diff --git a/index.php b/index.php
index ec7490d6..02ea9a3d 100644
--- a/index.php
+++ b/index.php
@@ -5,6 +5,11 @@ if (version_compare(\PHP_VERSION, '7.4.0') === -1) {
     exit("RSS-Bridge requires minimum PHP version 7.4\n");
 }
 
+if (!extension_loaded('curl')) {
+    http_response_code(500);
+    exit("RSS-Bridge requires curl (apt install php-curl)\n");
+}
+
 require __DIR__ . '/lib/bootstrap.php';
 require __DIR__ . '/lib/config.php';