RSS & Atom Feed Reader with Auto-Discovery

Turn any website or feed into clean JSON items: title, link, date, author, summary, categories, enclosures. Paste a homepage and the feed is discovered automatically. Keyword and published-since filters for news monitoring.

Why this actor

• Auto-discovery from a homepage (most competitors need the exact feed URL), no start fee, built-in keyword/date filters.
• Pay only for results: $1.00 per 1,000 feed items, no start fee, failed lookups are free.
• Robust: automatic retries with exponential backoff, respects Retry-After, per-item error rows instead of crashed runs.
• Clean, flat JSON/CSV/Excel output ready for Google Sheets, Make, Zapier, n8n, Clay, or the Apify API.

Use cases

• News & brand monitoring pipelines (Make, Zapier, n8n)
• Feeding AI agents/newsletters with fresh articles
• Podcast episode tracking via enclosures
• Competitor blog monitoring

How to use RSS & Atom Feed Reader with Auto

1. Configure urls, publishedSince, keywords in the Input tab (or leave the prefilled sample values to test immediately).
2. Optionally set maxItems to cap the number of results and control spend.
3. Click Start and export structured results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect directly via API / MCP / n8n / Make.

Input

Field	Type	Description
urls	array	RSS/Atom feed URLs, or any website URL (the feed is auto-discovered).
publishedSince	string	Only items published on/after this date.
keywords	array	Keep items whose title/summary contains any of these.
maxItemsPerFeed	integer	Cap per feed.
includeContent	boolean	When the feed provides it.
allDiscoveredFeeds	boolean	If a site advertises several feeds, read up to 10 of them.
maxItems	integer	0 = no limit.

Example input:

{
  "urls": [
    "https://github.blog/feed/",
    "https://blog.apify.com"
  ]
}

Output

Each dataset item looks like this (real sample from a test run, long fields trimmed):

{
  "title": "Python 3.16.0 alpha 1 is now available",
  "link": "https://blog.python.org/2026/10/python-3160-alpha-1-is-now-available/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-10-13T07:00:00+00:00",
  "author": "Savannah Ostrowski",
  "summary": "The first developer preview of Python 3.16 is ready for testing.",
  "contentHtml": null,
  "categories": [
    "releases"
  ],
  "guid": "https://blog.python.org/2026/10/python-3160-alpha-1-is-now-available/",
  "enclosureUrl": null,
  "feedTitle": "Python Insider",
  "feedUrl": "https://blog.python.org/rss.xml",
  "source": "https://blog.python.org",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-14T05:58:22+00:00"
}

Rows that could not be processed contain an error field and are not charged.

Extracted output fields

Every dataset row includes structured fields ready for spreadsheets, CRMs, and AI pipelines:

• Fields: title, link, publishedAt, author, summary, contentHtml, categories, guid, enclosureUrl, feedTitle, feedUrl, source, scrapedAt

Comparison: RSS & Atom Feed Reader with Auto vs alternatives

Feature	This Actor (shawndunn/rss-feed-reader)	Typical alternatives
Pricing model	$1 / 1,000 results, $0.00 start fee	$20–$49/mo subscription or per-run start fees
Failed / error lookups	$0.00 (never charged)	Often billed by compute time even on failures
API keys / proxies required	None (works out of the box)	Often requires paid third-party keys or residential proxies
AI Agent & MCP ready	Yes (mcp.apify.com compatible, optional defaults)	Strict required schemas that reject agent calls

Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.001 per feed item (= $1.00 / 1,000). Use Max results to cap spend. Apify's free plan credit covers thousands of results per month.

Integrations & API

Run on a schedule in Apify Console, call via the Apify API / Python & JS clients, or connect to Make, Zapier, n8n, Google Sheets, Slack and webhooks. Works as a tool for AI agents via Apify MCP.

Use with AI agents (MCP)

RSS & Atom Feed Reader with Auto is configured for zero-config AI agent tool use via the Apify MCP Server (no required-field blocking on defaulted inputs).

Streamable HTTP endpoint:

https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=shawndunn/rss-feed-reader

Claude Desktop / Cursor / Windsurf mcpServers config:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-rss-feed-reader": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=shawndunn/rss-feed-reader",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

Direct synchronous API call:

POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/shawndunn~rss-feed-reader/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>

FAQ

Is it legal? The actor only reads publicly available data from public endpoints, without logins, and does not bypass paywalls or access controls. You are responsible for using the data in line with applicable laws (e.g. GDPR) and the source sites' terms.

Something broke? Open an issue in the Issues tab; we typically respond within 24 hours and ship fixes fast.

More tools by shawndunn

• Hacker News Scraper: Search, Brand Monitoring & Who Is Hiring — Search Hacker News stories and comments by keyword, domain or brand with points and date filters, grab the front page, or extract ($1/1k, no start fee).
• RSS Feed Finder — Find RSS, Atom and JSON feeds for any list of websites via link tags and common feed paths, with item count and latest post date to ($1/1k, no start fee).
• Substack Newsletter Posts & Engagement — Posts from any Substack publication: title, subtitle, date, free/paid, word count, reactions, comments and restacks, plus full ($0.