Free Alternatives to Feedburner: A Small Guide

Is Feedburner dying?

As you must know Google will shut down the Feedburner API soon.

The Google Feedburner APIs have been officially deprecated as of May 26, 2011 will be shut down on October 20, 2012.

Google Dev Blog

And, just in case, I was looking for some free alternatives to Feedburner in my errands and I have compiled here a list of resources for you.

Let's begin.

I. Alternatives

a. Feedcat

Feedcat.net is mainly dedicated to boosting feeds and also serves as a public catalogue of feeds (RSS and ATOM).
You can submit your feeds and use services for free.
http://www.feedcat.net/

b. Feedsky

If you read chinese, here is the Chinese version of Feedburner.
http://www.feedsky.com/

c. Feedity

Create RSS Feed for any Webpage, Instantly!
Subscribe: Use for Social Media Monitoring and Buzz Tracking
Publish: Improve Reach and SEO with Feeds on your Website
Utilize: Deliver Podcasts to iTunes, Display in Mobile Apps
According to their FAQ: "You can upgrade your account at any time, and best of all - we'll always offer a free version of our service!"
http://feedity.com/

d.Feedpass

Feedpass is a way for you to make RSS easy for anyone. If you've got a blog or feed, then you need a feedpass. We automatically create a subscription page that allows your readers to subscribe using RSS readers, browsers, or by email. We also explain RSS technology and make it simple for novices or experts to get your feed.
From the FAQ: Registering your feedpass pages adds them to your 'my feedpass' profile. This allows you to keep track of all of your feedpass pages, choose different template designs, and see page view statistics. It also gives you links to customized buttons with code, auto-discovery code, and more.
http://www.feedpass.com/getstarted.php


II. Other tools

IFTTT

Through Ifttt you can create recipes to get information from a channel. A channel has its own triggers and actions.
Example: if (some channel) ✚ (a trigger) then some action.
It sounds complicated, but in the website there are lots of recipes already prepared for you to use.
In this case we are interested in the case of the feed of your blog emailed to you or your subscribers.
Some useful recipes to use as examples are:
1. RSS to Mail https://ifttt.com/recipes/4447
2. Save tweets to Evernote using your Twitter RSS feed https://ifttt.com/recipes/58229
3. New feed item matches then Post a Tweet https://ifttt.com/recipes/59536
4. Automatically add posts from an RSS feed to your Readability reading list https://ifttt.com/recipes/77
5. Lifehacker Dealhacker Posts sent to Email https://ifttt.com/recipes/50653
6. Email lifehacker's Download Roundup to yourself. https://ifttt.com/recipes/12368
7. Pinterest feed to Evernote https://ifttt.com/recipes/8484
8. Email me '10 Things To Know This Morning' https://ifttt.com/recipes/42713
9. Send our blog posts to my HootSuite networks https://ifttt.com/recipes/60075
https://ifttt.com/

Example: Check my sidebar for the ifttt badge. I have created a recipe to send an email instantly when there is a new post in the blog. You can get it at: https://ifttt.com/recipes/60358 To use this Recipe, review the Trigger and Action and click Use Recipe.

III. Wordpress

a. FeedStats Plugin

Simple statistic tool for feeds, by Andres Nieto Porras and Frank Bueltge.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedstats-de/

b. Plugin Daily Stat

This plugin (a lite fork of StatPress Visitors) shows the real-time statistics on your blog. It collects information about visitors, spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers, OS, etc., as Statpress Visitors.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/daily-stat/

c. Plugin Feed Statistics

Feed Statistics is a plugin for WordPress blogs that tracks statistics for your RSS/Atom feeds, including the number of subscribers, which feed readers they're using, which posts they're viewing and which links they're clicking on.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-feed-statistics/

And you can email your blogpost via:

d. Plugin Jetpack

Simple, concise stats with no additional load on your server. Previously provided by WordPress.com Stats.
Email subscriptions for your blog's posts and your post's comments.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/jetpack/

e. Plugin Email Subscription

The plugin provides a admin page where you can customize the emails to be sent. There is also a widget to be customized in the widget panel. The plugin uses wordpress schedule events to schedule emails.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/email-subscription/

f. Plugin MailChimp List Subscribe Form

The MailChimp plugin allows you to quickly and easily add a signup form for your MailChimp list as a widget on your WordPress 2.8 or higher site.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/mailchimp/

g. Plugin Posts to Newsletters

This plugin allows you to easily create newsletters from your posts. You can customize the template of your newsletters to use your logo and custom styles. You can add any number of posts (or custom post types) to each newsletter. You can then optionally create and send MailChimp campaigns directly from WordPress.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/posts-to-newsletters/

h. Plugin Wysija Newsletters

Drag and drop your posts, images, social icons in their visual editor. Pick one of 20 themes. Change fonts and colors on the fly. Send the latest posts when you want or as a single newsletter.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wysija-newsletters/

i. Plugin SendFeed

The SendFeed plugin allows you to send the latest post(s) from your RSS feed to an external Mailing List Manager in both text and html formats. It is capable of sending messages out immediately, at predefined intervals such as daily/weekly/monthly or manually.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sendfeed/


IV. The Newsletter Alternative

Instead of offering the RSS service or as an alternative, you can send newsletter to your readers.

a. Mailchimp

Forever Free Plan
If you have fewer than 2,000 subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month absolutely free. There's no expiring trial, contract, or credit card required, though a few features are only available to paying users.

Simply choose RSS‑to‑email Campaign in MailChimp’s campaign builder, create your template, and they’ll handle the rest.

http://mailchimp.com/features/rss-to-email/

And here they have a tutorial about it:
http://blog.mailchimp.com/rss-to-email-tutorial/

b. Nourish

Nourish is a free newsletter service that allows you to convert any RSS feed into an automated email newsletter your readers can subscribe to.
http://www.nouri.sh/

c. Tinyletter

How It Works:
Design your subscribe page.
The signup form is elegant and easy to edit, so you can make TinyLetter your own.
Compose and send your TinyLetter.
There aren’t any templates to bother with. One click, and you’re off. We’ll even adjust the font size and line height on mobile devices so your letter always looks great.
Reply to your readers.
See who reads your newsletters, and continue the discussion with those who respond.
http://tinyletter.com/

Updates (7/10/2012):

d. Zoho Email Campaigns

Free Plan
Zoho Campaigns sign up is free. Signing up for an account will automatically subscribe you to the free plan in which, you can access all our features to evaluate the service. In the free plan you can save 500 subscribers and send 2,500 emails per month.
https://www.zoho.com/campaigns/pricing.html

e. PHPList

phplist is the world's most popular open source email campaign manager. There is a hosted solution, free for up to 300 messages per month.
http://www.phplist.com/

Plus:

Free Email Templates:

MailChimp
Active Campaign
Campaign Monitor

f. Send email campaigns via Google Mail and Google Docs
There is a useful tutorial at Labnol Blog. You can send up to 500 emails daily.
http://www.labnol.org/software/mail-merge-with-gmail/13289/

Update (25/10/2012)

g. Sendicate:
Email newsletters. In the free plan you can save 500 subscribers and send 1,000 emails per month.
They are currently in beta.
https://www.sendicate.net/

V. Put the default RSS feeds of your own CMS work for you

a. Wordpress:

Full site feed:
http://yourdomain.com/feed
Category site feed:
http://yourdomain.com/category

b. Blogger:

Full site feed:
Atom 1.0: http://someblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default
RSS 2.0: http://someblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss
Comments feed:
Atom 1.0: http://someblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
RSS 2.0: http://someblog.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=rss
Label feed:
Atom 1.0: http://someblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/label1
RSS 2.0: http://someblog.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default/-/label1?alt=rss

c. Typepad:

Full site feed:
Atom: http://blogname.typepad.com/blog_folder_name/atom.xml
RSS: http://blogname.typepad.com/blog_folder_name/rss.xml

d. Drupal:

Front Page Feed
http://yourdomain.com/rss.xml
Taxonomy Generated Feeds
http://yourdomain.com/taxonomy/term/17/0/feed


VI. How can you get the feed of any website?

Page2RSS is a service that helps you monitor web sites that do not publish feeds. It will check any web page for updates and deliver them to your favorite RSS reader.
http://page2rss.com/

Your favorite site doesn't provide news feeds? This free online service converts any web page to an RSS feed on the fly.
http://feed43.com/

FeedDude lets you create an RSS feed from any web site on the Internet (including Twitter). If your favorite web site doesn't provide an RSS feed, you can generate one here for free.
http://www.feeddude.com/

FeedYes.com gives rss feeds to every page on the web
http://www.feedyes.com/


VII. What can you do with your RSS feeds?

 Once you have your RSS feeds displayed (as I did in my sidebar), you can recommend some RSS readers:

a. Browser Extensions

RSS Subscription Extension (by Google)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nlbjncdgjeocebhnmkbbbdekmmmcbfjd

Feedly
http://www.feedly.com/

b. Web Based

Google Reader
Google Reader, my first option.

Feedreader
http://feedreader.com/myfeeds/ (with desktops versions too: Windows and Linux)

Netvibes
http://www.netvibes.com/en

Feedbooster
http://feeds.qsensei.com/home.html

Newsblur
http://www.newsblur.com/

c. Desktop

Netnewswire
http://netnewswireapp.com/ MAC

Feedly
http://www.feedly.com/ MAC

RSSOwl
http://www.rssowl.org/download MAC Windows and Linux

Newsfirers
http://www.newsfirerss.com/ MAC

VIII. Migrate your Podcast

Guide: How to leave FeedBurner
http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/tap097-how-to-leave-feedburner-in-depth-audio/

Behind the scenes:
The font in use is Habana by The Lost Type Co-op.
The image used as a background for the cover is from the Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guillotine_1512.jpg

I hope you will find this small guide useful.