Canto intends to be extremely flexible and extensible, allowing the full use of the Python programming language in its configuration.

The project was started to address many of the shortcomings of NRSS, particularly multiple line item titles, more formats supported, and general fragility.

The summary of an item is accurately depicted in HTML rendered to text, including image links and enclosure (podcast) content (both of which can be downloaded with external handlers).

Sorting and filtering is done in the same manner as typical Python lists, and new themes and styles can just override part of the default renderer class.

[5] Lastly, Canto's information is updated by a separate process, canto-fetch, which can either run as a daemon or as a cron-job.