Torrent client fit for automation

Question

I'm currently using uTorrent. For the longest time, uTorrent has served me well, but my experience with it has recently grown bad.
Numerous bugs that come and go and come back at random, paired with ads and attempts to push offers when installing or updating, are not exactly what I enjoy seeing on my computer.

However, uTorrent has a couple of features, which I really enjoy.

• RSS downloads: uTorrent uses RSS feeds to check for new content to download...
• Labels: ... it then automatically labels the torrents it downloads from RSS...
• Launch programs: ... and finally performs a command line call to a batch file I've written, as soon as the download has completed.

My use case is that I'm watching podcasts. uTorrent automatically looks for new episodes to download, which are then pushed to my batch file, which converts the episode in a format my phone can play, which is then moved to my cloud folder. That way, I can view new episodes from my phone even before I get home.
The labelling is used to determine whether my batch file should bother converting the file or not.

Which decent and free alternative to uTorrent would support the three features mentioned above?

Answer 1

While this is not strictly answering your question, regarding an alternative to μTorrent, you might want to consider running μTorrent on a seperate Linux box. I fully agree with you that over the years μTorrent has become bloated and full of ads and just does not seem to run as well as it used to.

The Linux version however, has seemed to retain the old school feel. It doesn't have many of the annoying features that the Windows and Mac versions have now. Granted, on Linux it runs slightly differently - as a web server and you connect to it via a web browser. However, you should be able to retain the three features that you like (well maybe not the launching feature, or not without a bit of trickery pokery), and you would still have an interface that you are used to. You would be able to share, via Samba, the download directory, and so still be able to access the downloads on your PC.

You could, in theory, run μTorrent on a twenty quid Raspberry Pi, with an external USB disk hanging off it..! Well, not exactly in theory, as that is precisely the set up that I have recently adopted.