RSS and Atom

What is RSS?

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard web format used to publish frequently updated content, such as news articles, blog posts, podcasts, and announcements.

An RSS feed is essentially a machine-readable list of updates, written in XML, that apps and websites can subscribe to.

✅ What RSS Is Used For

RSS allows users (or applications) to:

Subscribe to websites
Receive automatic updates whenever new content is published
Aggregate many sites into one place (news readers)

For example, instead of visiting 20 news websites, you subscribe to their RSS feeds, and a reader app shows you all updates in one list.

🧠 How RSS Works (Simple)

A website publishes an RSS feed (an XML file) at a URL, e.g.:

https://example.com/feed.xml
Your RSS reader app checks this file regularly.
When the website updates it (new article → new <item>), your reader shows a notification.

📄 RSS Feed Example (Very Simple XML)

Python 3.13 Released

And clicking it takes you to the link.

⭐ Why RSS Is Useful

You don’t need to check websites manually.
You get updates instantly.
No algorithms decide what you see — you control your feed.
Many news apps, podcast apps, and blogs rely on RSS.

📥 Examples of RSS Readers

Feedly
Inoreader
NetNewsWire
Thunderbird
Reeder (iOS / macOS)

🔌 Why Programmers Use RSS

RSS feeds are easy to process with code.

For example, Python can parse an RSS feed:

If you want, I can also explain:

The difference between RSS and Atom feeds
How to parse RSS with Python
How to create your own RSS feed

Would you like that?

Yes, I would.

Great — here’s a clear explanation of RSS vs Atom, plus how to parse RSS in Python, and how to create your own RSS feed.

🆚 1. RSS vs Atom: What’s the Difference?

RSS and Atom are both XML formats for publishing web feeds, but they have some differences.

✔ RSS (Really Simple Syndication)

Older (1999)
Simpler format
More widespread historically
Version widely used: RSS 2.0
Uses <item> for entries

✔ Atom (IETF Standard, 2005)

Newer, more standardized
More flexible and consistent
Uses <entry> instead of <item>
Contains built-in elements for:
- Author
- ID
- Updated time
- Links with relation types

Quick Comparison

Feature	RSS	Atom
Standard?	No single standard	Yes (IETF RFC 4287)
Flexibility	Less	More
Common?	Very common	Common
Date format	Often inconsistent	ISO 8601 standardized
Entry label	`<item>`	`<entry>`

Both formats are still used today.

For most purposes, RSS is enough and easier.

🧪 2. How to Parse RSS Feeds in Python

The easiest library is feedparser.

Install:

Example: Read an RSS feed

What you get:

Feed title: Hacker News: Front Page
Activeloop (YC S18) Is Hiring MTS(Back End)and AI Search Engineer
https://careers.activeloop.ai/
---
Our investigation into the suspicious pressure on Archive.today
https://adguard-dns.io/en/blog/archive-today-adguard-dns-block-demand.html
---
One Handed Keyboard
https://github.com/htx-studio/One-Handed-Keyboard
---
NATO Ended Russia's Estonian Air Incursions
https://themilitaryanalyst.com/2025/11/13/the-real-story-how-nato-ended-russias-estonian-air-incursions/
---
Spec-Driven Development: The Waterfall Strikes Back
https://marmelab.com/blog/2025/11/12/spec-driven-development-waterfall-strikes-back.html
---

Feedparser works for RSS and Atom automatically.

🧱 3. How to Create Your Own RSS Feed (Simple Example)

A minimal RSS 2.0 feed:

🧱 4. Create an RSS Feed Using Python

Here’s a simple script to generate RSS XML:

from datetime import datetime
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ETrss = ET.Element("rss", version="2.0")
channel = ET.SubElement(rss, "channel")ET.SubElement(channel, "title").text = "Frank's Blog"
ET.SubElement(channel, "link").text = "https://example.com"
ET.SubElement(channel, "description").text = "Updates from Frank"item = ET.SubElement(channel, "item")
ET.SubElement(item, "title").text = "Hello World"
ET.SubElement(item, "link").text = "https://example.com/hello"
ET.SubElement(item, "guid").text = "1"pub_date = datetime.utcnow().strftime("%a, %d %b %Y %H:%M:%S GMT")
ET.SubElement(item, "pubDate").text = pub_date
ET.SubElement(item, "description").text = "This is my first article."tree = ET.ElementTree(rss)
tree.write("feed.xml", encoding="utf-8", xml_declaration=True)

Output: a valid RSS feed file feed.xml.

🧩 Want More?

I can also show you:

How to create Atom feeds

✅ How to Create an Atom Feed

Atom is a more modern, standardized format than RSS.
Here is a minimal valid Atom 1.0 feed.

📄 Example Atom Feed (XML)

<feed> instead of <rss>
<entry> instead of <item>
<updated> in ISO 8601 format
<id> a globally unique identifier

🧱 Generate an Atom Feed with Python

from datetime import datetime
import xml.etree.ElementTree as ETATOM_NS = "http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
ET.register_namespace("", ATOM_NS)feed = ET.Element("{%s}feed" % ATOM_NS)ET.SubElement(feed, "{%s}title" % ATOM_NS).text = "Frank's Atom Feed"
ET.SubElement(feed, "{%s}link" % ATOM_NS, href="https://example.com/")
ET.SubElement(feed, "{%s}updated" % ATOM_NS).text = datetime.utcnow().isoformat() + "Z"
ET.SubElement(feed, "{%s}id" % ATOM_NS).text = "https://example.com/feed.atom"entry = ET.SubElement(feed, "{%s}entry" % ATOM_NS)
ET.SubElement(entry, "{%s}title" % ATOM_NS).text = "Hello World"
ET.SubElement(entry, "{%s}link" % ATOM_NS, href="https://example.com/hello")
ET.SubElement(entry, "{%s}id" % ATOM_NS).text = "tag:example.com,2025-11-16:/hello"
ET.SubElement(entry, "{%s}updated" % ATOM_NS).text = datetime.utcnow().isoformat() + "Z"
ET.SubElement(entry, "{%s}summary" % ATOM_NS).text = "This is my first Atom entry."tree = ET.ElementTree(feed)
tree.write("feed.atom", encoding="utf-8", xml_declaration=True)