Coursera Scraper — Extract Courses, Ratings & Enrollment Data

📚 Coursera Scraper — Extract Courses, Ratings & Enrollment Data

Extract structured course data from Coursera — search by keyword, apply powerful filters, or use start URLs. Get title, provider, rating, skills, enrollment count, difficulty & duration per course. Flat $0.005/item — simple, predictable, and scalable pricing.

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🚀 Why This Actor?

Feature	This Actor	Competitors
Price per item	$0.005 flat	$0.02+ or Pay-per-compute
Compute Costs	Included	Hidden (You pay for their slow code)
Speed & Arch	Ultra-Fast (Cheerio)	Slow (Playwright/Puppeteer)
Data Richness	Skills, Badges, Enrollment	Title & URL only
Input Fields	Rich Filters (Lang, Level)	Confusing and broken

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✨ Features

• 🔍 2 Search Modes — keyword search (e.g. "python", "data science") or direct Coursera search URLs.
• 📄 Rich Output — title, provider, rating, # reviews, difficulty, duration, skills list, badges, Coursera Plus flag.
• 🌐 Powerful Filters — Language, Difficulty Level, Duration, and Product Type (Course, Specialization, Certificate, Degree).
• 🔬 Deep Scrape Mode — navigate each course page to extract enrollment count, full description, and price.
• 💰 Flat Pricing — ~$0.00005 Base + $0.005/item. No hidden compute fees.
• 📦 Multiple Export Formats — JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, HTML Table.

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🎯 Use Cases

Audience	Applications
EdTech Founders	Identify trending skills, gaps in the market, and underserved course topics
Market Researchers	Analyze MOOC trends, provider dominance, and rating distributions at scale
Lead Generation	Find top-rated instructors and universities for outreach and partnerships
Competitor Analysts	Track enrollment growth, ratings, and pricing of rival courses over time

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💡 Quick Start

1. Sign Up (Free $5 Credit)

Uses our referral link — you get $5 free credit to test immediately. No credit card required.

2. Run Your First Search

{
  "searchKeywords": ["python"],
  "maxItems": 50,
  "difficultyLevel": "Beginner",
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

3. Download Results

Results appear in the Dataset tab. Export as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, or HTML Table.

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⚙️ Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Default	Description
searchKeywords	array	No*	—	Keywords to search (e.g. ["python", "data science"]). *Required if no startUrls.
startUrls	array	No*	—	Direct Coursera search or course page URLs.
language	string	No	All	Filter by language (English, Spanish, French…)
difficultyLevel	string	No	All	Filter by level (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, Mixed)
duration	string	No	All	Filter by duration (1-4 Weeks, 1-3 Months, 3-6 Months)
learningProduct	string	No	All	Filter by type (Courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, Degrees)
deepScrape	boolean	No	false	Navigate each course page for enrollment count, description & price
maxItems	integer	No	100	Max items to return (1–10,000)
proxyConfiguration	object	Yes	Apify Proxy	Proxies are required for Coursera

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📊 Output Example

Each item in the dataset contains the following fields:

{
  "title": "Crash Course on Python",
  "url": "https://www.coursera.org/learn/python-crash-course",
  "productType": "COURSE",
  "provider": "Google",
  "rating": 4.77,
  "numRatings": 40492,
  "difficultyLevel": "Beginner",
  "duration": "1-3 months",
  "skills": ["Python Programming", "Computer Programming", "Data Structures", "Debugging"],
  "languages": ["English"],
  "imageUrl": "https://s3.amazonaws.com/coursera-course-photos/...",
  "isPartOfCourseraPlus": true,
  "badges": ["Free Trial"],
  "description": "Offered by Google. Learn Python foundations to write simple programs...",
  "enrolled": 41419421,
  "price": null,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-04T13:14:02.696Z"
}

Data Fields

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Course title
url	string	Full Coursera URL
productType	string	COURSE, SPECIALIZATION, PROFESSIONAL_CERTIFICATE, or DEGREE
provider	string	Institution (Google, Stanford, University of Michigan…)
rating	number	Average star rating (0–5)
numRatings	number	Total number of reviews
difficultyLevel	string	Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced / Mixed
duration	string	Estimated time to complete
skills	array	List of skills taught
languages	array	Available languages
isPartOfCourseraPlus	boolean	Included in Coursera Plus subscription
badges	array	Course badges (e.g. Free Trial)
enrolled	number	Learners enrolled (deep scrape only)
description	string	Course description (deep scrape only)
price	string	Course price if visible (deep scrape only)
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 timestamp

Download the dataset in JSON, HTML, CSV, or Excel from the Dataset tab.

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💰 Pricing (Pay Per Event)

Event	Rate
Actor Start (apify-actor-start)	$0.00005 (Apify default)
Result Item (apify-default-dataset-item)	$0.005

Examples:

• 100 items: ~$0.00005 + 100 × $0.005 = $0.50
• 1,000 items: ~$0.00005 + 1,000 × $0.005 = $5.00
• 10,000 items: ~$0.00005 + 10,000 × $0.005 = $50.00

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🔧 Integration (API)

Node.js

$npm install apify-client

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('forlex/coursera-scraper').call({
  searchKeywords: ['machine learning'],
  difficultyLevel: 'Beginner',
  maxItems: 100,
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python

$pip install apify-client

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")

run = client.actor("forlex/coursera-scraper").call(
    run_input={
        "searchKeywords": ["data science"],
        "maxItems": 100,
        "deepScrape": False,
    }
)

items = client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).list_items().items
for item in items:
    print(item["title"], item["provider"], item["rating"])

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💡 Tips & Advanced Options

• Optimize speed: Use deepScrape: false for fast bulk collection of search results. Enable deepScrape only when you need enrollment counts or descriptions.
• Reduce costs: Start with maxItems: 10 to validate your keyword before scaling up.
• Combine filters: Use difficultyLevel + duration + learningProduct together to narrow down exactly what you need.
• Start URLs: For precise scraping, paste a Coursera search URL directly into startUrls (e.g., https://www.coursera.org/search?query=python&productDifficultyLevel=Beginner).

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❓ FAQ, Disclaimers & Support

Is it legal to scrape Coursera?

Web scraping of publicly available data is generally legal. This Actor only extracts publicly visible course information and does not bypass any login walls or access private data. Always review the target website's Terms of Service before scraping.

What if the Actor stops working?

Websites change their structure regularly. If you encounter issues, please report them in the Issues tab and we'll fix it promptly.

Can I get a custom solution?

Yes! If you need additional fields, scheduled runs, or a scraper for a different platform, reach out through the Issues tab.

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