In the world of RSS feed parsing, a new library called Feedsmith is making waves among developers for its unique approach to handling feed data. The library, which supports RSS, Atom, JSON Feed, and RDF feeds, has caught the attention of prominent developers in the RSS ecosystem who appreciate its focus on preserving original feed structures while offering impressive performance benefits.
Preservation of Original Feed Structure Sets Feedsmith Apart
Unlike many alternative feed parsing libraries that normalize data by combining different fields into unified properties, Feedsmith maintains the original structure of feeds as provided in each specific format. This approach addresses a common frustration among developers who need access to the complete feed data without losing information from specific namespaces. The library's creator designed it to handle the complexities of various feed formats while ensuring that specialized data isn't lost during parsing.
Great job! I'm the creator of RSSHub and Folo, I previously used rss-parser and encountered some issues, feedsmith has features that interest me, I'll give it a try!
This preservation of structure appears to be resonating with developers who work extensively with RSS feeds, including the creator of popular projects like RSSHub and Folo, who expressed interest in adopting Feedsmith after experiencing issues with other parsers.
Performance Benchmarks Show Promising Results
Benchmarks shared by the developer indicate that Feedsmith offers significant performance improvements over some competing libraries. According to comments in the discussion, switching from rss-parser to Feedsmith nearly doubled overall parsing speed in real-world applications. This performance boost comes despite Feedsmith supporting more feed namespaces than many alternatives.
The benchmarks show Feedsmith consistently ranking in the top performers for parsing various feed formats. While raw parsing speed might not be the only consideration for developers, the combination of comprehensive format support and strong performance makes for a compelling package.
Supported Feed Formats in Feedsmith:
- RSS (versions 0.9x, 2.0)
- Atom (versions 0.3, 1.0)
- JSON Feed (versions 1.0, 1.1)
- RDF (versions 0.9, 1.0)
- OPML (versions 1.0, 2.0)
Benchmark Results (Operations per second for RSS parsing):
| Package | Ops/sec | Average (ms) |
|---|---|---|
| @xmldom/xmldom + feeds | 1.34k | 0.747123 |
| @xmldom/xmldom + fast-xml-parser | 1.18k | 0.844455 |
| feedparser | 4.14 | 241.658 |
| feeds | 2.56 | 390.625 |
| feedsmith | 0.94 | 1063.821 |
Cross-Language Comparisons Spark Developer Interest
The discussion around Feedsmith has also prompted conversations about how it compares to feed parsing libraries in other programming languages. Several developers expressed interest in seeing benchmarks comparing Feedsmith to Python's feedparser library, suggesting there's appetite for cross-language performance comparisons in this space.
This interest highlights how developers often work across multiple language ecosystems and are constantly evaluating tools based on both feature set and performance characteristics, regardless of implementation language.
Addressing Common Feed Parsing Challenges
Feedsmith tackles several persistent challenges in feed parsing, including the handling of dates in various formats. Rather than attempting to parse all possible date formats (and potentially introducing errors), the library returns dates in their original string form, allowing developers to use their preferred date parsing approach.
The library is also designed to be forgiving when handling incomplete or non-standard feeds, extracting whatever valid data it can find rather than failing on feeds that don't strictly follow specifications. This resilience makes it particularly suitable for working with feeds in the wild that may not adhere perfectly to standards.
For developers working with RSS and other feed formats, Feedsmith represents a promising addition to the ecosystem that balances performance with comprehensive format support and a philosophy of preserving original feed structures. As more developers adopt and test the library in production environments, its impact on feed-based applications may continue to grow.
Reference: Feedsmith