Facebook Comments Scraper

What does Facebook Comments Scraper do?

Facebook Comments Scraper extracts Facebook post comments and nested replies from public Facebook post URLs or post IDs. It is built for users who want a simple way to collect structured Facebook discussion data without building their own scraping workflow.

You can use it with direct post IDs, standard post URLs, and common Facebook group post links from Facebook. The Actor collects top-level comments, can optionally crawl reply threads, and returns the results as a clean dataset you can inspect in Apify Console or access through API.

Because it runs on Apify, you also get scheduling, monitoring, run logs, dataset export, API access, integrations, and scalable cloud execution in one workflow.

Why use Facebook Comments Scraper?

Facebook comments often contain the most valuable signal around a post: opinions, objections, sentiment, FAQs, demand signals, and community engagement. This Actor helps you turn that unstructured discussion into data you can analyze.

Typical use cases:

• Track audience sentiment under brand or media posts
• Monitor comments in Facebook groups for research or lead discovery
• Collect public feedback around product launches, campaigns, or announcements
• Analyze reply threads and conversation depth
• Export comment datasets for AI pipelines, spreadsheets, or BI tools

This Actor is designed for both no-code users and developers. Non-technical users can run it from the Apify UI. Developers can trigger runs and download results programmatically through the Apify API.

What can this Facebook scraper do?

• Accept Facebook post URLs or raw post IDs
• Parse common Facebook post URL formats automatically
• Scrape top-level comments
• Optionally scrape nested replies
• Paginate through comments until your requested limit is reached
• Scrape all available comments when full crawl mode is enabled
• Return structured data ready for export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML
• Run in the cloud with Apify scheduling, monitoring, and integrations

What data can this Actor extract from Facebook comments?

The Actor stores raw comment objects and makes the most important fields visible in the dataset table.

Field	Description
legacy_comment_id	Human-readable comment ID
comment_id	Internal comment token
message	Comment text
depth	Comment depth in the thread
parent_comment_id	Parent comment identifier for replies
created_time	Unix timestamp of comment creation
author.name	Comment author name
author.id	Author identifier
author.url	Author profile URL when available
author.profile_image	Author avatar image
replies_count	Number of replies reported for the comment
reactions_count	Number of reactions
is_sticker	Whether the comment contains a sticker
sticker.*	Sticker metadata when present
is_gif	Whether the comment contains a GIF
gif, image, video	Media payloads when present

How to scrape Facebook comments

Using the Actor is straightforward:

1. Open Facebook Comments Scraper on Apify.
2. In the Input tab, add one or more Facebook post URLs or raw post IDs.
3. Set how many top-level comments you want per post, or enable Scrape All Comments.
4. Turn on Scrape Comment Replies if you also want nested reply threads.
5. Start the run and wait for the dataset to be generated.
6. Open the Output tab to inspect results, or export the dataset in your preferred format.

This makes it suitable for one-off data collection as well as recurring monitoring jobs.

Input

Facebook Comments Scraper accepts these main input options in the Input tab:

• searchUrls: A list of Facebook post URLs or raw post IDs
• commentsPerUrl: Maximum number of top-level comments to collect per post
• scrapeAll: Ignore the comment limit and continue until pagination ends
• parseReplies: Also scrape nested replies when available

Example input:

{
  "searchUrls": [
    "https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork/posts/pfbid0BbKbkisExKGSKuhee9a7i86RwRuMKFC8NSkKStB7CsM3uXJuAAfZLrkcJMXxhH4Yl",
    "https://www.facebook.com/groups/834204990043792/?multi_permalinks=3830165153781079&hoisted_section_header_type=recently_seen",
    "3830165153781079"
  ],
  "commentsPerUrl": 100,
  "scrapeAll": false,
  "parseReplies": true
}

Output

The Actor returns one dataset item per Facebook comment or reply. You can download the dataset in various formats such as JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel.

Example output:

[
  {
    "type": "comment",
    "comment_id": "Y29tbWVudDozODMwMTY1MTUzNzgxMDc5XzM4MzAzODg1MzcwOTIwNzQ=",
    "legacy_comment_id": "3830388537092074",
    "depth": 0,
    "parent_comment_id": null,
    "created_time": 1779536152,
    "message": "Sample top-level comment",
    "author": {
      "id": "100038997153874",
      "name": "Svitlana Butok",
      "gender": "FEMALE",
      "url": "https://www.facebook.com/svitlana.zhirnova",
      "profile_image": "https://example.com/avatar.jpg"
    },
    "replies_count": 2,
    "reactions_count": "1",
    "expansion_token": "token-value",
    "is_sticker": false,
    "sticker": null,
    "is_gif": false,
    "gif": null,
    "image": null,
    "video": null
  }
]

How much does it cost to scrape Facebook comments?

The exact cost depends on how many posts you process, how many comments each post contains, and whether you enable reply scraping. In general, limiting commentsPerUrl is the easiest way to keep runs small and predictable.

For lightweight monitoring, start with a small comment limit and only enable full crawling for posts that matter. If you need large-scale recurring collection, Apify makes that easier with scheduling, monitoring, API access, and export options for downstream automation.

Tips for better results

• Start with a few post URLs first to verify the format and expected output
• Use commentsPerUrl for quick sampling and cheaper test runs
• Enable scrapeAll only when you really need the full thread
• Enable parseReplies only when reply context matters, because it increases run size
• Use the dataset table in Apify Console to quickly inspect author, message, reactions, and thread depth

Related Facebook Actors

If you also need other Facebook data, see these related Actors:

• Facebook Posts Scraper
• Facebook Pages Scraper
• Facebook Groups Scraper

These Actors work well together if you want to discover Facebook entities first and then collect comments from the posts that matter most.

FAQ, disclaimers, and support

Is it legal to scrape Facebook comments?

This Actor is intended for scraping publicly accessible data. You are responsible for making sure your usage complies with applicable laws, platform terms, and privacy regulations in your jurisdiction. Do not use scraped data in ways that violate privacy, data protection, or other legal requirements.

Does this Actor scrape private Facebook comments?

No. The Actor is intended for public or otherwise accessible content only. If a post or comment thread is not available to the scraper, it cannot be extracted.

Why are some replies missing?

Reply availability depends on the structure of the thread and whether the data source exposes nested replies for that comment. The Actor follows available nested reply expansions, but inaccessible or unavailable thread branches cannot be recovered.

Where can I get help?

Use the Issues tab on the Actor page if you find a bug or want to request an improvement. If you need a custom Facebook data workflow, a specialized export format, or integration into your own system, custom work can be built on top of this Actor.