RSS Feed Reader (RSS and Atom Items)

What is RSS Feed Reader?

RSS Feed Reader reads RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds and returns one row per feed item: title, link, author, published date, categories, summary, full content (optional) and image. Give it feed URLs, or give it ordinary web page URLs and it finds the feed each page links to with <link rel="alternate">. It filters by publication date and caps the number of items per feed. It makes plain HTTP requests, so it needs no browser, no login and no API key. Pricing is pay per item.

What data does RSS Feed Reader extract?

Field	Type	Description
feedUrl	string	The feed the item came from (after page discovery)
feedTitle	string	Feed or site title
feedSiteUrl	string	Website the feed belongs to
itemTitle	string	Item title, plain text
link	string	Item URL
guid	string	Feed id of the item (falls back to the link)
publishedAt	string (ISO)	Publication date, from pubDate or the Atom published/updated date
author	string	Author name when the feed gives one
categories	array	Feed categories or tags
summary	string	Item summary or description as plain text, capped at 1,000 characters
content	string	Full item body as plain text, only when includeContent is on, capped at 20,000 characters
imageUrl	string	Enclosure image, media thumbnail, or the first image in the item HTML
format	string	rss or atom
scrapedAt	string (ISO)	When the Actor read the row

How to use RSS Feed Reader

1. Open the Actor in the Apify Console and click Try for free.
2. In Feed or page URLs, add one URL per entry, e.g. https://xkcd.com/rss.xml.
3. Optional: set Only items published since to an ISO date, e.g. 2026-10-01.
4. Optional: set Max items per feed (default 50, up to 1,000).
5. Click Start and download the rows as JSON, CSV or Excel.

Example input

{
    "urls": ["https://blog.rust-lang.org/", "https://xkcd.com/rss.xml"],
    "maxItemsPerFeed": 20,
    "sinceDate": "2026-10-01",
    "includeContent": true
}

Example output

{
    "feedUrl": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/feed.xml",
    "feedTitle": "Rust Blog",
    "feedSiteUrl": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/",
    "itemTitle": "Announcing rustup 1.29.2",
    "link": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/2026/10/20/Rustup-1.29.2/",
    "guid": "https://blog.rust-lang.org/2026/10/20/Rustup-1.29.2/",
    "publishedAt": "2026-10-20T00:00:00.000Z",
    "author": "The Rustup Team",
    "categories": null,
    "summary": null,
    "content": null,
    "imageUrl": null,
    "format": "atom",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-10-23T10:13:56.351Z"
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
urls	array	Rust blog feed	Feed or web page URLs (http or https).
sinceDate	string	empty	Keep items published on or after this ISO date. Items without a date are kept.
maxItemsPerFeed	integer	50	Newest items kept from each feed (1 to 1,000).
includeContent	boolean	false	Adds the full item body as plain text.
discoverFeeds	boolean	true	Follow feed links on web pages (up to 5 per page).

Pricing

Pay per item. The default price is $0.0005 per item on the FREE tier, with volume tiers down to $0.0003. A run start costs $0.00005. Measured run usage was $0.000 (2 to 4 seconds per run at 512 MB), so platform cost is far below the price.

Items	Price on FREE tier
100	$0.05
1,000	$0.50

RSS Feed Reader vs. alternatives

This Actor reads any RSS or Atom feed and can find the feed on a web page. Single-site Actors such as the YouTube channel feed reader only read one platform. Use this one when you need a general feed reader across many sites, or when a page gives you a homepage URL and you want its feed.

Using RSS Feed Reader with AI agents / MCP

Agents can call the Actor with a list of urls and a sinceDate to get only fresh items. Keep includeContent off unless the agent needs the full text, because content adds size to each row.

FAQ

Which formats are supported? RSS 2.0 and Atom. RDF/RSS 1.0 feeds are not parsed; the run reports an error for them.

Does it read pages that load their feed with JavaScript? No. Discovery reads the HTML the server sends. If the page has no feed link in that HTML, the run reports it.

Why is summary empty for some items? Some feeds send only a title and a link. The Actor does not guess text it did not receive.

What about duplicates? Items are de-duplicated across all feeds in one run by guid, or by link when an item has no guid.

Can I use it with n8n, Make or Zapier? Yes, through the Apify integration with the same input fields.

What if a URL fails? The run keeps going with the other URLs and writes the failures to the ERRORS record in the key-value store.

Related Actors

• YouTube Channel Latest Videos (RSS, no API key): the latest videos of a YouTube channel from its feed.

Support

Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab. Include the URL and the ERRORS record.