Ask HN: How can I create an RSS feed for any website/url?

4 points by ildix 6y ago ↗ HN

I've been using feedly.com to track websites and curate content for a newsletter. Certain websites that used to offer public RSS feeds no longer have them, two quick examples: https://genius.com/articles + https://daily.bandcamp.com/latest.

Feedly says they are not in the business of creating RSS feeds, only plugging them into their reader.

Im wondering if there are any good free/reasonably priced solutions for being able to create RSS Feeds of urls that do not offer them?

It seems to me that the web is becoming increasingly private, with devs purposely disabling RSS feeds or making it hard to create them for their web pages. Would love to hear thoughts on this topic.

7 comments

[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 22.7 ms ] thread

datashaman 6y ago ↗

Syndicating someone else's content without their permission seems dodgy, if not illegal.

ildix 6y ago ↗

I have heard this argument before. Personally i don't agree. If you are a content creator and your content is available for free online, is it not your goal to have the content shared as widely as possible?

A lot of tools/services we use today (eg: Google, Facebook, Reddit) were built without asking for permission. Reddit co-founder Alexis talked a lot about this in his book https://withouttheirpermission.com

rsscircus 6y ago ↗

https://feed43.com/ : a bit technical but the free version is sufficient for most sites

All other solutions are quite limited in their free version (5 news per day and feed deleted if nothing happens during 1 week)... and quite expensive in their paid version. FetchRSS Feedity Feed Creator

This last one have a inexpensive "to host" version.

ildix 6y ago ↗

I have come across feed43 but have not tried to test it with some of the links im looking to create rss feeds for. At a quick glance, it didn't seem user friendly but if you vouch for it ill have to check it out.

rsscircus 6y ago ↗

If ever you read french, here is my tuto on Feed43 https://rsscircus.com/transformer-une-page-dactualites-en-fi...

ildix 6y ago ↗

I unfortunately don't speak french but ill try to use English translation for this.

hopesthoughts 6y ago ↗

There are 2 services I use. feedfry.com and rss.app. RSS.app is the paid one, and feedfry you can use for free if you don't sign up with an account.