Stack Overflow Scraper - Questions & Public User Metadata

Scrape Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange question records through the official Stack Exchange API. The Actor can search questions by keyword, filter by tags, fetch exact question IDs, and optionally fetch public user profile metadata by user ID.

Use it for developer research, technical trend tracking, support knowledge-base discovery, and public Q&A analysis. No login is required. A Stack Apps API key is optional for higher quota.

Quick Start

{
  "searchQueries": ["async await"],
  "tags": ["javascript"],
  "questionIds": [],
  "userIds": [],
  "sort": "votes",
  "includeBody": false,
  "maxResults": 5,
  "site": "stackoverflow",
  "apiKey": "",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": false
  }
}

This collects a small set of JavaScript async await questions without full bodies or proxy usage.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Notes
searchQueries	string array	["async await"]	Keyword searches for questions.
tags	string array	[]	Stack Exchange tags such as javascript, python, or visual-studio-code.
questionIds	string array	[]	Exact question IDs to fetch.
userIds	string array	[]	Exact public user IDs to fetch into the Users view.
sort	string	votes	One of votes, activity, creation, or hot.
includeBody	boolean	false	Include plain-text question body when enabled.
maxResults	integer	10	Question cap across all question inputs.
site	string	stackoverflow	Any Stack Exchange API site, for example superuser or askubuntu.
apiKey	string	empty	Optional Stack Apps key for higher API quota.
proxyConfiguration	object	disabled	Usually not needed for small official API runs.

Output

The default dataset contains question rows and optional public user rows. Store views separate them into Questions and Users.

Question fields include:

Field	Description
questionId, title, link	Stack Exchange question identity and URL.
score, answerCount, viewCount, isAnswered	Public engagement metrics.
tags	Question tags.
ownerName, ownerId, ownerReputation	Public owner metadata returned by the API.
createdAt, lastActivityAt	Question timestamps.
body	Plain-text question body when includeBody is enabled.
site, scrapedAt	Source site and scrape timestamp.

User rows include public profile fields such as displayName, reputation, badge counts, optional location, optional websiteUrl, profile link, and scrapedAt.

Verified Sample

An existing successful run returned this Stack Overflow question:

{
  "questionId": 70201407,
  "title": "Making paragraphs for the outline in VS Code using comments",
  "score": 3,
  "answerCount": 4,
  "viewCount": 2574,
  "isAnswered": true,
  "tags": ["python", "visual-studio-code", "code-organization"],
  "ownerName": "Oily",
  "ownerReputation": 729,
  "createdAt": "2021-12-02T14:38:19.000Z",
  "lastActivityAt": "2026-06-22T06:54:16.000Z",
  "site": "stackoverflow"
}

Pricing

Active pay-per-event pricing:

Event	Price
question-scraped	$0.002 per question
user-scraped	$0.002 per public user row
apify-actor-start	$0.00005 per GB at run start

Rows are saved and charged atomically. Duplicate questions are skipped, one global question cap is enforced, and later pages or batches stop when the user's spending limit is reached.

Common Workflows

1. Track popular questions for a language, framework, or error pattern.
2. Build a public Q&A research dataset by tag and keyword.
3. Fetch exact question IDs for known Stack Overflow discussions.
4. Use site to collect from other Stack Exchange communities.
5. Export to CSV, Excel, JSON, HTML, or connect through the Apify API.

Notes and Limits

• The Actor uses the official Stack Exchange API, so quotas and fields follow that API.
• A Stack Apps API key can raise request quota; small tests usually do not need it.
• includeBody increases response size. Keep it off unless body text is needed.
• Public user fields are optional and should be used for analysis, not spam or unsolicited outreach.

Responsible Use

Use this Actor for lawful collection of public Stack Exchange data. Respect Stack Exchange terms, API rules, privacy laws, and any downstream restrictions for exported data.

License

Apache-2.0