflow. Stable IDs make that straightforward.

### Simple input

| Field | Default | Meaning |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `feedUrls` | Required | 1–100 public HTTPS feed URLs. Duplicate URLs are removed. |
| `maxItems` | 100 | 1–10,000 total unique matching results across feeds. |
| `keywords` | \[] | Optional keywords; match ANY keyword in title or feed text. |
| `publishedAfter` | Unset | Optional inclusive UTC date, YYYY-MM-DD. Unknown dates fail this filter. |

Feeds are processed in input order, and entries retain publisher order. This is not a global newest-first sort. When the total limit is reached, later feeds are not requested. Narrow filters may legitimately return zero entries.

Filtered example:

```json
{
  "feedUrls": ["https://www.nasa.gov/feed/"],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "keywords": ["moon", "artemis"],
  "publishedAfter": "2026-09-01"
}
```

### Output

Each dataset row represents an entry actually present in a fetched feed. Missing optional values are null. Diagnostics are kept out of the billable dataset.

Illustrative, synthetic example (not a claim about a real publisher):

```json
{
  "id": "sha256-derived-stable-identifier",
  "sourceId": "release-2",
  "title": "Release 2",
  "url": "https://example.org/release",
  "summary": "New features",
  "publishedAt": "2026-09-04T12:00:00.000Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-09-04T12:00:00.000Z",
  "author": "Team",
  "categories": ["software"],
  "imageUrl": null,
  "attachments": [],
  "feedUrl": "https://example.org/feed",
  "feedTitle": "Releases",
  "format": "atom",
  "matchedKeywords": [],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-09-05T12:00:00.000Z"
}
```

`summary` is plain text supplied by the feed, up to 50,000 characters. It may contain a full feed article or only an excerpt. Article pages and media files are not fetched. Dates are normalized to UTC; Atom entries without `published` use `updated`. The ID hashes the resolved article URL, falling back to feed URL plus source ID or entry text. Tracking query parameters remain part of the URL identity.

Open **Output → Source health and run report**, or **Storage → Key-value store → RUN\_REPORT**, for per-source diagnostics. Run status:

| Status | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| succeeded | One or more actual entries stored. |
| partial | At least one source failed; other sources were processed. |
| no\_matches | Accessible feeds had no matching entries. Check source counts. |
| charge\_limit | Budget prevented all result writes. |
| failed | All feeds failed, or storage/processing failed; Actor exits with an error. |

Source statuses distinguish `ok`, `empty`, `filtered`, `duplicates`, `error`, `storage_error`, `charge_limit`, and `not_requested`. The report contains `entriesFound`, `stored`, `filtered`, `duplicates`, and `invalidEntries` where applicable. The report is written before a controlled all-source/storage failure. An infrastructure crash can prevent report persistence.

### Pricing

Proposed launch price: **$1 per 1,000 stored entries** (event `feed-entry`, $0.001 each). Final prices displayed in Apify Console/Store are authoritative. Pricing is configured on the platform; editing source code alone does not change it.

Before publishing:

1. Select Pay per event and create the event `feed-entry`.
2. Remove any old result events, paid `apify-actor-start`, and automatic dataset-item charge from previous configurations.
3. Charge only the custom `feed-entry` event to avoid overlapping charges.
4. Test a small paid run and a budget-limited run in your account, and check the resulting charges.

The code uses the Apify SDK's dataset write with event name and checks `eventChargeLimitReached`. A trimmed item is not counted. Empty, failed, duplicate and filtered entries do not trigger this custom event. Platform compute/storage costs depend on the chosen monetization mode and account. No paid start event is intended. Check profitability against actual cloud costs before choosing an all-inclusive price; this repository does not claim a measured profit margin.

### Console, API, CLI and MCP

**Console:** Build the GitHub main branch, enter feed URLs, select a limit, and start. The two output links show entries and diagnostics.

**API:** Substitute your actual owner and Actor slug. The repository folder name does not determine the platform slug.

```bash
curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~rss-feed-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"feedUrls":["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"],"maxItems":10}'
```

For lengthy multi-feed runs, use the asynchronous `/runs` endpoint, then fetch the returned default dataset and key-value store. The synchronous endpoint has a platform timeout.

**CLI:** Save the example as `input.json`, then use `apify call YOUR_USERNAME/rss-feed-scraper --input-file input.json`. See the installed CLI help for version-specific flags.

**MCP:** In an authenticated Apify MCP client, select the deployed Actor and ask: “Run YOUR\_USERNAME/rss-feed-scraper with feedUrls containing https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml and maxItems 10; return entries and RUN\_REPORT.” MCP configuration and authentication are provided by Apify, not this repository.

### Network and limitations

Only public HTTPS feeds on port 443 are accepted. Private/local IP addresses, embedded credentials and redirects into private networks are rejected. DNS resolution is checked and the socket is pinned to a checked address. Requests use TLS validation, a 20-second timeout, up to two transient retries, a 30-second backoff cap and at most five redirects. Responses are capped at 5 MiB after decompression. Gzip/deflate and UTF-8 feeds are supported. XML DTD/entity declarations are rejected.

RSS 1.0/RDF, authenticated/private feeds, HTML feed discovery, article scraping, JavaScript pages and proprietary APIs are not supported. Some Atom XHTML constructs and publisher-specific extension fields may be absent from normalized output. A source can return 403, 429, malformed data or no entries; the health report explains this without invented records. Arbitrary sites are not guaranteed to work.

This Actor reads explicitly supplied syndication feeds. It does not crawl article pages or independently evaluate a publisher's robots.txt. Use feeds that the publisher permits you to consume automatically. Respect publisher terms, copyright, attribution, privacy and applicable data protection obligations. Feed availability does not grant unrestricted republication rights. This independent product is not affiliated with the example publishers.

### Development

Node.js 24 recommended; no browser required.

```bash
npm ci
npm run verify
npm run test:live
```

`verify` checks syntax, all five Actor schemas, and deterministic tests with synthetic fixtures/mocked transport. `test:live` deliberately contacts BBC, NASA and GitHub and asserts three real normalized entries from each, plus two entries from jsonfeed.org; it uses a local writer and does not test Apify billing. It writes evidence to `artifacts/live-smoke.json`.

For an actual SDK local run, save an input in `storage/key_value_stores/default/INPUT.json` and run `npm start`. Local runs do not prove cloud pricing. GitHub Actions runs verification and a Docker build on Linux.

# Actor input Schema

## `feedUrls` (type: `array`):

Enter public RSS, Atom, or JSON feed links (one per line). E.g., BBC News, TechCrunch, or any blog/podcast feed. Note: Homepages (e.g., https://bbc.com) are not feed URLs.

## `maxItems` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of total unique articles or posts to collect across all feeds. (Default: 100)

## `keywords` (type: `array`):

Only extract posts that match these keywords (e.g. 'ai', 'crypto', 'tech'). Leave empty to fetch all posts.

## `publishedAfter` (type: `string`):

Only collect articles published on or after this UTC date (e.g. 2026-01-01). Leave empty for recent posts.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "feedUrls": [
    "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "keywords": []
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `dataset` (type: `string`):

No description

## `report` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "feedUrls": [
        "https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("nodeflow/rssfeedscraperextractor").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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "feedUrls": ["https://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("nodeflow/rssfeedscraperextractor").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://feeds.bbci.co.uk/news/rss.xml"
  ]
}' |
apify call nodeflow/rssfeedscraperextractor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,nodeflow/rssfeedscraperextractor"
        }
    }
}

```

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 <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` 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/n7ZTiI4s9V4Y5q4y0/builds/6LNZcbVTIX61tBG7Z/openapi.json