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…