# Reddit Scraper (`gentle_cloud/reddit-scraper`) Actor

Scrape posts and comments from any Reddit subreddit. Supports multiple subreddits, search, sorting, time filters, and optional comment extraction — no API key required.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/gentle_cloud/reddit-scraper.md
- **Developed by:** [Monkey Coder](https://apify.com/gentle_cloud) (community)
- **Categories:** Social media, SEO tools, News
- **Features:** Limited permissions
- **Stats:** 52 total users, 19 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 2 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## 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 Scraper

Scrape posts and comments from any Reddit subreddit — no API key, no login required.

### Why use this Actor

Use this Actor when you need Reddit data fast without managing browsers or API keys. It’s a good fit for content research, community monitoring, trend spotting, and lead discovery.

### ✨ Features

- **Multiple subreddits** — Scrape several subreddits in a single run
- **Flexible sorting** — Hot, New, Top, Rising, or Controversial
- **Time filters** — Past hour, day, week, month, year, or all time
- **Search within subreddits** — Filter posts by keyword
- **Comment extraction** — Optionally fetch and flatten comment trees
- **Rich post data** — Title, author, score, upvote ratio, flair, preview images, awards, and more
- **No API key needed** — Uses Reddit's public `.json` endpoints

### 🔧 How It Works

1. The Actor sends HTTP requests to Reddit's public JSON endpoints (e.g., `reddit.com/r/python/hot.json`)
2. Posts are extracted from the paginated response (up to 100 per page)
3. If comments are enabled, each post's comment thread is fetched and the nested tree is flattened
4. Built-in rate limiting (2–4 second delays) prevents Reddit from blocking requests
5. Results are pushed to the Apify dataset as flat JSON objects

### 📥 Input Parameters

| Parameter | Type | Default | Description |
|-----------|------|---------|-------------|
| `subreddits` | String | `python` | Comma-separated subreddit names (without `r/` prefix) |
| `sort` | Select | `hot` | Sort mode: hot, new, top, rising, controversial |
| `time_filter` | Select | `week` | Time range for top/controversial: hour, day, week, month, year, all |
| `max_posts` | Integer | `25` | Max posts per subreddit (1–1000) |
| `search_query` | String | *(empty)* | Optional keyword search within each subreddit |
| `include_comments` | Boolean | `false` | Fetch comments for each post (slower due to rate limiting) |
| `max_comments_per_post` | Integer | `10` | Max comments per post when comments are enabled |
| `comment_sort` | Select | `top` | Comment sort: best, top, new, controversial, old, qa |

### 📤 Sample Output

#### Post (without comments)

```json
{
    "post_id": "1abc2de",
    "title": "Python 3.13 released with major performance improvements",
    "author": "guido_van_rossum",
    "subreddit": "python",
    "score": 4523,
    "upvote_ratio": 0.97,
    "num_comments": 312,
    "url": "https://docs.python.org/3.13/whatsnew/3.13.html",
    "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/python/comments/1abc2de/python_313_released/",
    "is_self": false,
    "selftext": "",
    "domain": "docs.python.org",
    "flair": "News",
    "is_video": false,
    "over_18": false,
    "spoiler": false,
    "stickied": false,
    "created_utc": "2025-10-01T14:30:00+00:00",
    "thumbnail": "https://b.thumbs.redditmedia.com/...",
    "preview_image": "https://preview.redd.it/...",
    "total_awards": 5,
    "gilded": 2,
    "num_crossposts": 3,
    "fetched_at": "2025-12-15T10:00:00+00:00"
}
```

#### Comment (when `include_comments` is enabled)

Comments are included as an array in each post's `comments` field:

```json
{
    "comment_id": "k7xyz99",
    "post_id": "1abc2de",
    "author": "pythonista42",
    "body": "The new JIT compiler is incredible. 2x speedup on my workloads.",
    "score": 891,
    "depth": 0,
    "is_submitter": false,
    "parent_id": "t3_1abc2de",
    "permalink": "https://www.reddit.com/r/python/comments/1abc2de/.../k7xyz99/",
    "stickied": false,
    "distinguished": "",
    "controversiality": 0,
    "created_utc": "2025-10-01T15:00:00+00:00",
    "fetched_at": "2025-12-15T10:00:30+00:00"
}
```

### 🚀 Quick Start

1. Add one or more subreddit names in `subreddits` (example: `python,javascript`).
2. Turn on `include_comments` only when you need comment threads.
3. Run the Actor and check that each item includes `post_id`, `title`, `subreddit`, and `fetched_at`.

### 🔍 Verification Steps

- Run a small test input first: `subreddits = python`, `max_posts = 5`.
- Confirm the dataset contains flat post objects and the `fetched_at` timestamp.
- If comments are enabled, verify `comments_fetched` is present and greater than 0 on at least one post.

### 🧪 Example Inputs

**Basic post scrape**

```json
{
  "subreddits": "python,javascript",
  "sort": "hot",
  "max_posts": 5
}
```

**Search + comments**

```json
{
  "subreddits": "learnprogramming",
  "search_query": "api",
  "include_comments": true,
  "max_posts": 10,
  "max_comments_per_post": 5,
  "comment_sort": "top"
}
```

### ⚠️ Notes

- **Authentication**: Uses Reddit OAuth API with application-only auth. Requires a Reddit OAuth client ID (set via `REDDIT_CLIENT_ID` environment variable).
- **Rate limiting**: Reddit allows 100 OAuth requests per minute per client. The Actor uses 1–2 second delays between requests.
- **Post text truncation**: `selftext` is truncated to 2,000 characters; comment `body` to 3,000 characters. Enable OAuth for longer content.
- **Pagination limit**: Reddit caps listing access at ~1,000 posts per subreddit for unauthenticated requests.

### 💡 Troubleshooting

- If you see no results, verify the subreddit exists and the spelling is valid.
- If OAuth fails, set `REDDIT_CLIENT_ID` in the Actor environment variables.
- For comment scraping, use smaller `max_posts` values to keep runs fast and reliable.
- For private or restricted communities, the Actor may return partial or no data.

# Actor input Schema

## `subreddits` (type: `string`):

Comma-separated list of subreddit names to scrape (without r/ prefix). Example: python,javascript,datascience

## `sort` (type: `string`):

How to sort posts within each subreddit.

## `time_filter` (type: `string`):

Time range filter (applies to 'top' and 'controversial' sort modes).

## `max_posts` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of posts to fetch from each subreddit (max 1000).

## `search_query` (type: `string`):

Optional search query to filter posts within each subreddit. Leave empty to browse without searching.

## `include_comments` (type: `boolean`):

Whether to fetch comments for each post. Enabling this significantly increases run time due to rate limiting.

## `max_comments_per_post` (type: `integer`):

Maximum number of comments to fetch per post (only used when Include Comments is enabled).

## `comment_sort` (type: `string`):

How to sort comments (only used when Include Comments is enabled).

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "subreddits": "python",
  "sort": "hot",
  "time_filter": "week",
  "max_posts": 25,
  "search_query": "",
  "include_comments": false,
  "max_comments_per_post": 10,
  "comment_sort": "top"
}
```

# 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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "subreddits": "python",
    "sort": "hot",
    "time_filter": "week",
    "max_posts": 25,
    "search_query": "",
    "include_comments": false,
    "max_comments_per_post": 10,
    "comment_sort": "top"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("gentle_cloud/reddit-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 '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {
    "subreddits": "python",
    "sort": "hot",
    "time_filter": "week",
    "max_posts": 25,
    "search_query": "",
    "include_comments": False,
    "max_comments_per_post": 10,
    "comment_sort": "top",
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("gentle_cloud/reddit-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 '{
  "subreddits": "python",
  "sort": "hot",
  "time_filter": "week",
  "max_posts": 25,
  "search_query": "",
  "include_comments": false,
  "max_comments_per_post": 10,
  "comment_sort": "top"
}' |
apify call gentle_cloud/reddit-scraper --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,gentle_cloud/reddit-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 <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` 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/S8NthQwPkVw4N8g15/builds/OcdsQEimFNHo4ZSo2/openapi.json