Zend_Feed_Pubsubhubbub implements two sides of the Pubsubhubbub 0.2 Specification: a Publisher and a Subscriber. It does not currently implement a Hub Server though this is in progress for a future Zend Framework release.

A Publisher is responsible for notifying all supported Hubs (many can be supported to add redundancy to the system) of any updates to its feeds, whether they be Atom or RSS based. This is achieved by pinging the supported Hub Servers with the URL of the updated feed. In Pubsubhubbub terminology, any updatable resource capable of being subscribed to is referred to as a Topic. Once a ping is received, the Hub will request the updated feed, process it for updated items, and forward all updates to all Subscribers subscribed to that feed.

A Subscriber is any party or application which subscribes to one or more Hubs to receive updates from a Topic hosted by a Publisher. The Subscriber never directly communicates with the Publisher since the Hub acts as an intermediary, accepting subscriptions and sending updates to subscribed Subscribers. The Subscriber therefore communicates only with the Hub, either to subscribe or unsubscribe to Topics, or when it receives updates from the Hub. This communication design ("Fat Pings") effectively removes the possibility of a "Thundering Herd" issue. This occurs in a pubsub system where the Hub merely informs Subscribers that an update is available, prompting all Subscribers to immediately retrieve the feed from the Publisher giving rise to a traffic spike. In Pubsubhubbub, the Hub distributes the actual update in a "Fat Ping" so the Publisher is not subjected to any traffic spike.

Zend_Feed_Pubsubhubbub implements Pubsubhubbub Publishers and Subscribers with the classes Zend_Feed_Pubsubhubbub_Publisher and Zend_Feed_Pubsubhubbub_Subscriber. In addition, the Subscriber implementation may handle any feed updates forwarded from a Hub by using Zend_Feed_Pubsubhubbub_Subscriber_Callback. These classes, their use cases, and APIs are covered in subsequent sections.