NotRSS

A serverless AWS Stack that allows you to easily monitor websites and get notified when a website changes.

There are products out there that accomplish this but they cost a bit of money. I built this because it didn't seem like a hard problem and costs next to nothing to run.

This was primarily designed for personal use.

Overview of how it works

A scheduled lambda regularly scans a sparse dynamodb index for a list of sites to compare against previous versions. Using a queue and another lambda, a headless browser navigates to the site and takes a png snapshot. If there is a difference detected, it records the new snapshot and sends you an email with a picture of the diff. A simple GraphQL API is also provided to help manage the database.

To use

clone project and cd into it
npm install
run commands below

npm run build
cd cdk/
npm run build
EMAIL_ALERTS_FROM=noreply@your.verified.ses.domain.com npx cdk deploy

use GraphQL link created outputed from deploy process and use mutation subscribeEmailToSites to subscribe an email to sites

Restrictions

Currently, only valid emails/domains in your AWS SES work.

Tips

You can separate emails at your inbox by using the + trick. This works well with SES validated identities.

TODO

Make a DL queue with alarm...

jsphweid / notrss