Article rssCloud
rssCloud Server 4.0 Now Supports WebSub Notifications
Over the weekend, I released rssCloud Server 4.0 and wanted to discuss how I added WebSub support to the server.
WebSub is an alternative protocol that has the same purpose as rssCloud: to notify subscribers of real-time updates.
Back in 2020, Dave Jones had suggested I add support for WebSub because they were "close enough in their implementation" that it should be feasible. At the time, I didn't really know much about WebSub. I had heard of PubSubHubbub and knew it was different from rssCloud because it sent "fat pings" (notifications that include the feed data, as opposed to just a URL), but that was it.
Now, while upgrading the server to a modern stack, I decided to investigate WebSub to see what would be involved and found Dave was correct and it wasn't all that different from rssCloud.
The rssCloud server now functions as a complete end-to-end WebSub hub (see WebSub documentation), but that's not the most interesting part. The interesting thing is that because it shares the same notification core as rssCloud, the two protocols can work together.
So if you have an app that publishes an RSS feed, you can notify my server when it changes, using either protocol. Subscribers can subscribe to your feed using either protocol and will be notified regardless of which notification protocol your CMS supports. Here is a quick start guide showing how simple it can be.
In the documentation, I have a more detailed description of how it fits together if you're interested.
