What is an RSS feed?

What is a web feed?

A web feed is a standardised document that lists a website's most recent content in a structured, machine-readable way. Where a normal web page is designed for humans to look at, a feed is designed for programs to read. Because the structure is predictable — every item has the same set of fields — any feed reader can display content from any site, no matter who built it.

"RSS" and "Atom" are the two dominant feed formats. Both are dialects of XML. When people say "RSS feed" casually, they usually mean "a web feed" in general, whether the underlying format is RSS or Atom. A third, newer format, JSON Feed, expresses the same idea in JSON instead of XML.

How RSS works

RSS uses a pull model — nothing is pushed at you, and no central server sits between you and the publisher:

1. A website publishes a feed file at a stable URL, for example https://example.com/feed.xml. A content-management system usually regenerates it automatically whenever a new article is posted.
2. The page's HTML advertises that feed with an autodiscovery tag in its <head>, so a reader can find it from the plain site address:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml"
      title="Example Blog" href="https://example.com/feed.xml">

3. You subscribe in a feed reader. It stores the feed URL and, on a schedule (say every 15–60 minutes), re-downloads the file to see what changed.
4. The reader compares the items against what it has already seen — using each item's unique identifier — and shows you only the genuinely new ones, marking them unread.

That is the whole mechanism. There is no login, no tracking, and no ranking engine deciding what you see: you get everything each source publishes, newest first. (An optional standard called WebSub can add near-instant push updates on top of this polling model.)

Anatomy of a feed

A feed has two parts: metadata about the source (the channel or feed) and a list of content items (the items or entries). Here is a minimal, valid RSS 2.0 feed:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title>Example Blog</title>
    <link>https://example.com</link>
    <description>Notes on the open web</description>
    <item>
      <title>Hello, world</title>
      <link>https://example.com/hello</link>
      <guid>https://example.com/hello</guid>
      <pubDate>Tue, 15 Jul 2026 09:00:00 GMT</pubDate>
      <description>The first post.</description>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

In RSS 2.0 the channel must have a title, link, and description. Each item needs at least a title or a description; a link, a guid (a unique identifier), a pubDate, and an enclosure (for attached media such as a podcast audio file) are all optional but common.

The same feed in Atom

Atom 1.0 covers the same ground with stricter, more explicit rules — note the required globally-unique id and the ISO-8601 updated timestamp:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<feed xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom">
  <title>Example Blog</title>
  <link href="https://example.com"/>
  <id>https://example.com/</id>
  <updated>2026-07-15T09:00:00Z</updated>
  <entry>
    <title>Hello, world</title>
    <link href="https://example.com/hello"/>
    <id>https://example.com/hello</id>
    <updated>2026-07-15T09:00:00Z</updated>
    <summary>The first post.</summary>
  </entry>
</feed>

A short history of RSS and Atom

RSS was born from the late-1990s dream of the "portal" — a single page that pulled headlines from many sources — and grew through a famously tangled series of competing versions.

RSS vs Atom

Both formats solve the same problem, and every serious reader supports both — so as a user you rarely need to care which one a site uses. For publishers and developers, the differences matter:

The specifications

The formats are open and freely implementable. The primary reference documents are:

• RSS 2.0 Specification — maintained by the RSS Advisory Board.
• RFC 4287 — The Atom Syndication Format — the IETF standard for Atom feeds.
• RFC 5023 — The Atom Publishing Protocol — publishing content over HTTP.
• RSS 1.0 (RDF Site Summary) — the RDF-based branch.
• JSON Feed — the modern JSON alternative.
• WebSub — the W3C standard for real-time feed push.
• OPML 2.0 — the format used to import and export lists of feeds.

Beyond blogs: podcasts, WebSub & OPML

Feeds do far more than syndicate blog posts:

• Podcasts are simply RSS feeds whose items carry an <enclosure> pointing at an audio file. Every podcast app in the world is, under the hood, an RSS reader.
• WebSub lets a publisher notify a hub the instant something is posted, so subscribers get updates in near real time instead of waiting for the next poll.
• OPML (Outline Processor Markup Language) is a small XML format for exchanging lists of feeds — it is how you export your subscriptions from one reader and import them into another, with no lock-in.

How to use RSS today

Getting started takes three steps:

1. Pick a reader. A feed reader is the app that collects and displays your feeds — such as SlashFeed.
2. Find feeds. Most blogs, news sites, YouTube channels, Reddit communities, and podcasts publish one. A good reader auto-detects the feed when you paste the site's normal address, so you rarely need the exact feed URL. You can also browse our public feed index.
3. Subscribe and read. New items collect in one place, newest first — read them in the app, save them for later, or have them read aloud. Already using another reader? Import your subscriptions via OPML in one click.

For the full walkthrough, see how it works.

Why RSS still matters

In an era of opaque, engagement-optimised timelines, RSS is quietly radical: you decide what you follow, and you see everything those sources publish, in order, with nothing injected and nothing hidden. There is no ranking algorithm, no advertising auction, and no profile being built from your attention. It is portable — your subscription list is yours to export — and it is decentralised, because it runs on open files served from millions of independent sites rather than one company's platform.

That is exactly the web SlashFeed is built for. Read more about the philosophy on our about page, or see why a chronological, source-chosen reader is a defence against algorithmic misinformation.

Frequently asked questions

What does RSS stand for?

Different things across its versions: "RDF Site Summary" (RSS 0.9 and 1.0), "Rich Site Summary" (RSS 0.91), and — most commonly today — "Really Simple Syndication" (RSS 2.0).

What is the difference between RSS and Atom?

Both are XML feed formats that do the same job. Atom (RFC 4287, 2005) is a later, more strictly specified standard — globally-unique IDs, ISO-8601 dates, and explicit content types. RSS 2.0 is older, simpler, and more widespread. Virtually every reader, including SlashFeed, supports both.

Is RSS still used in 2026?

Yes. RSS and Atom quietly power podcasts, news aggregators, newsletters, and millions of blogs and sites. Google Reader's 2013 shutdown reduced RSS's visibility but not its use.

Is JSON Feed the same as RSS?

JSON Feed (2017) is a newer alternative that expresses the same idea in JSON rather than XML, making it easier for developers to generate and parse. It is less widely adopted than RSS and Atom, but many modern readers support it.