Reddit Comments Scraper

Reddit is where people actually say what they think, but pulling that out in bulk is a pain. The official API wants credentials and caps how fast you can read, and copying replies by hand falls apart the moment a thread runs into the hundreds. This scraper reads Reddit's own public JSON feeds, walks the whole comment tree, and gives you every reply as a clean row with the author, text, score, community, and timestamps attached. Point it at a thread, a subreddit, or a user profile and it works out which is which. No login, no API key, no scrolling.

What you get

Every comment becomes one tidy row with the same shape, so the data drops straight into a sheet or database. Nested replies are flattened into individual rows, so a deep thread comes back fully expanded rather than buried. Each row carries:

• Who and where — authorName, subredditName, isOriginalPoster
• The content — commentText, voteScore, replyCount
• Links and IDs — commentUrl, threadUrl, commentId, shortId, parentNodeId
• Timing — postedAt, collectedAt

Quick start

1. Click Try for free and open the input form.
2. Paste one or more Reddit links into Reddit links — a thread, a subreddit, or a user profile all work.
3. Pick how comments should be ordered and set a Comment cap to control the run size.
4. Hit Start, then export the results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or XML once it finishes.

Use cases

• Sentiment analysis — gather raw replies to gauge how people feel about a brand, product, or topic
• Audience research — read what real users actually say in the threads that matter to your niche
• Academic and NLP work — assemble large conversational datasets for language modeling or social studies
• Competitor monitoring — track the discussion under posts that mention rivals or their products
• Community management — pull a user's comment history or a subreddit's recent replies for moderation context
• Trend spotting — surface the highest-scoring takes early by sorting on Top or Best

Input

Field	Type	Required	Description
redditUrls	array of strings	Yes	Reddit links to pull comments from. Each can be a thread, subreddit, or user profile; the scraper detects the type per link.
sortOrder	string	No	How Reddit ranks comments before collection: confidence (Best), top, new, controversial, old, or qa. Default confidence.
resultsLimit	integer	No	Maximum comments to pull per run (hard cap 5000). Default 50.
proxyConfiguration	object	No	Proxies that route requests across IPs to avoid throttling. Defaults to Apify Proxy.

Example input

{
    "redditUrls": [
        "https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18x9k2p/oc_global_coffee_consumption_per_capita/"
    ],
    "sortOrder": "confidence",
    "resultsLimit": 50,
    "proxyConfiguration": {
        "useApifyProxy": true
    }
}

Output

Each comment comes back as one row with a consistent set of fields, ready to export to JSON, CSV, or Excel. Nested replies are flattened into their own rows.

Example output

{
    "commentId": "t1_jk2xyz",
    "shortId": "jk2xyz",
    "commentUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18x9k2p/oc_global_coffee_consumption_per_capita/jk2xyz/",
    "threadUrl": "https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/18x9k2p/oc_global_coffee_consumption_per_capita/",
    "parentNodeId": "t3_18x9k2p",
    "authorName": "brewmetrics",
    "subredditName": "r/dataisbeautiful",
    "commentText": "Finland topping the chart tracks with everything I've read. Would love to see this split by age group next.",
    "voteScore": 248,
    "replyCount": 4,
    "isOriginalPoster": false,
    "postedAt": "2024-12-18T09:41:02+00:00",
    "collectedAt": "2026-06-30T08:00:00+00:00"
}

Output fields

Field	Type	Description
commentId	string	Fully-qualified Reddit ID, prefix included (for example t1_abc)
shortId	string	Bare comment ID with no type prefix
commentUrl	string	Direct link to the comment on Reddit
threadUrl	string	Link to the thread the comment belongs to
parentNodeId	string	Reddit ID of whatever this comment replies to, post or comment
authorName	string	Handle of the redditor who wrote the comment
subredditName	string	Community the comment was posted in, with the r/ prefix
commentText	string	The written content of the comment
voteScore	integer	Net score, upvotes less downvotes
replyCount	integer	How many direct replies hang off this comment
isOriginalPoster	boolean	True when the commenter also started the thread
postedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp for when the comment first went up
collectedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp for when this row was captured

Tips for best results

• Sort on Top or Best for the highlights. If you only want the comments people actually saw, set sortOrder to top and keep resultsLimit modest.
• Start with a small cap. Run 20–50 comments first to confirm the output fits your pipeline, then raise resultsLimit for the full pull.
• Thread links go deepest. A single post URL walks the whole reply tree; subreddit and user links return recent comments without nesting.
• Turn on proxies if a run stalls. Reddit throttles repeat traffic, so enabling Apify Proxy keeps larger jobs moving.
• Newest vs. Best matters. User and profile pulls default to newest-first; switch sortOrder when you care more about top replies than recency.

How can I use Reddit comments data?

How can I use the Reddit Comments Scraper for sentiment analysis? Point it at the threads where your brand, product, or topic comes up, set sortOrder to top, and let it collect the comments. Each row gives you the comment text plus its score, so you can weight opinions by how much the community agreed with them before running them through any sentiment model.

How can I download every reply from a Reddit thread? Paste a single post URL into redditUrls. The scraper walks the full comment tree and flattens every nested reply into its own row, so a long discussion comes back complete rather than truncated. Raise resultsLimit if the thread is large.

How can I pull a Reddit user's comment history? Drop a profile link such as https://www.reddit.com/user/someuser/ into redditUrls. You get that account's recent comments — text, community, score, and timestamps — which is handy for moderation review, research, or understanding how an account participates across subreddits.

How can I scrape comments from a whole subreddit? Add a subreddit link like https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/ and the scraper collects the newest comments flowing across that community, no need to list individual threads. Combine it with resultsLimit to keep the volume in check.

Is it legal to scrape data?

Our actors are ethical and do not extract any private user data, such as email addresses or private contact information. They only extract what the user has chosen to share publicly. We therefore believe that our actors, when used for ethical purposes by Apify users, are safe.

However, you should be aware that your results could contain personal data. Personal data is protected by the GDPR in the European Union and by other regulations around the world. You should not scrape personal data unless you have a legitimate reason to do so. If you're unsure whether your reason is legitimate, consult your lawyers.

You can also read Apify's blog post on the legality of web scraping.

Support

Questions, feature requests, or a field you'd like added? Reach out at data.apify@proton.me and we'll get back to you.