# RSS Feed Reader – RSS & Atom Feeds to JSON (`pontio/rss-feed-reader`) Actor

Turn up to 20 public RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 or Atom feeds into JSON rows, with at most 100 entries per feed. Snapshot only; no discovery, state or article fetching. Failed reads are uncharged.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/pontio/rss-feed-reader.md
- **Developed by:** [Gabor Molnar](https://apify.com/pontio) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Automation
- **Security:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.40 / 1,000 feed snapshot reads

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.
Since this Actor supports Apify Store discounts, the price gets lower the higher subscription plan you have.

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 Reader – RSS & Atom Feeds to JSON

Give it feed URLs and get each feed back as one JSON row with its entries: title, link, summary, content and dates. Use it to pull RSS into a database, an agent or a workflow without writing an XML parser. To get only what is new since the last run, use the RSS Feed Monitor Actor instead.

Read supplied public HTTP(S) RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 or Atom feeds. One dataset row per processed distinct feed, containing up to 100 snapshot entries. No feed discovery, article fetching, state, delta tracking or broad brand coverage.

```json
{"urls": ["https://www.nasa.gov/feed/"]}
```

### Output and limits

Each row contains normalized `url`, `finalUrl`, `httpStatus`, `format` (`rss2`/`rss1`/`atom`, or null), `entries`, `truncated`, `elapsedMs` and `reasonCode`. Each entry has nullable `id` (RSS 1.0: the item's `rdf:about`), `title`, `link`, `summary`, `published` (RSS 1.0: `dc:date`), `updated` (Atom) and `content` (Atom `<content>` or RSS `<content:encoded>`, the body as supplied by the feed, with Atom XHTML child markup preserved). Only supplied values are returned; no invented IDs or parsed/inferred dates. RSS guid remains opaque even if not a permalink; text fields, including guid, have surrounding whitespace trimmed. Atom `updated` is returned as `updated`, never as a publication date. Relative entry links resolve against the final feed URL (XML base overrides are not used). Only HTTP(S) links without credentials are emitted; they are not fetched or checked.

Titles, summaries and content may contain untrusted HTML/XHTML. Treat output as data; sanitize before rendering.

- 20 URLs/run, before dedup; canonical repeats including fragments/default ports read once. Paths and queries stay distinct; different invalid inputs stay separate.
- 100 entries/feed, and at most 5 MB of entry text per row (long podcast show notes can reach it first); the first entries in feed order are kept. `truncated: true` means additional entries were parsed but omitted. This flag covers entries only, not unprocessed feeds. No claim about entries the source did not publish.
- 32 MiB/feed (after decompressing gzip/deflate/br, which some servers send even when asked not to), enough for large podcast feeds; 15 seconds total/feed including DNS, 5 redirects. No retries. UTF-8, BOM-marked UTF-16, and any standard encoding the XML declaration names (ISO-8859-1, windows-1252, Shift_JIS, EUC-KR…) are decoded; an unknown encoding fails free. XML nesting capped at 64.
- All DNS addresses must be public at every hop; transport pins a checked IP and verifies TLS. Public hostnames and ports 80/443 only; no credentials or IP-literal URLs.
- DTD/custom entities rejected; ordinary predefined XML escapes and numeric character references supported. Malformed XML and nonfeeds are free.

Charge caps stop batches early. Unprocessed feeds have no dataset row and no charge; an absent row is not an empty feed. To identify missing feeds, compare your submitted URLs after canonical normalization (trim whitespace, normalize hostname case/default ports and remove fragments; keep paths and queries distinct) with persisted normalized `url` fields, not `finalUrl`. Raise the charge cap before resubmitting only the missing URLs.

### Billing

**$0.002 per answered distinct feed**, not per entry. A parsed empty feed is an answer and bills. A truncated but successfully parsed snapshot is an answer and bills. All failures below are free.

| Reason code | Meaning | Charged |
|---|---|---|
| `read` | Successfully parsed RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 or Atom snapshot, including empty | yes |
| `invalid_url` | Unsupported/malformed URL | no |
| `unsafe_target` | DNS contains non-public addresses | no |
| `blocked` | HTTP 401/403/429 | no |
| `http_error` | HTTP 206 partial response or other non-2xx status, including 404/410 | no |
| `unreachable` | DNS, transport, TLS, encoding or deadline failure | no |
| `invalid_redirect` | Missing, malformed or disallowed redirect | no |
| `redirect_loop` | Repeated redirect URL | no |
| `redirect_limit` | More than five redirects | no |
| `too_large` | Response exceeds 32 MiB | no |
| `invalid_xml` | Malformed/unsupported XML, DTD/entities or excessive nesting | no |
| `not_feed` | Parsed document is not RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0 or Atom | no |

A failed or empty snapshot is not proof a publisher has no articles elsewhere. Feed contents are whatever the publisher returned at request time, not a historical archive.

### Source rights

You supply the feed and are responsible for permitted access, attribution and reuse. Public feed access does **not** grant all redistribution rights. This reader does not bypass authentication, bot walls or access restrictions.

Default/local samples are provided by **NASA**, listed on [NASA RSS feeds](https://www.nasa.gov/rss-feeds/). [NASA content guidelines](https://www.nasa.gov/nasa-brand-center/images-and-media/) permit factual informational use without implied endorsement, require acknowledgment, and retain third-party copyright, logo and personality restrictions. NASA is the source, not an endorser. Samples read text metadata only; no images or linked articles are fetched. This is not legal approval for arbitrary customer feeds.

# Changelog

This Actor's version history is a separate document: https://apify.com/pontio/rss-feed-reader/changelog.md

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Up to 20 supplied feed URLs. Canonical repeats are read once; paths and queries stay distinct. Caller is responsible for feed access and content reuse rights. Snapshot only, no discovery or state.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.nasa.gov/feed/"
  ]
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

Results produced by this run, in its default dataset.

# 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 = {
    "urls": [
        "https://www.nasa.gov/feed/"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("pontio/rss-feed-reader").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 = { "urls": ["https://www.nasa.gov/feed/"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("pontio/rss-feed-reader").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 '{
  "urls": [
    "https://www.nasa.gov/feed/"
  ]
}' |
apify call pontio/rss-feed-reader --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/7DDHQoa5MoMtGmNA4/builds/7UrCKPwET3eaXkFee/openapi.json