# Website RSS & Atom Feed Finder (`technicaldost/website-feed-discovery`) Actor

Find every RSS, Atom and JSON feed a website publishes. Checks declared link tags, on-page links and well-known paths, then fetches each candidate and confirms it really parses - so you only get feeds that work. Returns format, title and item count. No API key.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/technicaldost/website-feed-discovery.md
- **Developed by:** [Technical Dost Solutions](https://apify.com/technicaldost) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, News
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$3.00 / 1,000 site checkeds

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?

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

## Website RSS & Atom Feed Finder

**Find every RSS, Atom and JSON feed a website publishes — and get back only the ones that actually work.**

Guessing `/feed` is easy. This Actor fetches every candidate and **parses it** before returning it, so the output is a list of confirmed, working feed URLs with their format, title and item count. No dead links to filter out afterwards.

### What you get

```json
{
  "siteUrl": "https://overreacted.io",
  "feedsFound": 2,
  "primaryFeedUrl": "https://overreacted.io/atom.xml",
  "primaryFeedFormat": "atom",
  "candidatesChecked": 14,
  "feeds": [
    {
      "url": "https://overreacted.io/atom.xml",
      "format": "atom",
      "title": "overreacted — A blog by Dan Abramov",
      "itemCount": 58,
      "latestItemDate": "2026-07-31T00:00:00.000Z",
      "discoveredVia": "link-tag"
    }
  ]
}
```

### How it finds them

Three routes, tried in order of reliability, then every candidate is validated:

1. **`<link rel="alternate">` tags** — the feed the site declares. Most reliable.
2. **On-page anchors** that look like feeds — catches sites that forgot the link tag.
3. **Well-known paths** — `/feed`, `/rss.xml`, `/atom.xml`, `/index.xml`, `/feed.json` and others.

Results are ranked so a declared feed always beats a guessed path.

### Main use cases

- **Build a monitoring list.** Give it 500 competitor or industry sites and get back the feeds worth watching.
- **Feed-reader onboarding.** Turn a URL a user pastes into a working subscription.
- **Content aggregation** and newsroom monitoring.
- **Migration checks** — confirm feeds survived a replatform.
- **Feeding an RSS pipeline.** Pair with [RSS Feed Scraper](https://apify.com/technicaldost/rss-feed-scraper) to go from a list of websites to a stream of articles.

### Pricing

| Event | Price | When |
|---|---|---|
| **Site checked** | **$0.003** | One website searched, whether or not feeds were found |

A site with no feeds is a real answer and costs the same to determine, so it is charged. Sites that could not be reached at all are **not** charged.

**1,000 websites = $3.00.**

### Input

| Field | Type | Default | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| `websites` | array | **required** | Bare domains work. Up to 2,000. |
| `checkWellKnownPaths` | boolean | `true` | Probe common paths when nothing is declared. Turn off for speed. |
| `maxFeedsPerSite` | integer | `20` | Cap per site. |
| `concurrency` | integer | `8` | Parallel sites. |

### Limitations

- **No JavaScript rendering.** A feed link injected client-side will only be found if it also sits at a well-known path.
- **Well-known probing costs requests.** With it on, a site with no declared feed triggers up to 14 extra checks. That is why it is a toggle.
- **Podcast feeds are found but not parsed as podcasts** — you get the feed URL, format and item count, not episode metadata.
- Feeds behind authentication or bot protection cannot be validated and are omitted rather than guessed at.

### Related Actors

- **[RSS Feed Scraper](https://apify.com/technicaldost/rss-feed-scraper)** ★5.0 — the natural next step: read the feeds this Actor finds.
- **[Substack Newsletter Monitor](https://apify.com/technicaldost/substack-newsletter-monitor)** — for Substack publications specifically.

### Reliability

- Retries on 429 and 5xx with exponential backoff; permanent 4xx errors are not retried.
- Bad input is reported and skipped, never charged.
- One failing target never aborts the rest of the run.
- Concurrency is bounded and configurable — this work is network-bound, so parallel requests, not memory, are what control speed.

### Data source and responsible use

Reads only publicly available data. No authentication bypass, no CAPTCHA circumvention, no browser automation.

Not affiliated with any of the services checked.

# Actor input Schema

## `websites` (type: `array`):

Website URLs to search for feeds. A bare domain works - example.com becomes https://example.com.

## `concurrency` (type: `integer`):

How many to process at once. This work is network-bound, so concurrency - not memory - is what controls speed.

## `checkWellKnownPaths` (type: `boolean`):

Probe /feed, /rss.xml, /atom.xml and similar when the page does not declare a feed. Finds feeds on sites that forgot the link tag.

## `maxFeedsPerSite` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of feeds to return per website. Most sites publish one or two.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "websites": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com",
    "https://overreacted.io"
  ],
  "concurrency": 8,
  "checkWellKnownPaths": true,
  "maxFeedsPerSite": 20
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `overview` (type: `string`):

No description

## `csv` (type: `string`):

No description

## `runSummary` (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 = {
    "websites": [
        "https://news.ycombinator.com",
        "https://overreacted.io"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("technicaldost/website-feed-discovery").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 = { "websites": [
        "https://news.ycombinator.com",
        "https://overreacted.io",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("technicaldost/website-feed-discovery").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 '{
  "websites": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com",
    "https://overreacted.io"
  ]
}' |
apify call technicaldost/website-feed-discovery --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

```

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/ABrcrfZMYblmI5Hih/builds/sDOvtYSr9YfqpxPel/openapi.json