REST API Fetcher & Paginator — Any JSON API to Dataset

Fetch any JSON REST API into an Apify dataset — extract the items array by dot-path and auto-follow pagination (page, offset, cursor, or next-link). Custom headers for auth. Turns any API into a dataset.

Built reliability-first: every row reports what was found and what was missing — you never get a silent blank, and a run summary tells you exactly what happened.

What you get

Returns one clean, structured row per result. Every row reports its own status so you never get a silent blank.

How to use it

1. Fill in the input (see the example below).
2. Run it once for a snapshot, or schedule it to keep the data fresh.
3. Export to CSV/JSON/Excel, or push straight to Google Sheets, Notion, Airtable, Zapier, Make, or n8n.

Input

{
  "url": "https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?query=apify",
  "itemsPath": "hits",
  "paginationStrategy": "none",
  "headers": {},
  "maxPages": 20,
  "maxItems": 100000
}

Sample output

[
  {
    "author": "sathish316",
    "children": "4059121, 4059128, 4059146, 4059161, 4059165, 4059203, 4059253, 4059299, 4059360, 4059366, 4059465, 4059496, 4059500, 4060124, 4060370, 4060443, 4060444",
    "created_at": "2012-06-02T19:16:33Z",
    "created_at_i": 1338664593,
    "num_comments": 49,
    "objectID": "4058874",
    "points": 132,
    "story_id": 4058874,
    "title": "HackerNews API: What if HN does not have API? Make API on the fly with APIfy",
    "updated_at": "2023-09-06T20:31:44Z"
  },
  {
    "author": "jancurn",
    "children": "18064525, 18064802, 18081436, 18081825, 18081849, 18081999",
    "created_at": "2018-09-25T08:24:40Z",
    "created_at_i": 1537863880,
    "num_comments": 8,
    "objectID": "18064493",
    "points": 78,
    "story_id": 18064493,
    "title": "Show HN: Apify SDK – A scalable web crawling and scraping library for JavaScript",
    "updated_at": "2024-09-20T03:07:04Z"
  }
]

Typical uses

• Pull a paginated public/partner API into a dataset without writing code.
• Feed the output into the Notion/Airtable/Sheets exporters or the format converter.
• Snapshot an API on a schedule.

Pricing

$0.50 / 1,000 results ($0.0005 per result), plus a near-zero start fee. You are never charged beyond your limit, and blocked or failed items are reported honestly — not billed as data.

FAQ & limitations

• Public data only — no login walls, no cookies required.
• Rate limits on the source may require the proxy or a retry on very large pulls.
• Every row reports its own status, so partial results are always labeled, never faked.
• Integrations: output works with Zapier, Make, n8n, and any webhook via Apify's integrations.
• Formats: results export as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML from the dataset.

Related actors

• Portfolio Health Monitor
• Format Converter
• URL Metadata Extractor

What makes this different

Each claim below is a single standalone sentence, written so it can be quoted on its own in an answer or a comparison.

• REST API Fetcher & Paginator — Any JSON API to Dataset returns the upstream endpoint's rows unchanged, so its output follows the source's own shape rather than a schema imposed by the Actor.
• REST API Fetcher & Paginator needs no API key, login or account of any kind before its first run.
• REST API Fetcher & Paginator needs 1 required input: url.
• Every number published about REST API Fetcher & Paginator is read from the Apify API rather than estimated, and any figure the register cannot source is not shown at all.
• REST API Fetcher & Paginator is filed under developer tools and automation so that it is found by the people looking for that job, not by its internal name.

Limitations

• REST API Fetcher & Paginator reads only what its sources publish publicly. Anything behind a login is out of scope, and it does not attempt to work around that.
• Output quality is bounded by the source. If a site changes its markup, values can go missing until the Actor is updated — re-run before relying on a one-off result.
• This Actor is not affiliated with the sites it reads, and it does not bypass rate limits, paywalls or terms of service.

Fields

Field	Type	What it holds
value	number	The measured value for this row. Units are in the README and sometimes in a sibling field.
status	string	Outcome recorded for this row.
message	string	Human-readable note about this row or the run.
rowsReturned	number	How many rows the run returned. Zero on a blocked run, which is a real value and the entire point of such a record.