Packagist Scraper

Scrape Packagist.org — the main PHP package repository with 400K+ packages. Extract package metadata including download statistics, GitHub stats, maintainers, version history, and more — all without authentication or API keys.

What does Packagist Scraper do?

Packagist Scraper lets you:

• Search for packages by keyword with optional type and tag filters
• Look up any specific package by vendor/package name
• Browse the most popular packages on Packagist
• Retrieve aggregate statistics for the entire Packagist ecosystem

All data is sourced from the official Packagist API, which is free, public, and rate-limit friendly.

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
mode	Select	✅	Operation mode: search, byVendorPackage, popular, or statistics
query	Text	mode=search	Search keyword (e.g. symfony, laravel, guzzle)
vendorPackage	Text	mode=byVendorPackage	Package in vendor/package format (e.g. symfony/console)
packageType	Select	No	Filter by type: library, project, metapackage, composer-plugin, symfony-bundle
tags	Array	No	Filter by tags (e.g. ["psr-7", "http"])
maxItems	Integer	No	Max packages to return (1–1000, default: 50)

Example inputs

Search for Symfony packages:

{
  "mode": "search",
  "query": "symfony",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Look up a specific package:

{
  "mode": "byVendorPackage",
  "vendorPackage": "symfony/console"
}

Browse popular packages:

{
  "mode": "popular",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Get Packagist statistics:

{
  "mode": "statistics"
}

Output

Each record in the dataset contains:

Field	Type	Description
name	String	Package name in vendor/package format
description	String	Package description
url	String	URL on Packagist.org
repository	String	Source code repository URL
downloads	Integer	Total all-time downloads
monthlyDownloads	Integer	Downloads in the last 30 days
dailyDownloads	Integer	Downloads in the last day
favers	Integer	Number of users who starred/favorited the package
maintainers	Array	List of maintainer usernames
type	String	Package type (e.g. library, symfony-bundle)
language	String	Primary programming language
githubStars	Integer	GitHub stars
githubForks	Integer	GitHub forks
githubWatchers	Integer	GitHub watchers
githubOpenIssues	Integer	Open GitHub issues
dependents	Integer	Number of packages that depend on this one
suggesters	Integer	Number of packages that suggest this one
abandoned	Boolean	Whether the package is abandoned
packageUrl	String	Direct URL on Packagist.org
scrapedAt	String	Timestamp when the record was scraped

Example output record

{
  "name": "symfony/console",
  "description": "Eases the creation of beautiful and testable command line interfaces",
  "url": "https://packagist.org/packages/symfony/console",
  "repository": "https://github.com/symfony/console",
  "downloads": 500000000,
  "monthlyDownloads": 10000000,
  "dailyDownloads": 300000,
  "favers": 8000,
  "maintainers": ["fabpot", "nicolas-grekas"],
  "type": "library",
  "language": "PHP",
  "githubStars": 15000,
  "githubForks": 3000,
  "dependents": 10000,
  "abandoned": false,
  "packageUrl": "https://packagist.org/packages/symfony/console",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-05-25T12:00:00+00:00"
}

Modes

search — Search packages by keyword

Search Packagist for packages matching a keyword. Supports filtering by package type and tags. Returns enriched data with GitHub stats and download breakdowns.

byVendorPackage — Get a specific package

Fetch full metadata for a single package by its vendor/package name. Includes all GitHub stats, download breakdown, maintainer list, and more.

popular — Browse popular packages

Retrieve the most downloaded/popular packages on Packagist with full detail enrichment.

statistics — Repository statistics

Get aggregate statistics for the entire Packagist repository (total packages, downloads, versions).

FAQ

Do I need an API key? No. Packagist's API is completely public and requires no authentication.

How many packages can I scrape? Up to 1,000 per run with the maxItems parameter.

Why is the scraper slower than expected? Packagist's search returns basic data, and the scraper enriches each result with full package details (GitHub stars, download breakdown, etc.) — this requires an additional API call per package. A rate-limit delay of 0.3s between calls ensures respectful scraping.

What package types are available?

• library — Reusable PHP library (most common)
• project — Full application skeleton
• metapackage — Package with no code, only dependencies
• composer-plugin — Extends Composer itself
• symfony-bundle — Symfony framework bundle

Can I filter by tags? Yes. Use the tags array input to filter by one or more Packagist tags.

What does abandoned mean? An abandoned package is one the author no longer maintains. Packagist may suggest a replacement package. The abandoned field is true if the package is abandoned.

Is proxy required? No. Packagist's public API has no geo-restrictions and requires no proxy.