NuGet Package Scraper - Downloads, Versions & License Info

Look up any NuGet.org package by its exact package ID and get back the latest stable version, total download count, authors, license and project URLs, tags and version history size, in structured JSON. Built for .NET dependency audits, library popularity research and vendor due diligence.

Why use this scraper

NuGet.org shows package metadata on its website, but pulling total downloads, latest stable version, license URL and author list for a list of packages at once means opening each package page by hand or writing and maintaining your own HTTP client against NuGet's internal endpoints. Teams doing dependency audits across many repositories, or comparing the popularity of competing .NET libraries before choosing one, need this data in bulk, not one page at a time.

This Actor takes a single package ID or a list of hundreds and returns one clean row per package: the current stable release, how many times it has been downloaded in total, who maintains it, and where its license and project page live. Packages that don't exist or only have pre-release versions come back as a clearly labeled item instead of breaking the run.

Overview

For each package ID, the Actor queries the public NuGet package search service and returns the latest stable (non pre-release) version, its description, author list, total download count across all versions, tags, project and license URLs, how many stable versions exist, and the download count of that specific latest version. A run of 20 packages typically finishes in a few seconds since no browser rendering is involved.

Supported inputs

Field	Type	Required / default	Description
packageId	string	Optional, prefilled with Newtonsoft.Json	A single NuGet package ID
packageIds	array of strings	Optional	Multiple package IDs in one run, duplicates removed (case insensitive)
maxItems	integer	Default 20, min 1, max 100	Maximum number of packages to process in the run

At least one package ID must be supplied via packageId or packageIds, otherwise the run returns a single warning item and exits without charging.

Use cases

1. .NET dependency audits - check total downloads, latest version and license for every package in a project's .csproj or packages.config file at once, to flag unmaintained or unusually low-adoption dependencies before a security review.
2. Library popularity comparison - compare total and latest-version download counts across two or more competing packages (for example, different JSON or logging libraries) before picking one for a new project.
3. License compliance checks - pull the licenseUrl for every package a codebase depends on to build a license inventory for legal or compliance review.
4. Package catalog enrichment - feed a list of package IDs scraped or exported from another source (a GitHub repo scan, an internal package registry mirror) into this Actor to attach live NuGet metadata to each entry.
5. Vendor and maintainer research - look up the authors field across a set of packages to understand who maintains critical pieces of a .NET dependency tree.

How it works

1. The Actor normalizes packageId and packageIds into one deduplicated list (case insensitive) and caps it at maxItems.
2. For each package ID, it queries NuGet's public package search service and matches the exact package ID against the returned candidates, since the search service can return several packages for a partial match.
3. Pre-release versions are excluded from the match, so the version field returned is always the latest stable release.
4. Each successfully matched package produces one row with its metadata; a package ID with no match produces a row with packageId and an error field instead of stopping the run.
5. Failed lookups are retried automatically with increasing delay before being marked as not found, to absorb transient NuGet service hiccups rather than reporting a false negative.

Input configuration - 3 examples

Single package:

{
  "packageId": "Newtonsoft.Json",
  "maxItems": 1
}

Multiple packages for a comparison:

{
  "packageIds": ["Newtonsoft.Json", "System.Text.Json", "Serilog"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Larger batch for a dependency audit:

{
  "packageIds": ["Newtonsoft.Json", "Dapper", "AutoMapper", "FluentValidation", "Polly"],
  "maxItems": 50
}

Output sample

Real output from a reference run against Newtonsoft.Json:

{
  "id": "Newtonsoft.Json",
  "version": "13.0.4",
  "description": "Json.NET is a popular high-performance JSON framework for .NET",
  "authors": ["James Newton-King"],
  "totalDownloads": 9325394018,
  "tags": ["json"],
  "projectUrl": "https://www.newtonsoft.com/json",
  "licenseUrl": "https://www.nuget.org/packages/Newtonsoft.Json/13.0.4/license",
  "versionsCount": 53,
  "latestVersionDownloads": 239977051,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-10-21T09:18:42.779Z"
}

A package ID that cannot be matched returns:

{
  "packageId": "Some.Nonexistent.Package",
  "error": "not_found"
}

Key output fields

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Package ID as registered on NuGet
version	string	Latest stable (non pre-release) version
description	string or null	Package description
authors	array or null	Listed package authors
totalDownloads	integer or null	Total downloads across all versions
tags	array	Package tags, empty array when none are set
projectUrl	string or null	Project homepage URL, when set
licenseUrl	string or null	License page URL, when set
versionsCount	integer	Number of stable versions listed
latestVersionDownloads	integer or null	Downloads of the specific latest version
error	string	Present only on packages that could not be matched
scrapedAt	string (ISO)	Timestamp of extraction

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.001 per package item successfully returned ("Item scraped" event). Error and warning items are not charged. There is no separate Actor start fee. On the free Apify plan, maxItems is capped at 10 per run so you can inspect the real output format before upgrading.

What makes this richer than the competition

Compared to chrisp1211/nuget-scraper-max and brunofin/nuget-package-stats, two other small NuGet lookup Actors on the Store, this Actor returns the fuller metadata set in one pass: total downloads, latest-version-specific downloads, full author list, tags, project and license URLs and version count together, with exact-package-ID matching against NuGet's search service so a common package name does not accidentally return the wrong library. It also handles not-found packages and pre-release-only packages explicitly as labeled items instead of errors that stop the run.

Notes & limitations

• Only exact package IDs are supported; there is no fuzzy or keyword search across the NuGet catalog.
• Pre-release versions are intentionally excluded from version; a package that has only ever shipped pre-release versions is reported as not found.
• Per-version release notes, target framework lists, and declared package dependencies are not part of the output.
• The license text itself is not fetched, only the licenseUrl NuGet provides, when it provides one.
• Packages are looked up one at a time per run, subject to the NuGet public service's own rate limits on very large batches.

FAQ

Can I look up a package by a partial or fuzzy name? No, you need the exact NuGet package ID. Use NuGet.org's own search to find the exact ID first if you only have a partial name.

What happens if I request a package that only has pre-release versions? It comes back as a not-found item, since the Actor only reports stable releases.

Does totalDownloads include pre-release downloads? Yes, totalDownloads reflects NuGet's all-versions download counter, including pre-release versions; only the reported version itself is restricted to stable.

How many packages can I process in one run? Up to maxItems, capped at 100 per run (10 on the free Apify plan); larger catalogs can be split across multiple runs.

Does this return the package's dependency list? No, dependencies and target frameworks are not part of the current output.

Is a browser or proxy needed to run this? No, it queries NuGet's public search service directly with plain HTTP requests.

What's the difference between totalDownloads and latestVersionDownloads? totalDownloads is the lifetime download count across every version of the package ever published. latestVersionDownloads is the download count of just the specific latest stable version, which is useful for spotting a package whose overall popularity comes mostly from an old, possibly abandoned release.

Can this replace manually checking a .csproj file against NuGet.org? For metadata, yes: feed it the package IDs from your project file and it returns the same version, download and license data you'd otherwise look up one page at a time.

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

This Actor is available over the Apify MCP server (mcp.apify.com) for direct use from Claude, ChatGPT or any MCP-compatible agent, and over the standard Apify API.

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/gio21~nuget-packages-scraper/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"packageId": "Newtonsoft.Json", "maxItems": 1}'

Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by NuGet, the .NET Foundation, Microsoft or any of their subsidiaries. It reads publicly available package metadata. All trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

SEO Keywords

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