RSS to Discourse: New Forum Topics From Your Feed

Updated: 2026-09-28

Short answer: in PostRSS open Accounts → Add new Discourse account and enter your forum URL with either an admin API key and a username or a user API key. Then open Ținte → Add feed, choose Discourse in Target settings, pick the category topics should open in, and add your feed under Add source (Type = RSS feed, Link = your feed address). Each new feed item opens a new topic with its text, a link and the image uploaded to your forum. Self-hosted forums work too. Discourse is included from the Professional plan.

Discourse runs a large share of the serious community forums on the internet — open-source projects, SaaS products, universities, hobbyist communities that outgrew Facebook groups. If you run one alongside a blog, the two usually live in separate worlds: articles are published, and the forum finds out when somebody remembers to post a link.

A topic per article, not a firehose

The integration opens one topic per feed item, in the category you choose. That distinction matters more than it sounds. A topic is a place people reply in, not a notification that scrolls past — which makes the forum a far better destination for long-lived content than a chat channel and a far worse one for a high-volume news feed.

The practical rule: point a forum Target at content that deserves a conversation. Release announcements, feature posts, long-form articles and documentation updates all justify a topic. A feed publishing fifteen short items a day does not, and a community will tell you so quickly.

Choosing the right category is the other half of it. Most forums already have an Announcements or News category that members expect to be one-directional; that is where an automated feed belongs. Dropping topics into a general discussion category tends to read as noise no matter how good the content is.

Setting it up, step by step

1. Create the credential in Discourse: either an admin API key (which you use together with a username, so topics are attributed to that account) or a user API key for a single account.
2. In PostRSS, open Accounts and choose Add new Discourse account. Enter your forum URL along with the key and, for an admin key, the username that should appear as the author.
3. Open Targets and click Add feed. One feed going to one destination is one Target.
4. In Target settings, choose Discourse and the account you just connected. Pick the category new topics should open in — this is the decision that determines whether the feed reads as useful or as spam.
5. Click Add source. Set Type to RSS feed and paste your feed address into Link. Save.
6. Check the first item that arrives. PostRSS checks the feed every 5 minutes (every minute on Enterprise plans), so the wait is short.

What the topic contains

• The item's text, as the first post in the topic.
• A link back to the original article.
• The image, uploaded to your forum rather than hot-linked, so it keeps working if the original moves.

Uploading rather than linking is a small detail with a long-term payoff: forum topics stay readable for years, and a hot-linked image that disappears leaves a broken post behind it.

Which account should post

An admin API key plus a username lets you choose which account the topics are attributed to, and that choice is worth making deliberately. A dedicated account — something like "Blog" or the name of your publication — makes automated topics instantly recognisable and keeps a human moderator's profile uncluttered. It also means revoking access later affects nothing else.

A user API key ties posting to one specific account instead, which is simpler and fine for a small forum where that account is obviously the publication.

Self-hosted forums

Self-hosted Discourse works the same way as hosted, with one requirement: the forum has to be reachable over HTTPS on port 443. That is the normal configuration, but forums sitting behind a VPN, on an internal network or on a non-standard port will not receive posts, and the symptom is simply that nothing appears.

Where this genuinely pays off

• Product communities. Every release note becomes a topic customers can ask questions in, instead of a changelog nobody reads.
• Open-source projects. Blog posts, security advisories and roadmap updates land where contributors already are.
• Membership sites. The forum is the members' area; the feed keeps it current without extra editorial work.
• Documentation updates. A docs feed into a dedicated category gives users a place to say "this step is wrong", which is worth more than a perfectly quiet changelog.

What it does not do

PostRSS publishes items that appear in the feed after the Target starts running. Connecting an established feed does not import its back catalogue, which is deliberate — the alternative is a destination flooded with years of archive on day one.

It does not moderate, reply, close topics or tag them. Everything after the topic is created belongs to your moderators, which is the correct division of labour.

Which plan includes it

Discourse is included from the Professional plan. Each destination you connect counts as one Target, and your plan sets how many Targets and how many posts a month you get. An annual subscription is cheaper than paying monthly. The current limits for every tier are on the pricing page, and the full list of 66 networks is on the supported networks page. The Discourse page has the short version.

When topics stop appearing

• The API key was revoked. Keys are managed in the forum's admin area and stop working the moment they are removed.
• The posting account lost permission. If the account cannot create topics in the chosen category, nothing is created. Category permissions are the usual culprit.
• The category was deleted or renamed. Re-select it in Target settings.
• A self-hosted forum is unreachable. It must answer over HTTPS on port 443.
• Rate limits. Discourse throttles rapid posting by design. A feed checked every 5 minutes stays well inside that unless you point several busy feeds at one forum.

Keeping an automated feed welcome in a community

A forum is not a broadcast surface, and a feed that behaves like one gets resented even when the content is good. Four habits make the difference between a useful Announcements category and a bot nobody reads.

• Use a category people opted into. Announcements, Releases, News — somewhere members expect one-directional posts. General discussion is not that place.
• Post a dedicated account, not a person. An obvious "Blog" or publication account tells members at a glance which topics are automated, which is more honest than a staff member appearing to post fifteen times a week.
• Answer the replies. The topic is the beginning of a conversation. A feed that opens topics and never responds teaches people not to bother replying.
• Send less than you could. If your blog publishes daily, connect a category feed rather than the whole thing. A forum rewards signal far more than a timeline does.

How this compares with the alternatives

• Discourse's built-in feed polling. Discourse can pull a feed into a category by itself, which works and is free. It runs on your forum's own schedule, handles one feed per category, and is configured by an admin in the site settings — fine if the forum is the only destination you care about.
• A script against the Discourse API. Complete control and a permanent maintenance job: de-duplication, image upload, key rotation.
• Posting by hand. Still the right answer for a weekly announcement, and the thing that quietly stops happening during a busy quarter.

The argument for a general tool is the usual one: the same release note that deserves a forum topic normally also needs to reach your chat channels, your Mastodon account and your newsletter. Doing that from one feed is the part that saves real time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does each feed item become a separate topic?

Yes. Every new item opens a new topic in the category you chose, with its text, a link to the original and the image uploaded to your forum. That is what makes a forum a good destination for content worth discussing and a poor one for high-volume news.

Do I need an admin API key, or will a user key do?

Either works. An admin key is used together with a username, so you control which account appears as the author; a user API key ties posting to that one account. A dedicated "Blog" account is the tidier arrangement on larger forums.

Does self-hosted Discourse work?

Yes, provided the forum is reachable over HTTPS on port 443. Forums behind a VPN or on a non-standard port will not receive posts.

Is the article image uploaded or linked?

Uploaded to your forum. Forum topics are read for years, and an uploaded image survives changes to the original site that would break a hot link.

Can I send different feeds to different categories?

Yes. The category is a Target setting, so a release-notes feed and a blog feed can open topics in different parts of the same forum.

Will connecting a feed create topics for old articles?

No. Only items that appear in the feed after the Target starts running are posted, so an established feed does not fill your forum with its archive.

The bottom line

Discourse is the right destination when you want a conversation rather than a notification, and the setup is one API key plus a category. Point it at content that deserves a topic — releases, announcements, long-form articles — rather than at everything you publish, and the forum stays somewhere people read. It is included from the Professional plan.