F-Droid App Catalog Scraper

Get clean, structured metadata for open-source Android apps from F-Droid, the free-and-open-source Android app catalog. Search by keyword, pull exact packages by ID, or filter by category — and receive one tidy JSON record per app, ready for analysis, dashboards, or a dataset.

F-Droid publishes an official, fully public repository index, but it ships as one large raw JSON blob with localized string maps, epoch-millisecond timestamps, and version data spread across nested objects. This Actor does the parsing for you: it downloads the index once, resolves the best English strings, picks the suggested stable version, builds absolute icon and APK URLs, and hands back flat, predictable records.

What you get per app

Field	Description
packageName	Android application ID (e.g. org.fdroid.fdroid)
name	App display name
summary	One-line summary
description	Full description
license	SPDX license (e.g. GPL-3.0-or-later)
categories	F-Droid categories the app belongs to
authorName	Author / maintainer name
webSite	Project website
sourceCode	Source-code repository
issueTracker	Issue tracker URL
changelog	Changelog URL
translation	Translation platform URL
donate	Donation links
added	Date first added to F-Droid (YYYY-MM-DD)
lastUpdated	Date last updated (YYYY-MM-DD)
suggestedVersionName	Suggested stable version name
suggestedVersionCode	Suggested stable version code
antiFeatures	Anti-feature flags (e.g. NonFreeNet, Tracking, Ads)
iconUrl	Absolute icon URL
latestApkUrl	Absolute APK download URL for the suggested version
url	F-Droid app page

Any field that is absent for a given app is returned as null, so the output shape is stable.

Input

Provide any combination of these — they compose:

Field	Type	Description
query	string	Keyword matched against name, summary, description and package ID (case-insensitive).
packageIds	array	Exact application IDs to fetch. Always returned, regardless of query/categories.
categories	array	Restrict to F-Droid categories (e.g. Internet, Security, Games, Multimedia, System).
maxItems	integer	Cap on the number of records returned. Defaults to 100.

Examples

Search for messaging apps:

{ "query": "messaging", "maxItems": 25 }

Fetch specific packages exactly:

{ "packageIds": ["org.fdroid.fdroid", "org.thoughtcrime.securesms"] }

Security apps only, narrowed by keyword:

{ "query": "password", "categories": ["Security"], "maxItems": 50 }

Bulk catalog exports and recurring refreshes

Use the catalog as a structured source for an open-source app directory, license review, or Android research dataset. Try the existing one-package sample first; for a larger snapshot, remove keyword/package/category filters and set an explicit cap:

{ "maxItems": 5000 }

This returns up to 5,000 app records, not a guaranteed complete catalog. The catalog size changes; compare the returned count to your chosen cap before treating a snapshot as complete. Export the dataset as JSON or CSV from Apify.

For recurring refreshes, schedule this same input in Apify and compare packageName, suggestedVersionCode, lastUpdated, license, and antiFeatures in your own workflow. This Actor returns the current snapshot; it does not store historical diffs or send change alerts. A missing app in a capped or failed run does not prove removal.

Each run downloads the full official index before filtering, even for a small result cap. Only emitted app records incur the Actor's app-event charge; applicable platform costs and your plan's price are shown in Apify's Pricing tab. No APK scanning, vulnerability verdicts, or install-popularity estimates are included.

How it works

1. Downloads F-Droid's official index-v2.json once (public, no auth, no anti-bot).
2. Stream-parses it one package at a time (peak memory measured 60–126 MB in cloud runs on 2026-09-25, well inside the default 512 MB) and filters to your query, package IDs, and/or categories.
3. Resolves localized strings, converts timestamps to ISO dates, picks the suggested stable version, and builds absolute icon/APK URLs.
4. Pushes one clean record per matched app to the dataset.

Because the whole catalog is fetched in a single request and filtered locally, runs are fast and put minimal load on F-Droid's servers.

Pricing

This Actor uses pay-per-event: you are charged per app record returned. No subscription, no idle costs — you pay only for the data you get.

Notes

• Data comes straight from F-Droid's public repository index; the Actor never fabricates fields.
• All software indexed by F-Droid is free and open source; this Actor only reads publicly published catalog metadata.