Flathub Linux App Store Scraper

Extract structured data from Flathub — the official app store for Linux Flatpak applications. Browse popular apps, newly added apps, recently updated apps, search by keyword, or filter by any of the 10 supported categories. No account or API key required.

What is Flathub?

Flathub is the central distribution platform for Linux desktop applications packaged as Flatpaks. It hosts thousands of apps across categories like games, developer tools, multimedia, and office software — all installable on any Linux distribution. This actor scrapes Flathub's public REST API to deliver machine-readable app metadata.

What data can you get?

Each record contains:

Field	Description
app_id	Flatpak application ID, e.g. org.gimp.GIMP
name	App display name
summary	One-line description
description	Full description (HTML stripped)
developer_name	Name of the developer or team
main_category	Primary Flathub category
categories	All assigned category tags
icon_url	App icon image URL
homepage	Project homepage URL
flathub_url	Direct link to the app on Flathub
installs_last_month	Approximate install count over the past 30 days
license	SPDX license identifier (e.g. GPL-3.0+)
version	Latest published version
added_at	ISO timestamp when the app was added to Flathub
updated_at	ISO timestamp of the most recent update
scrapedAt	ISO timestamp when this record was collected

Fields are omitted when not available — no null values are emitted.

Input options

Parameter	Type	Description
mode	select	What to fetch — see modes below
query	string	Keyword search query (for search mode)
category	select	Category filter — used in search and byCategory modes
maxItems	integer	Max records to return (default: 100, max: 2000)

Modes

• popular (default): Top apps by install count over the past month
• new: Newest apps added to Flathub, sorted by date added
• recentlyUpdated: Apps with the most recent releases
• search: Search apps by keyword and/or category
• byCategory: Browse all apps in a specific category

Categories

Audio-Video (Multimedia), Development (Developer Tools), Education, Game (Games), Graphics, Network (Networking), Office, Science, System, Utility (Utilities)

Example inputs

Fetch top 50 popular apps:

{
  "mode": "popular",
  "maxItems": 50
}

Search for video editors:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "video editor",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Browse all games:

{
  "mode": "byCategory",
  "category": "Game",
  "maxItems": 200
}

Newest developer tools:

{
  "mode": "new",
  "category": "Development",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example output

{
  "app_id": "org.gimp.GIMP",
  "name": "GNU Image Manipulation Program",
  "summary": "High-end image creation and manipulation",
  "description": "GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is Community-driven Free Software for high-end image creation and manipulation.",
  "developer_name": "The GIMP team",
  "main_category": "Graphics",
  "categories": ["Graphics", "2DGraphics", "RasterGraphics"],
  "icon_url": "https://dl.flathub.org/media/org/gimp/GIMP/.../icons/128x128/org.gimp.GIMP.png",
  "homepage": "https://www.gimp.org/",
  "flathub_url": "https://flathub.org/apps/org.gimp.GIMP",
  "installs_last_month": 120000,
  "license": "GPL-3.0+ AND LGPL-3.0+",
  "version": "3.2.4",
  "added_at": "2020-09-13T12:26:40+00:00",
  "updated_at": "2024-11-15T09:14:44+00:00",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-04T10:00:00+00:00",
  "recordType": "app"
}

Use cases

• Linux software directories: Build searchable catalogs of Linux applications
• App market research: Analyze install trends, popular categories, and developer activity
• Portfolio tracking: Monitor install growth for your own Flathub apps
• Academic research: Study the open-source Linux app ecosystem
• Competitive analysis: Identify gaps and opportunities in app categories

Technical notes

• Uses the Flathub public REST API — no authentication required
• No proxy or cookies needed; the API is freely accessible
• Respects rate limits with exponential backoff on 429/5xx responses
• All output fields guaranteed non-null — empty fields are omitted
• Maximum 2000 records per run (paginated automatically)

FAQ

Do I need a Flathub account to use this actor? No. The Flathub API is fully public and requires no authentication.

How current is the data? Data is fetched live from Flathub at the time of each run. Install counts are updated monthly by Flathub.

What does the app_id field look like? Flatpak app IDs follow a reverse-DNS convention, e.g. org.gimp.GIMP, com.spotify.Client, io.github.Eloston.UngoogledChromium.

Can I filter by multiple categories at once? Currently one category per run. For multiple categories, start separate runs and merge the datasets.

How many apps are on Flathub? Flathub hosts thousands of apps. The byCategory mode or an empty search query will paginate through all available apps up to your maxItems limit.

Are the icon URLs stable? Icon URLs point to Flathub's CDN (dl.flathub.org) and are stable for the lifetime of a given app version.