DEV.to Article Scraper

Scrape DEV.to articles via the public Forem API — no API key, no login, no anti-bot. Filter by tag or author, choose how results are sorted, and optionally pull the full article body.

What you get per article

id, title, description, url, author, authorUsername, tags, reactions, comments, readingTimeMinutes, coverImage, publishedAt. Turn on Include full body to also get body (markdown/HTML).

Nullable fields: coverImage and publishedAt are null when DEV.to does not supply them. When Include full body is on, body can be null for an article whose full-body fetch fails or is empty; the row is still returned (with ok: true) so you can see which articles were affected.

Input

Field	Notes
tag	Only articles with this tag, e.g. javascript, react, webdev. Optional.
username	Only articles by this author, e.g. ben. Optional.
sortBy	top (most reactions in the last N days), latest (newest), or rising. Default top.
topDays	Window for top sorting, e.g. 7 = top of the week, 365 = top of the year. Default 7.
includeBody	Fetch the full article body per result (extra API call each). Default off.
maxItems	How many articles to return. The actor paginates until it has this many. Default 50.

Output

One dataset row per article, each with ok: true. Empty/no-match inputs return a single diagnostic row with ok: false and an errorCode (e.g. NO_RESULTS) — that diagnostic row is not charged, it is just an explanation that the tag/username/sort combination matched no articles.

Pricing

$2.00 per 1,000 articles ($0.002 each), with no run-start fee. Flat rate — no volume tiers, no plan gates — and you are charged once per article row actually returned. Diagnostic rows (ok: false, such as NO_RESULTS, BLOCKED, RATE_LIMITED, NETWORK) are never charged, so empty or failed runs cost you nothing at all.

includeBody is free. Turning it on adds one extra Forem API call per article to fetch the full markdown/HTML body, but the price stays $0.002 per row — a 50-article run with full bodies costs $0.10, the same as one without.

Proxy

No proxy is needed. The Forem API (https://dev.to/api) is a public, no-auth, no-anti-bot endpoint, so the default is no proxy and runs work fine without one. Only enable Apify Proxy if you hit IP-based rate limits on very large runs.

Troubleshooting

If you get a single NO_RESULTS diagnostic row instead of articles, the tag/username/sort combination matched nothing — double-check the spelling of the tag or username (DEV.to tags are lowercase, e.g. javascript not JavaScript), or widen topDays. A RATE_LIMITED or NETWORK row means the API throttled or a transient network error occurred; re-run, or enable Apify Proxy for large runs. None of these diagnostic rows are charged.

Examples

Top JavaScript articles of the last month:

{ "tag": "javascript", "sortBy": "top", "topDays": 30, "maxItems": 50 }

Latest articles from a specific author:

{ "username": "ben", "sortBy": "latest", "maxItems": 30 }

Notes

Built on the documented Forem API (https://dev.to/api). The top window selects the highest-reaction articles published within the last topDays days. latest returns the newest articles; rising returns currently rising posts. Results are deduplicated by article id.