Douyin Trending Scraper

Extract real-time trending hot search topics from Douyin (抖音) — the Chinese version of TikTok. Get live hot search rankings, hot value scores, video counts, and cover images in under 10 seconds. No login, no proxy, no API key required.

What does Douyin Trending Scraper do?

Douyin Trending Scraper fetches structured data directly from Douyin's internal trending API. It returns the current hot search list — up to 52 trending topics — with engagement metrics, ranking positions, and media thumbnails.

• 🔥 Trending Hot Search — Real-time hot search rankings updated every few minutes. Works via pure HTTP — results in under 10 seconds, no browser required.

Douyin is the #1 short-video platform in China with 700+ million daily active users. Marketers, researchers, and brands use this scraper to monitor Chinese social media trends without needing a Chinese phone number, VPN, or API access.

Who is it for?

🎯 Market Researchers

• Track what topics are trending in China right now
• Export daily trend data to CSV/Excel for reports
• Monitor how hot topics evolve over time with scheduled runs

📊 Digital Marketers & Brand Managers

• Identify viral content formats and hashtag strategies for Chinese audiences
• Spot emerging trends before they peak
• Monitor competitor brand mentions in Douyin's trending list

🧑‍💻 Developers & Data Scientists

• Feed real-time Chinese social trends into NLP pipelines or dashboards
• Build Douyin monitoring tools using Apify's API and scheduling features
• Integrate with Google Sheets, Slack, or BI tools via Zapier/Make

🌏 International Business Teams

• Monitor brand reputation signals on China's most-used social platform
• Research market demand by tracking trending search topics daily
• Identify content opportunities in the Chinese market

Why use Douyin Trending Scraper?

• ✅ Fast — returns 47–52 trending topics in under 10 seconds
• ✅ No login required — no Douyin account, no Chinese phone number, no VPN needed
• ✅ No proxy needed — works on the free plan with zero proxy cost
• ✅ Real-time data — trending topics refresh every few minutes on Douyin
• ✅ Structured output — clean JSON with English field names, ISO 8601 timestamps
• ✅ Low cost — HTTP-only, no browser overhead, minimal compute
• ✅ Apify platform — schedule runs, export to 20+ formats, integrate with 5,000+ apps

What data can you extract?

🔥 Trending Hot Search Topics

Field	Description
rank	Current position in the hot search list (1 = #1 trending)
word	Trending search term (Chinese)
hotValue	Numerical hot value score (higher = more trending)
videoCount	Number of videos about this topic
discussVideoCount	Discussion video count
coverImageUrl	Cover image URL for the trending topic
eventTime	When the topic started trending (ISO 8601)
sentenceTag	Category tag code
groupId	Douyin group ID for this trend
username	Associated creator username (if any)
nickname	Associated creator display name (if any)
videoId	Associated video ID (if any)
description	Associated video description (if any)
playCount	Associated video play count (if any)
likeCount	Associated video like count (if any)
scrapedAt	Timestamp of extraction (ISO 8601)

How much does it cost to scrape Douyin trending topics?

Douyin Trending Scraper uses Pay-Per-Event (PPE) pricing — you pay only for results extracted, not for time or compute. There is a one-time start fee plus a per-result charge with volume discounts.

Plan	Start Fee	Per Trending Topic	50 topics/day (monthly)
Free ($5 credit)	$0.05	$0.0173	~$35/mo
Starter (BRONZE)	$0.0475	$0.0156	~$31/mo
Scale (SILVER)	$0.0425	$0.0121	~$24/mo
Business (GOLD)	$0.0375	$0.0095	~$19/mo

Real-world cost examples:

• Scrape today's top 30 trending topics (one run): ~$0.57
• Daily monitoring of top 50 topics (30 days): ~$34 on free tier, ~$19 on GOLD

Free tier estimate: With $5 free Apify credits, you can extract approximately 280 trending topics.

Tip: Douyin typically returns 47–52 topics per run. For daily monitoring, one scheduled run per day is all you need.

How to scrape Douyin trending topics

1. Go to Douyin Trending Scraper on Apify Store
2. Click Try for free
3. Set Max Results to the number of topics you want (up to 52)
4. Click Start — results appear in seconds
5. Export as JSON, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab

Input example

Get today's top 30 trending topics:

{
    "maxResults": 30
}

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
maxResults	integer	30	Maximum trending topics to extract (1–200)

Output examples

Trending topic:

{
    "type": "trending",
    "rank": 1,
    "word": "美载人绕月任务火箭发射升空",
    "hotValue": 12023661,
    "videoCount": 3,
    "discussVideoCount": 1,
    "coverImageUrl": "https://p3-sign.douyinpic.com/...",
    "eventTime": "2026-04-01T23:14:58.000Z",
    "sentenceId": "2451921",
    "groupId": "7622673640848725299",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-04-02T00:05:36.536Z"
}

Tips for best results

• 📅 Schedule daily runs — set up a daily scheduled run to track how trending topics evolve over time. Use Apify's built-in scheduler.
• 📊 Export to Google Sheets — connect your dataset to Google Sheets via Apify's integration for automatic daily updates
• 🌏 Translate results — use the word field with a translation API to convert Chinese trends to English for your reports
• ⚡ Start with defaults — maxResults: 30 gives you the top trending topics in a single fast run

Integrations

📊 Douyin Trends → Google Sheets Schedule daily trending runs and push results to a Google Sheets spreadsheet via Apify's integration. Track how hot values change day-over-day. Use the word and hotValue fields to build a trend tracker.

🤖 Trend Data → AI Pipeline Use the Apify API to fetch trending topics programmatically. Feed the Chinese word field into a translation + sentiment analysis pipeline to power your China market intelligence dashboard.

📧 Competitive Intelligence → Email Report Schedule weekly runs to monitor trending topics on Douyin. Export to CSV and email via Make to your marketing team every Monday morning.

💬 Trending Alerts → Slack Connect Apify to Slack via Zapier or Make. Trigger alerts whenever a new topic enters the top 10 — perfect for real-time brand monitoring.

API Usage

Run Douyin Trending Scraper programmatically using any HTTP client.

Node.js

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/douyin-analytics-scraper').call({
    maxResults: 50,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("automation-lab/douyin-analytics-scraper").call(run_input={
    "maxResults": 50,
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

cURL

curl -X POST "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~douyin-analytics-scraper/runs" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"maxResults": 50}'

Use with AI agents via MCP

Douyin Trending Scraper is available as a tool for AI assistants that support the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Add the Apify MCP server to your AI client — this gives you access to all Apify actors, including this one:

Setup for Claude Code

$claude mcp add --transport http apify "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/douyin-analytics-scraper"

Setup for Claude Desktop, Cursor, or VS Code

Add this to your MCP config file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/douyin-analytics-scraper"
        }
    }
}

Your AI assistant will use OAuth to authenticate with your Apify account on first use.

Example prompts

Once connected, try asking your AI assistant:

• "Use automation-lab/douyin-analytics-scraper to get today's top 30 trending topics on Douyin and translate the Chinese terms to English"
• "Track how the Douyin hot search rankings change over the next week — scrape trending topics daily and summarize the shifts"
• "What are the top 10 trending topics on Douyin right now? Get me the hot values and video counts."

Learn more in the Apify MCP documentation.

Legality

This actor only accesses publicly available data from Douyin — the same information visible to any visitor without logging in. It does not access private accounts, private messages, or any data behind authentication.

Douyin's trending topics are openly available for viewing. We recommend:

• Using scraped data for research, analytics, and monitoring purposes
• Complying with applicable privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA, China's PIPL) when storing personal data
• Not using data for spam, harassment, or other harmful purposes
• Reviewing Douyin's Terms of Service for platform-specific rules

Apify platform handles all data collection ethically: rate limiting, respectful request patterns, and no circumvention of authentication systems.

FAQ

How fast does it return results? Trending mode returns 47–52 topics in under 10 seconds — it uses a direct HTTP API call with no browser overhead.

How many topics are available? Douyin's trending API typically returns 47–52 topics at a time. Setting maxResults above 52 will still only return what Douyin makes available.

How often does the trending list change? Douyin updates its hot search list roughly every few minutes. For monitoring purposes, once-daily runs are sufficient to track major topic movements.

How is this different from TikTok scrapers? Douyin and TikTok are operated by separate entities for separate markets. Douyin (Chinese market) has different content, trending topics, creators, and API endpoints than TikTok (international market). If you need international TikTok data, see our TikTok Scraper.

Do I need a proxy or a Douyin account? No. The trending topics endpoint is public and does not require authentication or proxies. The actor works on the free Apify plan with no additional costs.

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