How does RSSHub turn websites and services into RSS feeds?

Updated

RSSHub is a feed generator that converts websites and services which do not publish their own RSS into subscribable feeds. It works by running a route for a given source, fetching and parsing that source's content, and returning it as a standard RSS or Atom document. You use it when a site you follow has no native feed and you want updates delivered to an RSS reader instead of checking the page manually.

The core mechanism

RSSHub sits between the source and your feed reader. Instead of asking the website for a feed (which it does not offer), your reader asks RSSHub for one.

The flow has three stages:

  1. Route selection — Each supported source has a route, a URL path that identifies what to fetch. The route encodes the site and the specific content you want, such as a user's posts, a tag, or a search result.
  2. Fetch and parse — RSSHub requests the underlying page or API, then extracts the relevant items (titles, links, timestamps, content) according to rules written for that source.
  3. Format as a feed — The extracted items are assembled into a standard RSS/Atom XML document and returned to the requester.

Because the output is ordinary RSS, any feed reader can consume it. The reader does not need to know anything about how the source was scraped.

What a route looks like

A route is the part of the RSSHub URL that describes the source. The general shape is:

https://<rsshub-instance>/<route-path>

For example, a route might target a user's timeline on a social platform, a category on a news site, or a channel on a video service. The exact path depends on the source; the documentation lists the available routes and their parameters.

When you subscribe, you paste the full generated URL into your reader. The reader polls it on its normal schedule, and RSSHub produces a fresh feed each time.

Why this matters

Many sites and platforms stopped offering RSS, or never offered it. RSSHub restores a subscribable feed for them without requiring the site to change. This lets you:

  • Follow updates from sources that only expose a web page or an app.
  • Consolidate many sources into one reader.
  • Apply your reader's own filtering, search, and notification rules to content that would otherwise be locked in a browser tab.

Practical considerations

  • Route availability varies. Not every site has a route, and routes can break when a source changes its page structure or API. Check the documentation for the current list.
  • Some routes need parameters. Routes for user-specific or query-specific content require you to supply values such as a username or ID.
  • You need somewhere to run it. RSSHub can be used through a public instance or self-hosted. The documentation covers both, including deployment options.
  • Feed freshness depends on polling. The feed reflects the source at the time RSSHub fetches it, so update frequency is governed by how often the feed is requested and how the route caches results.

When to use it

Use RSSHub when a source you want to follow has no built-in feed and you want it in an RSS reader. If the site already publishes a native RSS feed, subscribe to that directly instead. If a route does not exist for your source, RSSHub cannot generate a feed for it without a new route being written.