GitHub Scraper - Repos, Stars, Forks and Users

Scrape GitHub repositories and users from a search query or a list: type the query you would type into GitHub's own search box, language:rust stars:>10000, or paste the usernames or owner/repo names you already have, and get one row per result. For repositories that is stars, forks, open issues, language, topics, licence, the three dates and, if you ask, the README. For users it is the profile: name, bio, company, location, followers and public repo count.

The cap is GitHub's, not ours: any search stops at 1,000 results, however many matches it reports. Split a big job by star range or by date and put the pieces in one run.

Input	A GitHub search query in GitHub's own syntax, up to 10 of them, or a list of usernames or repositories
Output	One row per repository (stars, forks, issues, language, topics, licence, dates, README on request) or per user (name, bio, company, location, followers)
Ceiling	1,000 results per search, which is GitHub's own limit; 1,000 names per list
Account needed	None. Your own GitHub token is optional and lifts the rate limits a long way
Price	$0.90 per 1,000 rows on the free plan, down to $0.87 on Business. The free plan's $5 a month covers about 5,500

🔍 What GitHub Scraper does

It runs your query against GitHub's search, pages through the results 100 at a time, and writes a row for each one. Repository searches sort by stars, forks, recent update, help-wanted issues or best match. User searches sort by followers, public repositories or join date, or GitHub's own ranking.

Every qualifier GitHub documents works, since the query goes through as you wrote it: topic:cli created:>2023-01-01, location:berlin followers:>500, fullstack in:bio. If you would rather not write qualifiers, the Language, Minimum stars and Topics fields add them for you.

Already know what you want? Paste usernames or profile links into Usernames, or owner/repo names into Repositories, and it reads each one directly. A list run does no search.

Duplicates are dropped before anything is written, so a repository that turns up twice, across pages or across your searches, does not cost you twice.

Add your own GitHub token and the run gets GitHub's signed-in allowance, 5,000 requests an hour and 30 searches a minute. No special scopes: public data only.

📋 What data you get from each GitHub repository or user

What you get	Field
The repository and who owns it	fullName, name, owner, url, description
Stars, forks and open issues	stars, forks, openIssues
Main language, topic tags and licence	language, topics, license
Homepage and default branch	homepage, defaultBranch
Created, last updated and last pushed	createdAt, updatedAt, pushedAt
Whether it is a fork, archived or a template, and its size	isFork, archived, isTemplate, sizeKb
The README as plain text, when you switch it on	readme, readmeTruncated
A user or organisation	login, url, type, id
Their profile text	name, bio, company, location, blog
Followers, following, public repos and gists	followers, following, publicRepos, publicGists
The X handle and the available-for-hire setting they put on the profile	twitterUsername, hireable
When the account was made and when the profile last changed	createdAt, updatedAt
When the row was read, and which of your searches found it	scrapedAt, searchQuery

▶️ How to scrape GitHub repositories

1. Open GitHub Scraper and click Try for free.
2. Put your query into Search query. Build it on GitHub first if you are not sure of it, then paste it across. Or fill Usernames or Repositories instead.
3. Pick Search type: repositories or users.
4. Set Max items, up to 1,000. For anything past a hundred or so, paste a GitHub token.
5. Click Start, then download the dataset as JSON, CSV or Excel, or read it from the API.

💰 How much does it cost to scrape GitHub repositories?

$0.90 per 1,000 rows, which is $0.0009 each. That is the free plan's price; paid plans pay a little less: $0.89 on Starter, $0.88 on Scale and $0.87 on Business. On the free plan, the $5 Apify gives you each month covers about 5,500 rows.

You pay per result row, repository or user, and the README text costs nothing on top. Diagnostics are not charged, nor are names GitHub doesn't know, nor duplicates, since they are dropped before anything is written.

📥 What you give it

{
  "query": "language:python stars:>5000 web framework",
  "type": "repositories",
  "sort": "stars",
  "maxItems": 200
}

For a list instead: {"usernames": ["torvalds", "octocat"]} or {"repositories": ["rust-lang/rust"], "includeReadme": true}.

Field	Default	What it is
query	none	GitHub search syntax, exactly as the site takes it. The form arrives with an example in it.
queries	none	Up to 10 searches in one run, each up to maxItems. When set, query is not run.
usernames	none	Up to 1,000 usernames or profile links. When this or repositories is set, no search runs.
repositories	none	Up to 1,000 repositories as owner/repo or links.
type	repositories	repositories or users, for searches. Users and organisations both come back under users.
sort	stars	stars, forks, updated or help-wanted-issues for repositories; followers, repositories or joined for users; or best-match. A value that doesn't fit the search type gets best match.
language	none	Adds language: to every search.
minStars	none	Adds stars:>= to every repository search.
topics	none	Adds topic: for each one. All must match: GitHub can't do either-of for topics.
includeReadme	false	README text on repository rows, cut at 20,000 characters.
maxItems	100	1 to 1,000 per search. GitHub stops at 1,000 for any single query. Lists are read in full.
githubToken	none	Your own personal access token, marked secret. No scopes needed for public data. Recommended for anything past a small run.
notionConnector, notionParentId	none	Optional. Also write each row into your connected Notion workspace.
proxyConfiguration	none	Optional and usually unnecessary.

📤 What you get back

A real repository row from a real run:

{
  "ok": true,
  "fullName": "fastapi/fastapi",
  "name": "fastapi",
  "owner": "fastapi",
  "url": "https://github.com/fastapi/fastapi",
  "description": "FastAPI framework, high performance, easy to learn, fast to code, ready for production",
  "stars": 103143,
  "forks": 10048,
  "openIssues": 81,
  "language": "Python",
  "topics": ["api", "async", "asyncio", "fastapi", "framework", "json", "openapi", "python", "rest", "swagger"],
  "license": "MIT",
  "homepage": "https://fastapi.tiangolo.com/",
  "defaultBranch": "master",
  "createdAt": "2018-12-08T08:21:47Z",
  "updatedAt": "2026-10-16T16:24:31Z",
  "pushedAt": "2026-10-16T14:13:36Z",
  "isFork": false,
  "archived": false,
  "isTemplate": false,
  "sizeKb": 55214,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-16T17:46:00.033Z"
}

Field	How to read it
fullName	The repo and its owner in one string. Use it as your key.
stars, forks, openIssues	Numbers at read time, not running totals.
license	The licence as its SPDX id.
homepage, defaultBranch	As set on the repo. Null when there is none.
pushedAt, updatedAt	pushedAt is the one that tells you whether a project is alive. updatedAt moves on a star, too.
sizeKb	The size GitHub reports for the repository, in kilobytes.
readme	Null when the repository has no README. readmeTruncated is true when it was cut at 20,000 characters.
type	On user rows, separates a person from an organisation.
name, bio, company, location, blog, twitterUsername	On user rows, profile text as filled in. Plenty of accounts leave these empty.
hireable	True only when the person ticked it on their profile.

🧾 Reading the output

Data rows carry ok: true. Notes carry ok: false and an errorCode, and are never charged.

Row	How to spot it	Charged
A repository or user	ok is true	yes
A diagnostic	ok is false, and errorCode says what happened	no

Code	What it means
BAD_INPUT	The query was empty, GitHub refused the query or the token (its reason is in error), or a list entry is not a username or owner/repo.
NO_RESULTS	GitHub returned no matches for that search.
RATE_LIMITED	GitHub's limit was hit. rateLimitResetsAt says when it clears. Add a token, or ask for fewer items.
NOT_SERVED	This request was not served this run. Re-run it later. Until 12 October 2026 this code was called BLOCKED.
NOT_FOUND	A username or repository from your list that GitHub doesn't know. input says which.
SERVER_ERROR	GitHub's own error. Worth one re-run.
NETWORK	GitHub was unreachable or answered badly.
TIME_LIMIT	The run got close to its time limit and stopped on its own. The results delivered before that are complete and charged. Give the run more time, or ask for fewer items, to get the rest.

A note never fails the run, except one: when the time limit stopped the run before any result came back, the run ends as failed, with a TIME_LIMIT row saying so.

The default table view is built for repositories, so a users run looks blank in it. Open a row, or export the dataset, and the profile fields are all there.

💡 What people use it for

• Tracking a topic over time. The same query weekly, keyed on fullName, shows what is growing.
• Checking a dependency list: paste every owner/repo you rely on and filter for archived, or a pushedAt more than a year old.
• Licence audits across a topic, using the SPDX id on every row.
• Building a reading set from READMEs, with includeReadme on a topic: search.
• Feeding a Notion database of interesting repos straight from the run.

🚧 What it does not do

• 1,000 results per search. GitHub's cap. Split by stars:1000..5000, by created: window, or by language, and put the pieces in Several searches.
• No repo contents beyond the README. No file tree, no issues, no pull requests, no contributor list.
• No private data. Public repositories and public profiles only, whatever token you paste.
• No e-mail addresses, even where a profile shows one.
• A rate limit part-way through a single search loses that run's rows. Use a token for long jobs. With lists, several searches or README text, the rows read before the limit are kept.
• The odd user row from a search comes back thin, with only the login and URL, when GitHub's profile call did not answer for that account. It is charged like any other row.
• Counts are a snapshot. Stars move.
• It is not an official GitHub tool. Dami's Studio is independent and is not affiliated with or endorsed by GitHub, or by any other company named on this page.

🧭 Which developer scraper do you need?

If you want	Use
Articles from DEV.to by tag or author, with the full text on request	DEV.to Scraper
Hacker News stories, Ask and Show HN posts, and comments	Hacker News Scraper
Stack Overflow questions with the body and the accepted answer	Stack Overflow Scraper
Repositories and developer profiles from a GitHub search or a list	This one
npm and PyPI package details and download counts	npm + PyPI Package Scraper
Product launches and their upvotes	Product Hunt Scraper

❓ Questions people ask

Do I need a GitHub token to scrape repositories?

Not for a small run. For anything bigger, yes, because the signed-out allowance is tight and a run that hits it stops. A list or README text uses one request per name, so past about 60 you need one.

Is my GitHub token safe?

It goes in a secret input field, it is only sent to GitHub, and it never appears in the dataset or the log. A read-only token with no scopes is enough.

Why did my GitHub search return nothing?

If GitHub refused the query, you get a BAD_INPUT row with GitHub's own reason, such as a misspelt qualifier (star:>1000 instead of stars:>1000). A NO_RESULTS row means GitHub really found nothing.

How do I get more than 1,000 repositories?

Split the job into narrower ranges, star bands or creation-date windows, and put up to 10 of them in Several searches. A repository two of them find is charged once.

Can I get specific GitHub users or organisations?

Yes. Paste their usernames or profile links into Usernames. Organisations also come back in a users search, with type telling you which is which.

Can I call it from code or connect it to an AI assistant?

Yes. The API tab has ready-made code for Python, JavaScript and the command line. For Claude, ChatGPT or another MCP client, connect https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,dami_studio/github-scraper. Either way the run happens on your Apify account at the same price.

Is it legal to scrape GitHub?

This returns public repositories and public profiles only, read through GitHub's public API. Profiles are personal data under GDPR and similar laws, so have a reason for holding them, and the rules on unsolicited contact apply if you use a profile's links to reach someone. GitHub's own terms also limit what you may do with data taken from it. Apify's write-up on the legality of web scraping is a good starting point, and we are not lawyers.

🆘 If something breaks

Open the Issues tab on the actor page. Send the exact query and the run ID. If a diagnostic row landed, its errorCode and hint usually name the reason already. Never paste your token into an issue.