JSON Feed v1.1 Generator

JSON Feed: the JSON-native answer to RSS and Atom

JSON Feed was published in May 2017 by Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire) and Manton Reece (micro.blog) with one motivation: developers find JSON dramatically easier to produce and parse than XML. The current revision is version 1.1 (jsonfeed.org/version/1.1), released in 2020, which added top-level language, an authors array, and minor clarifications. The format covers the same conceptual surface as RSS and Atom — a list of dated, addressable items — but the wire format is a JSON object with predictable string keys instead of XML elements with namespaces.

A minimal valid feed looks like this:

{
  "version": "https://jsonfeed.org/version/1.1",
  "title": "My Feed",
  "home_page_url": "https://example.com/",
  "feed_url": "https://example.com/feed.json",
  "language": "en",
  "items": [
    {
      "id": "https://example.com/post-1",
      "url": "https://example.com/post-1",
      "title": "First Post",
      "content_html": "<p>Hello</p>",
      "date_published": "2024-01-01T12:00:00Z"
    }
  ]
}

Why JSON Feed exists

XML feeds carry decades of accumulated edge cases: incompatible date formats (RFC 822 vs RFC 3339), CDATA sections, namespace clashes between extensions, and parsers that silently mangle entities. JSON Feed sidesteps all of it. Dates are always RFC 3339, text is always UTF-8, the id can be any unique string (typically a URL), and there are no namespaces — extensions live under top-level keys prefixed with an underscore (for example _microblog).

Adoption and tooling

JSON Feed adoption is smaller than RSS/Atom but steady. Native support: Inoreader, NetNewsWire, Reeder, micro.blog, and several feed-validation libraries. Static site generators that emit JSON Feed alongside RSS and Atom: Eleventy (the eleventy-plugin-rss bundle), Hugo (via a custom output format) and Jekyll (jekyll-feed plugin). For the open podcast ecosystem, JSON Feed is not a substitute — Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the rest require RSS 2.0 with the itunes: namespace.

JSON Feed vs RSS vs Atom

• Ergonomics: JSON Feed is by far the easiest to generate from a templated string or JSON.stringify.
• Ecosystem: RSS dominates podcasts and legacy readers; Atom is the strictest spec; JSON Feed has the smallest tooling base but enthusiastic developer support.
• Extensibility: Atom uses XML namespaces; JSON Feed uses underscore-prefixed top-level keys (no schema lookups required).
• Binary attachments: all three support enclosures (JSON Feed via the attachments array on each item).

FAQ

Does JSON Feed replace RSS? No, it coexists. Most sites that publish JSON Feed also publish RSS and Atom from the same template. Replacing RSS would mean breaking thousands of legacy readers and the entire podcast ecosystem.

Is JSON Feed simpler than RSS? For developers, yes — there is no XML parsing, no namespace handling and no date-format ambiguity. For end users the difference is invisible: a feed reader subscribes the same way.

Can I use JSON Feed for podcasts? No. Apple Podcasts and Spotify only accept RSS 2.0 with the itunes: namespace. Even Overcast, Pocket Casts and Castro reject anything else.

Which fields are required in 1.1? Only version, title and items at the feed level, plus id on each item. Everything else (home_page_url, feed_url, authors, language) is recommended but optional.