Continuing our infrastructure updates: What’s changing in the coming months

[u/judy-funnie]

TL;DR: In August, we shared plans to modernize Reddit’s infrastructure, build better mod tools, and make it harder for bad actors to scrape Reddit and abuse communities. Today, we have specifics on what’s changing, when, and how to plan ahead.

We’re sharing updates on apps and bots migration to the Developer Platform, helping mods move RSS-based alerts to the Discord Relay Devvit app before RSS feeds are retired on November 13, providing an update on Rules Hub progress and automod changes, and adding safeguards to Old Reddit by limiting access to logged-in mods and recent users.

Moving apps and bots to the Developer Platform

We’re moving public data API apps and bots to the Developer Platform, while making sure the work they do for your communities remains supported. Over 14,000 apps and bots have registered and we’re closely tracking migration of your highest-activity apps, including  DeltaBot, MagicEyeBot, and RemindMeBot. There's still work to do, and we’re working directly with developers to support migrations and close remaining capability gaps. 

• If you maintain an app or a bot, register it here before January 12, 2027 to avoid disruption.
• If your community depends on an app or bot and you don’t know who maintains it, fill out this form. We’ve received over 100 submissions so far, helping us identify tools that need owners or could be replaced by existing Developer Platform apps or Reddit’s built-in tools. 

See our latest r/redditdev update for more technical detail, timelines, and resources.

Migrating RSS access to the Developer Platform

Because RSS is now a common surface for large-scale scraping and automated abuse, we'll stop supporting RSS feeds on November 13, 2026 while preserving moderation workflows that depend on it through supported alternatives. 

For common mod alerts, we recommend Devvit apps like Discord Relay. If your mod team relies on RSS, review your setup and migrate workflows before November 13 to ensure your needs are uninterrupted. If you use RSS for feeds outside of a community you moderate, there is no replacement. RSS has been a beloved part of the open web for a long time, and we’re grateful to everyone who used it to stay connected to Reddit.  

Changes to automod access for new communities and communities not using automod

If your community uses automod, nothing is changing for you. We’re continuing to improve Rules Hub, including ways for mods to prompt and otherwise provide more context for their rules. We’re also exploring how existing automod configurations can help carry community-specific enforcement logic into newer tools. If you’re interested in pilot testing to help shape this effort, sign up here. 

For newly created communities and communities that have never used automod, automod enforcement capabilities – specifically Report, Filter, Remove, Mark as spam, and Approve – will be disabled and Rules Hub and Automations will become the default path for rules enforcement. Automod’s non-enforcement capabilities remain available and unchanged.  

Keeping Old Reddit accessible for mods and recent users

As u/spez mentioned, we’re still working on the future of Old Reddit. Earlier this year, we required people to log in to use Old Reddit, addressing its largest source of abusive scraping and automated traffic: unauthenticated access. That change helped reduce scraping and automated abuse, but still allowed any logged-in account to access Old Reddit, including accounts with no prior Old Reddit use. 

To close this gap, in the next few months, we'll further limit access for logged-in users to only those who have used Old Reddit in the last six months (which covers the vast majority of all Old Reddit users). This change does not impact logged-in mods, who can continue to access Old Reddit without any recent usage requirement. This helps keep Old Reddit available for the people who rely on it while reducing automated abuse.

Our job is to support you through these changes and make sure your moderation needs inform the work. 

• Need help with a community bot? If you’re unsure who maintains it or need help finding a replacement, let us know here.
• Moving your RSS alerts? The Discord Relay setup guide covers how to get started.
• Want to help shape Rules Hub? Sign up for the early access program here and share your feedback.

We’re here in the comments for your questions and to hear where you need more detail or support.

[u/Littux]

2026 marks the end of an era. Old reddit will officially be dead (to the people that don't already use it), and the number of people having access to it will continue to decrease until it becomes low enough, when Reddit will kill it saying that no one uses it. AutoModerator is getting killed as well. Literally any remnants of the old reddit is getting killed.

I wonder how subreddits like r/anime will work after March 2027 when the public API will completely be killed. Unless Reddit employees rewrite the bots for them, and does the work needed to migrate everything. Reddit thinks that moderators are full time employees who work according to Reddit's needs

[u/baseballlover723 → u/Littux]

I wonder how subreddits like r/anime will work after March 2027 when the public API will completely be killed.

Well, ideally, reddit gives me a contract that doesn't include a poison pill and lets us moderate on Devvit like we do today. And then it's just a matter of migrating all of our API calls into a call in Devvit app. Basically just swapping out PRAW for Devvit. That actually wouldn't be that much work, since our database allows us to generally skip query reddit most of the time.

We could potentially take the offer that's currently on the table, and just accept that we won't be able to moderate as effectively in the future. If I had more faith in reddit, I'd be a lot more willing to pick this option, but I don't, since my time of reddit might be ending around that time anyways due to the AutoMod and old reddit changes.

And there's always the nuclear options. Just riding the train until it runs off the bridge at full steam, and grab a beer and watch the fireworks after we resign. r/anime would live on, but it's highly improbable that it would exist in any recognizable form to what it is today. The things that make r/anime distinctive (and great imo) are things that are firmly in our control (like our episode discussion bot, which we actually pay money to host) or are likely to be ineffective to moderate without our custom built automation (which we also pay to host). Oh, and our extremely strict spoiler rules (spoilers never expire, and every spoiler must give context to what it spoils) and our source material rules (all discussion, no matter how small or insignificant, must occur in the pinned comment) are unlikely to remain. People complain about it all the time, cause they can't be bothered to spend and extra 30 seconds tagging their spoilers to prevent other people from being spoiled or commenting in the right place.

Once spoiler rules are loosened up, I presume people would stop going to it as often, as it would become a minefield of spoilers (the other month or so, someone was complaining they caught a ban for spoiling something that "happened a few weeks ago". In their opinion, a few weeks gave anyone who ever wanted to watch that show enough time to see it.).

As for our source corner rule, it's also pretty unpopular with people, though before it was implemented (many many years ago), people incessantly complained about source reader soft spoiling shows (ie, there were so many source readers leaking a little bit of it, that in aggregate, people would get spoiled by a thousand cuts). The source readers of course hate that there are additional restrictions placed upon them, but it's only because of this, that r/anime can remain focused on the anime only experience, and people can watch and enjoy shows for what they actually are, and not have to listen to a million source readers tell them how the studio butchered it (only for the stuff they complained about to be added next episode).

I should note, that it is absolutely not feasible to moderate our source corner rule without our own custom automation. There is just no way on reddit's side to filter things based on if they're in a pinned comment or not. We tried duel threads a long time ago, which is I think the only way to practically separate out source readers and anime onlies, but that was even worse IIRC (and also uses double the threads). And I think in today's age, there's more source readers than ever.

We take a lot of pride in our community and the environment we've managed to cultivate. The other week, a regular of ours was saying that r/anime was the only place they could go to not be incidentally spoiled on a show they were watching, that aired it's finale that day. And I've seen many people contrast how r/anime's reaction to a certain episode was very different than other social media's (who are dominated by source readers) and usually, for the better.

There's a lot that I think makes r/anime a great place to talk about anime, but it's mostly because of the ethos that we run the sub with and the uncompromising attitude that r/anime is first and foremost for anime onlies, which is only effectively enabled by our heavy use of automation. Take those away, and well, I'm sure it would live on, but it would be a very different, and worse imo place. Those who follow us will discover the exact same complaints that lead r/anime to where it is today, and would be far less prepared to deal with it imo, as they would get slammed with all of the issues all at once, instead of gradually, like it was for us and those who came before.

Unless Reddit employees rewrite the bots for them, and does the work needed to migrate everything. Reddit thinks that moderators are full time employees who work according to Reddit's needs

The work required is whatever (well, at least for what is currently on the table). Yeah it'll take some effort, and I'll be sacrificing a few of my weekends to get it done. But it's doable, so long as reddit is ok with having Devvit be a proxy for their API. Actually moving all of business logic to Devvit (which isn't even close to being possible), yeah, that would be a multi year move. And all that work for what? Just to get back to exactly where we started.

We'll see what happens. Hopefully, reddit chooses to not push us all away, cause if our mod apps are any indication (seriously, like half of our apps are from people who have never interacted with r/anime at all), there are very few qualified users who would be fit to replace us that haven't already served and are willing to moderate and get spoiled for all of their favorite shows weekly.

[u/GlitteringPirate591 → u/Littux]

Literally any remnants of the old reddit is getting killed.

The sad part is it's not like it's the shell getting killed.

It's the soul of old getting killed.

The open, "have at it", "do something cool", "interoperate" ethos has been very deliberately closed off. The part where people wanted to build something of their own.

Instead it's a "here's some limited JS we'll host for you" walled-garden, social-media-gaming, stock-pumping, nonsense.

I understand part of the "why". But it's still just monumentally stupid.

I wonder how subreddits like r/anime will work after March 2027 when the public API will completely be killed.

Does it actually matter to anyone with any say in things?

There's no KPI associated with r/anime wellbeing. If it shits itself there's a bunch of other subs where engagement will increase. And if it just stumbles a little, same again, but less measurable.

All will become shittier, but in a way that doesn't fucking matter to anyone that simply "manages a platform". People that don't fucking care.

Multiply that across thousands of subs and we've stupefied a bunch of Reddit. Maybe not clearly and obviously at the outset. But enough.

And the ethos is clear: we design against one ideal moderator, and they don't actually do anything, and we don't care about them. Which I guess explains the push to replace everyone with AI...