A Friendlier Format, A Harder Problem

On 17 May 2017, Brent Simmons and Manton Reece published the JSON Feed specification, proposing a syndication format that replaced XML's angle brackets with plain JSON. The motivation was direct: XML parsing is fiddly, namespace collisions are common, and every developer already knows how to consume JSON. A feed item becomes a readable dictionary of keys — title, content_html, url, date_published — rather than a nest of elements requiring namespace-aware parsers.

The spec itself is tight. Version 1 fit the essential elements onto a single page. There is a top-level feed object carrying metadata, and an items array holding individual entries. Optional extensions follow the same key-naming convention, avoiding the namespace wars that complicated the RSS 2.0 and Atom split. Version 1.1, released in 2020, added a handful of clarifications — nothing that broke existing implementations.

Terminal window on a dark monitor showing a raw Atom feed in XML, angle brackets and namespaces visible, person's hands on keyboard
A feed is a text file sitting on a server. Between the publisher and the reader there is a fetch, and nothing else.Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels
Printed copy of RFC 4287 on a wooden desk, a hand resting on the first page, coffee mug beside it
Specifications are argued over in rooms like this one. Atom's took a working group two years; RSS 2.0's had a single author and a closing date.Photo: Kindel Media / Pexels

Adoption among feed readers came quickly and without drama. Feedbin, Inoreader, and NetNewsWire — Simmons's own reader — added JSON Feed support within weeks of the announcement. The format worked exactly as advertised for developers building new publishing tools. Ghost, the open-source CMS, added JSON Feed output alongside its RSS feed. The conversation on developer forums was notably free of the acrimony that surrounded the Atom split of 2003.

What did not move was the broader web. WordPress, which powers a large share of public sites, ships RSS by default; switching requires deliberate action. Substack, Beehiiv, and the major newsletter platforms emit RSS or Atom. The hundreds of millions of existing feed subscriptions stored in OPML export files point at XML endpoints accumulated over two decades.

JSON Feed solved a real developer-experience problem. It did not, and probably cannot, solve the installed-base problem. The format is supported, maintained, and genuinely pleasant to work with — and it will remain a minority alongside the formats it set out to simplify.

From the record

Timeline

  1. May 2017JSON Feed version 1 published by Brent Simmons and Manton Reece
  2. May–June 2017Feedbin, Inoreader, NetNewsWire add support within weeks
  3. 2020JSON Feed version 1.1 released with minor clarifications