Zhihu 知乎 Scraper - Answers, Articles, Comments & Hot List

Zhihu 知乎 Scraper collects public data from Zhihu as clean, flat JSON. You can search answers, articles and pins by keyword, get every answer under a question, comments and replies, the hot list, user profiles, a user's answers, articles and pins, followers and followings, and the full text of any answer or article. It is made for market researchers, brand and trend monitors, people looking for experts and influencers, and AI and data teams who need long-form Chinese text with clean metadata. No Zhihu account, API keys, proxies or cookies are needed.

What is Zhihu?

Zhihu (知乎) is a Chinese question-and-answer website. Users ask questions, write long answers, publish articles and share short posts called pins, and the site keeps a hot list of trending questions. Because answers and articles are often long and detailed, Zhihu is useful for research on Chinese-language opinions and expert text.

What data can you get?

The Actor has ten modes in one place: content, discussion, people and trends.

Mode	Give it	You get
search	a keyword (optional: result type, sort, time range)	answers, articles and pins matching the keyword, with full text
question	question links or IDs (optional: order)	the answers of each question, up to 200 per question
comments	answer links or IDs (optional: sort, include replies)	the comments under each answer, with IP location and likes
replies	comment IDs	all replies under a comment
hot	nothing	the hot list: rank, heat, answer and follower counts
user	profile links or names	one profile per user: headline, followers, answers, articles, IP location
userContent	profile links or names (optional: answers / articles / pins, sort)	everything a user published, with full text
followers	profile links or names	the followers of each account, as user records
following	profile links or names	the accounts each account follows, as user records
detail	answer links or article links	the full text of each answer or article

Every record has a type field: answer, article, pin, comment, user or question (hot list). In the Apify Console the dataset also has ready-made table views: Answers, Articles, Comments, Users and Hot list.

Answers, articles and pins

Field	What it is
text	Full text as plain text, paragraphs separated by line breaks (not a snippet)
questionTitle	Title of the question an answer belongs to (answer)
title	Article title (article)
voteupCount	Upvotes (answer, article)
likeCount	Likes (pin)
commentCount	Number of comments (answer, article, pin)
favoriteCount	Number of times saved to a collection (answer, article, pin)
createdAt, updatedAt	Dates in ISO 8601 UTC
answerId, articleId, pinId, questionId	IDs of the record (an answer also carries its questionId)
url	Link on zhihu.com
excerpt	Short excerpt (answer, article)
topics	Topic names (article, pin)
imageUrl	Cover image (article)

Author fields (on answers, articles, pins and comments)

Field	What it is
author	Author's display name
authorId	Author's Zhihu user ID; null for anonymous authors
authorUrlToken	Author's profile name (the part after /people/); null for anonymous authors
authorAvatar	Avatar image URL
authorHeadline	One-line headline
authorGender	male or female; null when not set
authorFollowerCount	Follower count where the response carries it
authorVerification	Verification text, for example a certified occupation
authorIpLocation	IP location where Zhihu shows it (comments, replies and articles opened with detail)

Comments and replies

Field	What it is
text	Comment text
likeCount	Likes
replyCount	Number of replies under the comment
commentId	Comment ID (use it as input for replies mode)
answerId	The answer the comment belongs to (comments mode)
parentCommentId	The comment this one replies to; null for top-level comments
replyToCommentId	Set when a reply answers another reply rather than the top-level comment
isPinned	True when the content author pinned the comment
isByContentAuthor	True when the comment was written by the author of the answer or article
createdAt	Date in ISO 8601 UTC

Comments carry the author fields above, including authorIpLocation. Comments have no url.

Users

Field	What it is
userId	Zhihu user ID
userUrlToken	Profile name (the part after /people/)
name	Display name
headline	One-line headline
followerCount	Number of followers
answerCount	Answers written
articleCount	Articles written
ipLocation	IP location shown on the profile (profile lookups only)
gender	male or female; null when not set
avatar	Avatar image URL
verification	Verification text
isOrganization	Organization account
isVip	Zhihu membership
url	Profile link
sourceUser	Profile name of the account whose followers or followings these are (followers and following modes)

Hot list questions

Field	What it is
rank	Position on the hot list
title	Question title
heat	Heat as a number
heatText	Heat as Zhihu shows it, for example "1215 万热度"
answerCount	Number of answers
followerCount	Number of followers of the question
excerpt	Short excerpt
createdAt	Question creation date in ISO 8601 UTC
questionId, url	Question ID and link

How to use Zhihu Scraper

1. Open Zhihu Scraper in the Apify Console.
2. Choose a Mode, for example "Search answers, articles and pins by keyword" or "Hot list".
3. Fill in the fields for that mode. Each field's title says which mode reads it; other fields are ignored.
4. Set Max results to cap how many items (and how much money) the run can use.
5. Click Start and wait for the run to finish.
6. Open the dataset and export it as JSON, CSV, Excel or another format, or read it through the API.

An empty input {} also works: it searches Zhihu for "python".

Input

Only mode is required. The list fields are prefilled with an example in the form.

Field	Type	Required	What it does	Default
mode	string	Yes	What to scrape: search, question, comments, replies, hot, user, userContent, followers, following, detail	search
keyword	string	Optional (search)	Search keyword, Chinese or English; falls back to "python" when empty	none
searchType	string	Optional (search)	all (answers, articles and pins), answers or articles	all
sort	string	Optional (search)	relevance (Zhihu's default ranking), votes (most upvoted) or newest	relevance
timeRange	string	Optional (search)	Only content published within any, day, week, month, 3months, 6months or year	any
questions	array	Optional (question)	Question links (https://www.zhihu.com/question/<id>) or question IDs; up to 200 answers per question	none
answerOrder	string	Optional (question)	default (Zhihu's order) or newest (most recently updated first)	default
answers	array	Optional (comments)	Answer links (https://www.zhihu.com/question/<id>/answer/<id>) or answer IDs	none
commentIds	array	Optional (replies)	Comment IDs (the commentId of a comment) to fetch all replies of	none
commentSort	string	Optional (comments, replies)	hot (hottest first) or newest	hot
includeReplies	boolean	Optional (comments)	Also output the first replies Zhihu shows under each comment (not the full list); each reply is one more result	false
users	array	Optional (user, userContent, followers, following)	Profile links (https://www.zhihu.com/people/<name>) or the name after /people/	none
userContentType	string	Optional (userContent)	answers, articles or pins	answers
userContentSort	string	Optional (userContent)	newest or votes (answers and articles; pins are always newest first)	newest
links	array	Optional (detail)	Answer links or article links (https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/<id>)	none
maxResults	integer	Optional	Maximum number of items in total for this run, 1 to 5000. You are charged per item returned	20

maxResults is the total across all inputs in the run; a run stops as soon as it is reached.

Search answers by keyword

{
  "mode": "search",
  "keyword": "新能源汽车",
  "searchType": "answers",
  "sort": "votes",
  "timeRange": "year",
  "maxResults": 100
}

All answers of a question

{
  "mode": "question",
  "questions": ["https://www.zhihu.com/question/614920801"],
  "answerOrder": "default",
  "maxResults": 100
}

Comments of an answer, with first replies

{
  "mode": "comments",
  "answers": ["https://www.zhihu.com/question/614920801/answer/3174177021"],
  "commentSort": "hot",
  "includeReplies": true,
  "maxResults": 100
}

All replies to a comment

{
  "mode": "replies",
  "commentIds": ["10655110604"],
  "commentSort": "newest",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Hot list

{
  "mode": "hot",
  "maxResults": 30
}

User profiles and followers

{
  "mode": "user",
  "users": ["excited-vczh"],
  "maxResults": 10
}

{
  "mode": "followers",
  "users": ["https://www.zhihu.com/people/excited-vczh"],
  "maxResults": 200
}

A user's articles, most upvoted first

{
  "mode": "userContent",
  "users": ["https://www.zhihu.com/people/excited-vczh"],
  "userContentType": "articles",
  "userContentSort": "votes",
  "maxResults": 50
}

Full text of answers and articles

{
  "mode": "detail",
  "links": [
    "https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/2075952075796759957",
    "https://www.zhihu.com/question/614920801/answer/3174177021"
  ],
  "maxResults": 10
}

Output example

The values below are illustrative samples.

Answer (search, question, userContent)

{
  "type": "answer",
  "answerId": "1234567890",
  "url": "https://www.zhihu.com/question/123456789/answer/1234567890",
  "questionId": "123456789",
  "questionTitle": "学习 Python 需要多长时间？",
  "text": "这是一个示例回答的第一段。\n这是第二段。",
  "excerpt": "这是一个示例回答的第一段。",
  "voteupCount": 1250,
  "commentCount": 86,
  "favoriteCount": 430,
  "createdAt": "2024-05-12T08:30:00Z",
  "updatedAt": "2024-05-13T02:10:00Z",
  "author": "示例用户",
  "authorId": "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef",
  "authorUrlToken": "sample-user",
  "authorAvatar": "https://pica.zhimg.com/v2-example_l.jpg",
  "authorHeadline": "软件工程师",
  "authorGender": "female",
  "authorFollowerCount": 1520,
  "authorVerification": null,
  "authorIpLocation": null
}

Articles use "type": "article" with articleId, title, imageUrl and topics; pins use "type": "pin" with pinId, likeCount and topics.

Comment (comments, replies)

{
  "type": "comment",
  "commentId": "10000000001",
  "answerId": "1234567890",
  "parentCommentId": null,
  "replyToCommentId": null,
  "text": "写得很清楚，谢谢分享。",
  "likeCount": 42,
  "replyCount": 3,
  "isPinned": false,
  "isByContentAuthor": false,
  "createdAt": "2024-05-12T10:05:00Z",
  "author": "示例评论者",
  "authorId": "fedcba9876543210fedcba9876543210",
  "authorUrlToken": "sample-commenter",
  "authorAvatar": "https://pica.zhimg.com/v2-example2_l.jpg",
  "authorHeadline": null,
  "authorGender": null,
  "authorFollowerCount": null,
  "authorVerification": null,
  "authorIpLocation": "广东"
}

User (user, followers, following)

{
  "type": "user",
  "userId": "0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef",
  "userUrlToken": "sample-user",
  "name": "示例用户",
  "headline": "软件工程师",
  "gender": "female",
  "avatar": "https://pica.zhimg.com/v2-example_l.jpg",
  "url": "https://www.zhihu.com/people/sample-user",
  "ipLocation": "上海",
  "followerCount": 1520,
  "answerCount": 64,
  "articleCount": 12,
  "isOrganization": false,
  "isVip": false,
  "verification": null
}

In followers and following mode each user record also has sourceUser, the profile name of the account whose list it comes from.

Hot list question (hot)

{
  "type": "question",
  "rank": 1,
  "questionId": "987654321",
  "title": "如何看待某示例话题的最新进展？",
  "excerpt": "示例问题描述。",
  "heat": 12150000,
  "heatText": "1215 万热度",
  "answerCount": 356,
  "followerCount": 2890,
  "createdAt": "2024-05-10T03:00:00Z",
  "url": "https://www.zhihu.com/question/987654321"
}

How much does it cost?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing:

Event	Price
Run start	$0.005 per run
Result	$0.004 per item returned

Examples:

• 20 results: $0.005 + 20 × $0.004 = $0.085
• 100 results: $0.005 + 100 × $0.004 = $0.405
• 1,000 results: $0.005 + 1,000 × $0.004 = $4.005

On the free Apify plan, a run returns at most 20 results in total; any paid Apify plan removes the limit. On the free Apify plan each account can run this Actor up to 3 times per 24 hours and 10 times per 7 days, within a small lifetime free allowance shared across all our Actors, and all free accounts share a daily free budget. When any of these limits is reached, the run stops before fetching anything and nothing is charged.

The run-start fee is charged once per run, when the first request to the data source succeeds, even if that request returns nothing. It is not charged when the data source fails from the start or rejects the IDs, or when your spending limit cannot cover it. You never pay for more than maxResults items, and you are never charged for items that were not delivered. Deleted comments and comments without text are skipped and not charged. With includeReplies, each reply counts as one more result. The run stops by itself if your spending limit is reached.

Use cases

• Market and consumer research in the Chinese-speaking web: what people say about a product, a brand or a problem, using search with a keyword and a time range.
• Trend and brand monitoring: pull the hot list every morning, or new answers on a topic every day with sort set to newest.
• Influencer and expert discovery: find who answers best in a field with search or question, then check their followerCount, answerCount and published content with user and userContent.
• Discussion analysis: collect comments and replies with likeCount, replyCount, isByContentAuthor and authorIpLocation to see how readers react.
• AI and data projects: long-form Chinese text in text with clean metadata for LLM training sets, search and summaries.
• Audience research: list the followers or followings of an account as user records.

Integrations and API

If you are looking for a Zhihu API, you can use this Actor like one. It is not an official Zhihu API and is not affiliated with Zhihu. You can start runs through the Apify API, schedule them in the Apify Console (for example a daily hot list run), and connect the results to webhooks and the integrations available on the Apify platform. Results are stored in a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel and other formats.

Python example with apify-client:

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN>")
run = client.actor("clover_folktale/zhihu-scraper").call(run_input={
    "mode": "search",
    "keyword": "新能源汽车",
    "searchType": "answers",
    "sort": "votes",
    "timeRange": "year",
    "maxResults": 100,
})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

Tips and limits

• Page sizes. Search pages hold about 13-18 usable results; lists of answers, articles, pins, followers and followings 20; comments 10; replies up to 50. Large runs make many requests; expect a few seconds per page.
• Questions. question mode fetches the answers of each question in one go, up to 200 per question, in Zhihu's default order or most recently updated first.
• Search. Ads, suggestions and other card types are left out. Pins appear only with result type all. Answer and article full text is included in the search results.
• Comments. comments returns top-level comments. With includeReplies it also outputs the first replies Zhihu shows under each one (not the whole thread). Use replies mode with a comment's commentId to get every reply. Deleted comments and comments without text are skipped and not charged.
• Hot list. About 30 questions per request, ranked as on Zhihu at the time of the run.
• Inputs that return nothing. Unknown or hidden users, questions, answers and articles are skipped. If too many inputs return nothing, the run stops to protect your budget.
• Stability. The Actor retries transient errors on its own and stops cleanly instead of failing half-way. In search mode an empty page is retried once; other lists and lookups are requested once, and an empty answer is treated as no data.
• Free plan. A run returns at most 20 results in total; a paid Apify plan removes the limit.

Fields that are often empty

• detail mode on an answer has no voteupCount, commentCount or favoriteCount; use search, question or userContent for those counts.
• authorIpLocation is filled only where Zhihu shows it: comments, replies and articles opened with detail. ipLocation is filled on profile lookups, not on follower lists.
• authorGender and gender are empty when the account has not set one; authorHeadline, authorVerification and verification are empty for accounts without them.
• authorFollowerCount is empty in comments, replies, userContent lists and detail lookups.
• Anonymous authors have a display name but no user ID or profile name.
• text is empty only for image-only pins.
• Some accounts' answers are hidden by Zhihu and cannot be listed even though the profile shows a count.

FAQ

Do I need a Zhihu account, cookies or API keys?

No. You do not need a Zhihu account, API keys, proxies or cookies.

Is it legal to scrape Zhihu?

The Actor returns only public data. Public profile data is included: user ID, profile name, avatar, headline, gender, verification and IP location where Zhihu shows them, for authors, commenters and listed followers alike. Phone numbers, real names and private messages are never part of the output. You are responsible for how you use the data and for following the laws that apply to you.

How fresh is the data?

Data is read from Zhihu when the run happens. Counts such as voteupCount or likeCount are the values at the time of the run, and the hot list is ranked as on Zhihu at that moment.

Why are some fields empty?

Zhihu does not show every field everywhere. For example, IP location appears only on comments, replies, articles opened with detail and profile lookups. See "Fields that are often empty" above.

How many results can I get?

Up to 5,000 per run via maxResults (20 on the free plan). question mode returns up to 200 answers per question, and the hot list has about 30 questions per request.

Can I schedule runs and export the data?

Yes. Schedule runs in the Apify Console or start them through the API, then export the dataset as JSON, CSV, Excel or other formats.

What happens with a wrong or deleted link?

Unknown or hidden users, questions, answers and articles are skipped, and no result fee is charged for them. The $0.005 run-start fee may still apply: it is charged when the first request to the data source succeeds, even if that request returns nothing. If too many inputs return nothing, the run stops to protect your budget.

A field or mode is missing. What can I do?

Open an issue from the Actor page and it will be looked at.

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