# RSS & Atom Feed to JSON Scraper (`andok/rss-parser`) Actor

Monitor blogs, news sites, and podcasts. Convert any RSS or Atom feed into structured JSON data for instant content syndication.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/andok/rss-parser.md
- **Developed by:** [Andok](https://apify.com/andok) (community)
- **Categories:** News, Developer tools, Integrations
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 30 total users, 2 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $0.47 / 1,000 item parseds

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 & Atom Feed Parser

Parse any RSS or Atom feed into structured JSON and plug it straight into your monitoring pipeline. Tracking competitor blogs, industry news, or podcast releases becomes a scheduled job that outputs clean, normalized data — no XML wrangling required. Feed it dozens of URLs at once and get back every item with title, link, date, author, and content snippet.

### Features

- **Multi-feed processing** — parse dozens of RSS and Atom feeds in a single run
- **Format-agnostic** — handles RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, and Atom feeds automatically
- **Normalized output** — consistent JSON structure regardless of feed format differences
- **Content snippets** — extracts plain-text previews from HTML content fields
- **Category extraction** — preserves article categories and tags from feed metadata
- **Configurable limits** — control how many items to extract per feed
- **Timeout protection** — per-feed timeout prevents slow feeds from blocking the entire run

### Input

| Field | Type | Required | Default | Description |
|-------|------|----------|---------|-------------|
| `urls` | `array` | Yes | — | List of RSS or Atom feed URLs to parse (e.g. `https://news.ycombinator.com/rss`) |
| `maxItems` | `integer` | No | `100` | Maximum number of items to extract per feed (1-500) |
| `timeoutSeconds` | `integer` | No | `15` | Per-feed fetch timeout in seconds (1-120) |

#### Input Example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
    "https://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/index"
  ],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "timeoutSeconds": 15
}
```

### Output

Each dataset item represents one feed item (article, post, or episode). Key fields:

- `feedUrl` (`string`) — the source feed URL
- `feedTitle` (`string`) — title of the parent feed
- `itemTitle` (`string`) — title of the individual item
- `itemLink` (`string`) — URL to the full content
- `pubDate` (`string`) — publication date
- `creator` (`string`) — author or creator name
- `contentSnippet` (`string`) — plain-text preview of the content
- `guid` (`string`) — unique identifier for the item
- `categories` (`array`) — list of tags or categories

#### Output Example

```json
{
  "feedUrl": "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss",
  "feedTitle": "Hacker News",
  "itemTitle": "Show HN: Open-source tool for managing database migrations",
  "itemLink": "https://github.com/example/db-migrate",
  "pubDate": "Mon, 20 Jan 2025 18:45:00 +0000",
  "creator": null,
  "contentSnippet": "A lightweight CLI for managing SQL migrations across Postgres, MySQL, and SQLite.",
  "guid": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38901234",
  "categories": []
}
```

### Pricing

| Event | Cost |
|-------|------|
| Item Parsed | Pay-per-event (see actor pricing page) |

### Use Cases

- **Content monitoring** — schedule daily runs to track blog posts, news articles, or podcast episodes
- **Competitive intelligence** — follow competitor RSS feeds for product announcements and blog updates
- **Data pipeline ingestion** — normalize feed data into JSON for downstream processing, databases, or dashboards
- **Newsletter automation** — aggregate content from multiple sources into a curated feed
- **AI agent context** — supply structured article data to LLM pipelines and RAG applications
- **Slack/webhook alerts** — combine with Apify integrations to push new items to Slack or email

### Related Actors

| Actor | What it adds |
|-------|-------------|
| [Google News Scraper](https://apify.com/andok/google-news-scraper) | Search Google News by keyword instead of parsing known feed URLs |
| [Hacker News Scraper](https://apify.com/andok/hackernews-scraper) | Get richer Hacker News data (scores, comments) via the Firebase API |
| [Markdown Extractor](https://apify.com/andok/markdown-extractor) | Convert the linked articles into clean Markdown for LLM ingestion |

# Actor input Schema

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

List of RSS or Atom feed URLs to parse. Supports RSS 2.0, RSS 1.0, and Atom formats (e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/rss).

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

Maximum number of items (articles, posts, or episodes) to extract from each feed.

## `timeoutSeconds` (type: `integer`):

Per-feed fetch timeout in seconds. Increase for slow or large feeds.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "timeoutSeconds": 15
}
```

# Actor output Schema

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

No description

## `resultsCsv` (type: `string`):

No description

## `run` (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 = {
    "urls": [
        "https://news.ycombinator.com/rss"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("andok/rss-parser").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://news.ycombinator.com/rss"] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("andok/rss-parser").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://news.ycombinator.com/rss"
  ]
}' |
apify call andok/rss-parser --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

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

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/kKqbj90k6OpilGe54/builds/QRSEbE0nBqvo0E6n0/openapi.json