Jean Galea

Jean Galea

Jean is the founder of WP RSS Aggregator and has a passion for content curation. However, his interest is not limited to the digital world; it extends to the holistic approach of health & fitness, the expressive world of art, the refined pleasures of gastronomy, and the enriching experiences of slow travel.

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An Alternative to WP RSS Multi Importer

Lately we’ve been receiving many emails from prospective customers who tell us that they are buying our add-ons and moving from WP RSS Multi Importer, so I thought about writing a short post about the differences between the two plugins.

What many people don’t know is that WP RSS Multi Importer was forked from WP RSS Aggregator when the latter was still in its infancy. Much of the code has changed over the past two years and now their codebases are almost completely different.

Now lets talk about some differences. First of all WP RSS Multi Importer is a free plugin while WP RSS Aggregator operates on the successful freemium model adopted by other plugins such as Easy Digital Downloads, MailPoet, WordPress SEO and WooCommerce. This means that the core plugin is free but then there are paid add-ons that provide extra functionality. More on this later.

Feature Differences

Lets talk about some differences in features. When I talk about WP RSS Aggregator, I’ll be referring to our complete suite of plugins and not just core.

Both plugins enable you to import RSS feeds into WordPress, as well as create posts from the imported feeds. One important difference is that WP RSS Multi Importer does not get full text from RSS feeds, something which can be done with WP RSS Aggregator (check the Feed to Post and Full Text RSS Feeds add-ons, both of which are part of the Advanced Feeds Bundle).

Another difference is that the interface is just more clean and polished in WP RSS Aggregator, since we strived to make it look as close as possible to the native WordPress UI. The fact that there are also a number of add-ons makes you mix and match the features that you want instead of having one single bloated plugin that tries to do everything. Keeping things modular helps us give you only the features you want, making it a cleaner experience and reducing the strain on your server.

WP RSS Aggregator integrates with third party services such as SpinnerChief as well as WordAi. We’re always open to collaboration so there might very well be more add-ons for integrations with other services in the future.

Finally we should also mention the reliability of the feed import process. WP RSS Aggregator is the product of lots and lots of customer feedback and we have refined the import process to work smoothly with as many feed variants as possible. If any feed presents a problem then we are quick to modify the codebase to reflect changes needed. This is something that our clients really appreciate.

Sustainability and Long Term Usage

When you use an RSS import plugin chances are that this functionality will be very important for your website, so you want a plugin that will be regularly updated and supported well into the future. The WP RSS Aggregator project has been profitable from day one thanks to its freemium model, while sadly WP RSS Multi Importer is being overwhelmed by support and new feature requests that simply cannot be fulfilled for free.

Remember that WP RSS Multi Importer is created and run by one person who wanted to share his work with the rest of the community. However sharing a small plugin with the rest of the community and asking for nothing in return is one thing, and supporting a behemoth with thousands of users (especially given the fragile nature of RSS feeds) is a totally different ball game.

With WP RSS Aggregator you are paying for support (replies within 24 hours or less) and frequent updates that take into consideration changes in WordPress itself as well as adding new features, mostly based on customer requests. We are now a team of five working on the plugin and making sure that all our customers’ needs are met. Apart from providing support to the users of our premium add-ons, we are also able to provide daily free support to users of the free core plugin. The freemium model helps us sustain support and continuous development, and therefore its something you should think about before you make a decision for either one of these plugins.

We wish the best of luck for WP RSS Multi Importer and its users, we know that its creator dedicated a lot of his time and energy all for free and thank him for his contribution to the community. I hope that the points mentioned above will help you in your decision, and if you require further information please contact us, one of our team members will be very happy to help you out.

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15 Responses

  1. Thank you for posting this article. I started looking at both of these plugins, did some research, and found this post. I look forward to using the WP RSS Aggregator plugin, and possibly upgrading in the future. I’ll be using this plugin on 2 (sub-domain) multi-sites that are designed to syndicate feeds from the top sites, etc., in specific categories.

    1. Sounds great Seth, thanks for trusting our product. Looking forward to what you will be creating, let us know when it’s ready so we’ll add it to our showcase.

      1. Instead of 2 sub-domains, I’ve decided to only put my syndicated feeds on 1 sub-domain (via my primary website).

        Honestly, I’m going to use the free version for a bit to test things out, but I’ll definitely look into upgrading in the nearby future.

        There are basically 3 plugins that have a substantial amount of downloads, and the 2 mentioned above are 2/3. The other one is “feedwordpress” , which has over 800k downloads.

        However, I noticed it only had 3.7 / 5 stars rating, and 0 / 6 support threads resolved for that one. It only has 1 author too, and for some reason, you can’t even visit his profile.

        This is the only plugin I’d use for syndication, next to (Google) FeedBurner (I’ve heard some good things about them as well). Thanks for all the hard work you all do, I appreciate it. I’ll keep you updated.

        1. You’re welcome Seth. FeedWordPress is not very actively maintained, in fact we’ve had many people switch to WP RSS Aggregator from that one.

          Since RSS import plugins are quite complex it is hard to maintain them without them being commercially viable. That’s the main reason why WP RSS Multi Importer and FeedWordPress have fallen by the wayside, while we’re in it for the long haul.

  2. Thanks for this. The other difference is that WP RSS Multi Importer is, ahem, DEAD. Killed. Toast. Seeya. Hosta lasagna don’t get any on ya. Unfortunately, that’s what I was using. Sad panda. Anything you can do for really angry former competitor’s users? Yes, I’m unashamedly seeking a discount or freebie to use your $77 rss_to_post plugin. If not, I understand.

    1. Hi Kevin, we’ve just got wind of the news too, that’s a very unfortunate turn of events as it has left thousands of users stranded.

  3. Thank you Jean, both for the offer and for the really fast support response. That says a lot. I will take advantage of that offer ASAP. Is there also any sort of step-by-step for making the move from the old to the new? Thank you again. Extremely helpful.

    1. Hi Kevin and welcome, right now we don’t have a step-by-step guide, but we might write something up if we get a lot of demand for it.

  4. Question… if moving over from RSS Multi (we have the site set up as “feed to posts”) will the content from the previous “posts” fall away? Will this disrupt the content flowing through? Appreciate any feedback as we consider a change. -Thanks I am rather new to using aggregate feeds.

    1. Your current content is stored in posts so it wouldn’t be a problem if you switch, that content won’t be lost. The only one time process you’d need to go through is setting up the feed sources again with WP RSS Aggregator.

  5. Thanks for the article. Unfortunately, your plugin add-ons are far too costly for me to be able to replace RSS Multi Importer. Even without post importing. And no other plugins manage multiple feeds from a central location. So, I will continue to use RSS Multi Importer until it breaks.

    1. Hi Toni, thanks for taking the time to read it!

      Which add-ons were you looking at? If you’re not looking for post importing then you won’t need to spend much as the add-ons aren’t expensive. Also, the value they add to your site, as well as the value our support team brings to the table, will definitely make the investment worthwhile 🙂

      If you have any further questions or you wish to discuss things further, just reach out to me via a pre-sales support ticket – https://www.wprssaggregator.com/contact/

  6. Hi.
    Yes, I still use RSS Muliti Importer because it’s free and I prefer to do the maintenance. You should have a heavy discount for folks like me.

    1. Hi Zennie, thanks for the feedback! If you’re interested in switching over to WP RSS Aggregator, feel free to contact us via the Contact form pre-sales option and we’ll be happy to help you out.

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