In this post, we compare 5 popular options to help you find the best WordPress RSS feed plugin for your site.
RSS feed plugins make it easy to import content from any RSS feed to your site. Depending on the plugin, you’ll be able to either display a simple RSS feed using a shortcode or actually import feed items as posts on your WordPress site.
Because you can find an RSS feed for everything from blog content to products, this gives you a great deal of flexibility for automatically displaying constantly-updated content on your site.
Keep reading for a hands-on look at 5 of the best WordPress RSS feed plugins…
Best WordPress RSS Feed Plugin 2018: The Comparison
Here are the 5 RSS feed plugins that I’ll be looking at in this post. For each plugin, I’ll go hands-on and show you how it actually works with real screenshots:
| Plugin | Import RSS Feed As Posts | Free Version? | Starting Price For Pro | Get It |
| WP RSS Aggregator | Yes, with paid version | Yes | Individual add-ons | Visit |
| Feedzy RSS Feeds | Yes, with paid version | Yes | $59 | Visit |
| CyberSyn | Yes, for free | Yes | $99.95 | Visit |
| WPeMatico | Yes, for free | Yes | Individual add-ons | Visit |
| RSSImport | No | Yes | N/A | Visit |
1. WP RSS Aggregator
WP RSS Aggregator is a popular WordPress RSS feed plugin from the same folks behind the WP Mayor blog and EDD Bookings plugin. It’s a free core plugin that you can extend with a variety of add-ons and bundles.
The core plugin is available at WordPress.org. The add-ons cost anywhere from $30 to $80 each. Or, you can purchase one of the two bundles, which cost $70 and $150, respectively.
WP RSS Aggregator Feature List
WP RSS Aggregator lets you import RSS feed content into WordPress in one of two ways:
- Via a shortcode that you embed in a page.
- As actual WordPress posts or custom post types, with the Feed to Post add-on.
Beyond those two core approaches, here are the rest of the pertinent features:
- Import from unlimited RSS feed sources.
- Tool to help automatically discover an RSS feed URL if you can’t find it manually.
- Choose to show/hide specific information from the feed (like the author or publish date)
- Import the full text for each item even if the RSS feed only shows an excerpt (paid)
- Categorize feed sources (paid)
- Filter feed items by keyword to only include/exclude specific items (paid)
Installation And Use
Once you install and activate the plugin, you can configure important basic settings by going to RSS Aggregator ? Settings. This is where you’ll set up how often to crawl RSS feeds, how many feed items to store, etc.:
To add a new feed item, you go to RSS Aggregator ? Add New. From there, you can give it a name, enter the feed URL, and configure some other basic settings:
Then, once you’ve added some feed sources, you can display them on the front-end of your site using the WP RSS Aggregator shortcode builder:
Or, if you have the premium Feed to Post add-on, you can import RSS feed items as actual posts or custom post types at your WordPress site.
WP RSS Aggregator Pros and Cons
- Pros:
- Lets you display feed items via a shortcode or as actual posts
- Lots of detailed features in the premium add-ons for how and when to import RSS feed items
- Lets you set a custom interval for importing feed items to avoid bogging down your server
- Cons:
- The bundle with feed to post functionality is a bit pricey at $150, though it gives you good feature depth.
Get WP RSS Aggregator
2. Feedzy RSS Feeds
Feedzy RSS Feeds is another freemium option that lets you display RSS feed items via a shortcode (in the free version) or import them as actual post items (in the paid version).
The free version is available at WordPress.org. The Pro version starts at $59, but the cheapest tier that lets you import RSS feeds as posts is $149.
Feedzy RSS Feeds Feature List
In the free version, Feedzy RSS Feeds is lightweight, with just a few settings. You’ll perform pretty much everything from the shortcode builder, where you can:
- Choose how many feed items to display
- Configure what content to display
- Choose whether or not to display images, if available
If you get the Pro version, you’ll be able to:
- Import feed items as actual WordPress posts
- Choose templates to control how RSS feed items display
- Filter feed items to only include/exclude specific feed items based on keyword
- Display item prices (helpful for RSS feeds of products)
- Include your affiliate links automatically
- Import the full RSS feed even if the feed only includes the excerpt
Installation And Use
As I mentioned, there’s not really anything to configure, at least in the free version.
Once you install it, you’ll get a new Feedzy Lite button in the WordPress Editor that lets you configure how your feed functions:
One nice thing is the ability to choose how long to cache feed results, which helps ensure there’s no performance slow-down from displaying feed items.
If you go with the Pro version, you’ll get a separate interface where you can import and configure feeds that you want to add as actual WordPress posts.
Feedzy RSS Feeds Pros and Cons
- Pros:
- Very easy to use – just configure the shortcode builder and go
- Custom cache times lets you control how often each individual feed updates
- Unique premium features like the option to insert your own affiliate links
- Cons:
- The shortcode-based approach in the free version means that you can’t update any settings universally
- If you want to import RSS feed items as posts, the $149 price tag is pricey (though comparable to WP RSS Aggregator)
Get Feedzy RSS Feeds
3. CyberSyn
CyberSyn is a freemium WordPress RSS feed plugin with a generous free feature list. Even in the free version, it can do some things that the previous two plugins charge for.
We’ll focus mainly on the free version of this post. But the premium version – CyberSEO – offers more SEO-focused features for RSS feeds, including spinning and automatic comment generation. That premium version costs $99.95.
CyberSyn Feature List
In the free version, CyberSyn can:
- Import feed items as actual WordPress posts
- Import the full text even if the feed only includes an excerpt
- Set a custom interval for when to import feeds
- Assign categories and tags to feed items
- Translate feed items automatically using Google Translate or Yandex Translate
Installation And Use
To get started, you go to CyberSyn ? RSS/Atom Syndicator and enter your feed URL (below the huge ad):
From there, you can configure more about how the import functions, like whether or not to extract the full text RSS feed, which category to assign it to, and the default post status (you can either publish feed items right away or hold them as a draft):
The features get pretty deep here – you can even opt to automatically translate a feed item using Google translate.
Once you finish configuring the import, CyberSyn will start syndicating that RSS feed according to your settings.
CyberSyn Pros and Cons
- Pros:
- Gives you some features for free that other plugins charge ~$150 for.
- Unique features like automatic translation
- Custom feed import intervals to avoid performance hits
- Cons:
- No option to insert feed items via shortcode – only import them as posts.
- No keyword filtering option
Get CyberSyn
4. WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher
WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher is a WordPress RSS feed plugin with a special focus on autoblogging. Like CyberSyn, it lets you import RSS feed items as actual posts (or custom post types) even in the free version.
If you need more functionality, there are a large number of premium extensions that build on that core functionality, as well as various bundles.
WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher Feature List
In the free version, WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher lets you:
- Import RSS feed items as posts or custom post types
- Organize different RSS feeds into categories
- Configure how RSS feed items look
- Automatically attach a certain image as the featured image
- Automatically link certain words to specific URLs that you set
If you need more functionality, the premium add-ons can tack on extra features like:
- Full text RSS feeds even if the feed only includes excerpts
- Manual fetching to manually review fetched feed items
- Translation integration with Polyglot
- Facebook or eBay data fetchers
- Keyword filtering
- Plenty more
Installation And Use
After you install WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher, you can add your first feed(s) by going to WPeMatico ? Add New:
One nice thing is that you can easily include multiple separate feed URLs in a single campaign.
The interface is well-organized. You can quickly choose:
- What post type to use
- The default post status
- How many items to fetch
- How often to fetch
- Lots of other settings
Once you create some campaigns, you can quickly pause or refresh them as needed from the All Campaigns list:
WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher Pros and Cons
- Pros:
- Well-designed interface makes it easy to access important campaign settings
- Option to import feed items as any post type even in the free version
- The large number of premium extensions opens a lot of potential use cases
- Cons:
- If you need premium features, the price for the add-ons/bundles can quickly add up
- No option to import feed items via a shortcode – only post types
Get WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher
5. RSSImport
RSSImport is the most basic RSS feed plugin on this list. It gives you a simple way to display feeds via PHP, shortcodes, or widgets, with none of the more advanced features that you get with other plugins.
There is no premium version – the plugin is 100% free.
RSSImport Feature List
Again, simplicity is the name of the game here.
RSSImport lets you display feed items via a shortcode, widget, or PHP function. For each instance, you can:
- Choose how many items to display
- Add HTML or a string before/after various parts of the feed text
- Choose sorting options
Installation And Use
There’s not much to show here – you just install the plugin and use the shortcode or PHP function as described on the plugin’s WordPress.org page.
The only interface feature that it adds is the RSSImport widget:
RSSImport Pros and Cons
- Pros:
- Simple and lightweight
- Still offers a good deal of flexibility via the shortcode parameters
- Cons:
- Not really a con…but it doesn’t have nearly as much functionality as any of the other plugins (nor does it claim to)
- Because there’s no graphic interface, casual users might struggle with the various options
Get RSSImport
Which Is The Best WordPress RSS Feed Plugin For You?
The plugin that you choose should depend on how you want to display your RSS feed items.
If You Want To Display RSS Feed Items Via A Shortcode…
RSSImport offers the most lightweight approach, but its interface can be hard to understand for casual users.
WP RSS Aggregator or Feedzy RSS Feeds Lite offer better implementations for most users and give you more flexibility using actual interface settings.
If You Want To Import RSS Feed Items As Posts…
CyberSyn and WPeMatico RSS Feed Fetcher are two good options that let you import RSS feed items as posts for free.
WP RSS Aggregator and Feedzy RSS Feeds both offer this functionality as well, you’ll just need to pay for it. You’ll also get keyword filtering and full text RSS feeds bundled in, which might make the price tag more affordable in comparison to the free options above.
And that wraps up our thoughts on the best WordPress RSS feed plugins! If you want more in-depth plugin comparisons like this one, be sure to check out our posts on the best:
- Survey plugins
- FAQ plugins
- Forum plugins
- Helpdesk plugins
- Table plugins
The post What’s The Best WordPress RSS Feed Plugin? 5 Options Compared appeared first on HeroThemes.
