Reddit has announced it is winding down RSS feeds and moving apps from its public API to its own Developer Platform. RSS support is due to end on November 13, and the remaining public API access in March 2027. The company says the changes are meant to fight mass automated data scraping and abuse by bots.
For an ordinary Reddit visitor, the website and the app aren’t going anywhere. The changes mainly affect people who followed subreddits in RSS readers or built bots, analytics services or their own apps with access to the platform’s data.
What changes for RSS readers
RSS is a simple format for subscribing to a site’s new posts. Many people read Reddit not through the main interface but by collecting dozens of topic feeds in Feedly, Inoreader or their own programs. Once RSS is switched off, that will stop working: new posts will have to come through notifications, the official client or tools Reddit supports separately.
At first glance, it’s a small technical change. But RSS is valuable precisely because it doesn’t depend on recommendations and algorithmic feeds: users choose their own sources and see posts in chronological order. So the decision affects not only developers but also readers used to a more open way of reading the internet.
What happens to bots and third-party apps
Reddit is asking developers to move to the Developer Platform, an environment where apps and automation run under the platform’s rules, with registration and stricter control. The company promises to help port useful community tools, but independent projects will have to check whether the features they need are available under the new terms.
- new applications for public access will stop being accepted at the end of October;
- in early 2027, access will start to be restricted for apps that haven’t registered or don’t respond to the platform’s requests;
- by March 2027, the remaining public API is set to be closed.
Why Reddit ties this to AI
Reddit’s forums hold a huge body of live discussions, from technical how-tos to personal experience. Such data is valuable for training and evaluating AI systems, and open technical interfaces make mass copying of content easier. Reddit sees RSS and its older API mechanisms as one of the entry points that make it easier for bots to collect data at scale.
FAQ
When will Reddit turn off RSS?
The company gave the date as November 13, 2026.
Will Reddit itself stop working?
No. This is about RSS and external programmatic access, not about shutting down the website or the official app.
Why move to the Developer Platform?
Reddit wants to control apps and automation through a single set of rules to limit mass unauthorized data collection.
