# Reddit Subreddit Scraper (`backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper`) Actor Reddit Subreddit Scraper is your plug-and-play radar for Reddit communities: it harvests fresh stats from 100+ subreddits via Apify Residential proxies, returns clean JSON, and drops straight into AI pipelines or dashboards within minutes. - **URL**: https://apify.com/backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper.md - **Developed by:** [D](https://apify.com/backhoe) (community) - **Categories:** Social media, Developer tools - **Features:** Full permissions - **Stats:** 43 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 2 bookmarks - **User rating**: 1.41 out of 5 stars ## Pricing Pay per usage This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have. Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage ## What's an Apify Actor? An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes. In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours, and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store. In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server. Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md. ## How to integrate an Actor? If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects. You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready. Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run. For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below. Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`). # README ## Reddit Subreddit Scraper & Proxy Pipeline [![Apify Actor Badge](https://apify.com/actor-badge?actor=backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper)](https://apify.com/backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper) **Fetch live subreddit metadata with built-in ban resistance, smart fallbacks, and automatic proxy rotation.** This Actor is designed to be the most reliable way to check subreddit details (subscribers, title, description, active users, etc.) without getting blocked. It intelligently switches between Reddit's API and web endpoints to ensure data delivery. *** ### 🚀 Key Features - **🛡️ Smart Ban Resistance:** Automatically rotates **Apify Residential Proxies** for every single request. - **🔄 Dual-Mode Fetching:** Tries the official Reddit API first. If blocked (403/429), it seamlessly falls back to web scraping (`/r/name/about`) to get the data. - **⚡ High Performance:** Built on `asyncio` and `httpx` (HTTP/2) for maximum concurrency and speed. - **🔗 Flexible Inputs:** Accepts any format: - Subreddit names: `r/AskReddit`, `AskReddit` - Full URLs: `https://www.reddit.com/r/Python` - Reddit Fullnames: `t5_2qh1i` - **📊 Rich Diagnostics:** Returns detailed stats for every item, including HTTP status codes, attempt counts, and whether the fallback was used. *** ### 📥 Input Configuration The Actor accepts a simple JSON input. You only need to provide the list of subreddits. #### Example Input ```json { "subreddits": [ "r/AskReddit", "https://www.reddit.com/r/machinelearning", "t5_2qh1i" ] } ``` | Field | Type | Description | |-------|------|-------------| | `subreddits` | Array | **Required.** List of subreddits to fetch. Supports `r/name`, URLs, or `t5_` IDs. | | `proxyConfiguration` | Object | **Optional.** If omitted, the Actor enables Apify Residential proxies automatically (recommended for Reddit). | *** ### 📤 Output Data The results are stored in the default Apify Dataset. Each item represents one subreddit and contains the full response from Reddit. #### Success Example ```json { "input_raw": "r/AskReddit", "input_type": "name", "identifier_value": "AskReddit", "status": "success", "http_status": 200, "response": { "kind": "t5", "data": { "display_name": "AskReddit", "title": "Ask Reddit...", "subscribers": 57140321, "active_user_count": 84210, "public_description": "r/AskReddit is the place to ask and answer thought-provoking questions.", "created_utc": 1201233135.0 } }, "used_web_fallback": false, "attempts_used": 1 } ``` #### Error Example If a subreddit cannot be reached after multiple retries, it is marked as an error: ```json { "input_raw": "r/NonExistentSub123", "status": "error", "http_status": 404, "error": "404 Client Error: Not Found for url: https://www.reddit.com/r/NonExistentSub123/about.json", "attempts_used": 6 } ``` *** ### 💡 Tips & Tricks - **Use Residential Proxies:** Reddit is very strict with datacenter IPs. This Actor is pre-configured to use Residential proxies for the best success rate. - **Batch Processing:** You can pass thousands of subreddits in a single run. The Actor handles concurrency automatically. - **Monitoring:** The output includes `attempts_used` and `used_web_fallback`. If you see `used_web_fallback: true` often, it means the API is blocking requests, but the Actor is successfully bypassing it via the web interface. *** #### License Apache 2.0 ## Actor input object example ```json {} ``` # API You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup. ## JavaScript example ```javascript import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client'; // Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token // Replace the '' with your token const client = new ApifyClient({ token: '', }); // Prepare Actor input const input = {}; // Run the Actor and wait for it to finish const run = await client.actor("backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper").call(input); // Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any) console.log('Results from dataset'); console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`); const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems(); items.forEach((item) => { console.dir(item); }); // 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs ``` ## Python example ```python from apify_client import ApifyClient # Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token # Replace '' with your token. client = ApifyClient("") # Prepare the Actor input run_input = {} # Run the Actor and wait for it to finish run = client.actor("backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper").call(run_input=run_input) # Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any) print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}") for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items(): print(item) # 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start ``` ## CLI example ```bash echo '{}' | apify call backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper --silent --output-dataset ``` ## MCP server setup ```json { "mcpServers": { "apify": { "type": "http", "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,backhoe/reddit-subreddit-scraper" } } } ``` The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer ` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations). ## OpenAPI specification Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/bmOdaBSlKD0K7xmik/builds/8WNqypegbOI5EHKmf/openapi.json