GitHub Stars Tracker

Track GitHub repository stars, forks, and metadata using the GitHub REST API. Extract detailed stats for any public repository or search for repos by keyword.

What does GitHub Stars Tracker do?

GitHub Stars Tracker is an Apify actor that collects detailed metadata from GitHub repositories using the public GitHub REST API. It extracts star counts, fork counts, watchers, language, topics, license information, and more.

You can provide specific repository URLs to track, or use search terms to discover repositories. The actor supports sorting search results by stars, forks, or recent updates. It is ideal for developers, researchers, and analysts who need structured GitHub repository data at scale.

Use Cases

• Market researchers -- Compare open source project popularity and adoption trends across categories
• Data analysts -- Build datasets of GitHub repositories for technology landscape analysis
• Business owners -- Monitor competitor open source projects and their community traction
• Developers -- Track repositories of interest and discover trending projects in specific languages or topics

Features

• Extract detailed repository metadata from any public GitHub repo
• Search GitHub repositories by keywords with sorting options
• Optional GitHub token support for higher API rate limits (5,000 vs 60 requests/hour)
• Proxy support with automatic rotation
• Handles pagination and large datasets automatically
• Exports to JSON, CSV, Excel, or connect via API

How much will it cost?

GitHub Stars Tracker uses the free GitHub REST API, so the main cost is Apify platform compute time.

Results	Estimated Cost
100	~$0.01
1,000	~$0.05
10,000	~$0.25

Cost Component	Per 1,000 Results
Platform compute	~$0.05
Proxy (optional)	~$0.00
Total	~$0.05

How to use

1. Go to the GitHub Stars Tracker page on Apify Store
2. Click "Start" or "Try for free"
3. Enter GitHub repository URLs or search terms
4. Set the maximum number of items
5. Click "Start" and wait for the results

Input parameters

Parameter	Type	Description	Default
startUrls	array	GitHub repository URLs to track	-
searchTerms	array	Search queries to find repos	-
sortBy	string	Sort search results (stars/forks/updated)	stars
maxItems	number	Max results to return	100
githubToken	string	GitHub personal access token (optional)	-
proxyConfig	object	Proxy settings	Apify Proxy

Output

The actor produces a dataset with the following fields:

{
    "name": "crawlee",
    "fullName": "apify/crawlee",
    "owner": "apify",
    "description": "Crawlee—A web scraping and browser automation library for Node.js...",
    "stars": 15000,
    "forks": 600,
    "watchers": 15000,
    "language": "TypeScript",
    "topics": ["web-scraping", "crawler", "nodejs"],
    "license": "Apache License 2.0",
    "createdAt": "2022-07-13T08:06:38Z",
    "updatedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00Z",
    "url": "https://github.com/apify/crawlee",
    "homepage": "https://crawlee.dev",
    "openIssuesCount": 120,
    "isArchived": false,
    "scrapedAt": "2024-01-15T10:30:00.000Z"
}

Field	Type	Description
name	string	Repository name
fullName	string	Owner/repo format
owner	string	Repository owner
description	string	Repository description
stars	integer	Number of stargazers
forks	integer	Number of forks
watchers	integer	Number of watchers
language	string	Primary programming language
topics	array	Repository topics/tags
license	string	License name
createdAt	string	Repository creation date (ISO 8601)
updatedAt	string	Last update date (ISO 8601)
url	string	GitHub repository URL
homepage	string	Project homepage URL
openIssuesCount	integer	Number of open issues
isArchived	boolean	Whether the repository is archived
scrapedAt	string	ISO 8601 scrape timestamp

Integrations

Connect GitHub Stars Tracker with other tools:

• Apify API -- REST API for programmatic access
• Webhooks -- get notified when a run finishes
• Zapier / Make -- connect to 5,000+ apps
• Google Sheets -- export directly to spreadsheets

API Example (Node.js)

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_TOKEN' });
const run = await client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/github-stars-tracker').call({
    startUrls: [{ url: 'https://github.com/apify/crawlee' }],
    maxItems: 100,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();

API Example (Python)

from apify_client import ApifyClient
client = ApifyClient('YOUR_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('YOUR_USERNAME/github-stars-tracker').call(run_input={
    'startUrls': [{'url': 'https://github.com/apify/crawlee'}],
    'maxItems': 100,
})
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items

API Example (cURL)

curl "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/YOUR_USERNAME~github-stars-tracker/runs" \
  -X POST \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN" \
  -d '{"startUrls": [{"url": "https://github.com/apify/crawlee"}], "maxItems": 100}'

Tips and tricks

• Start with a small maxItems (10-20) to test before running large scrapes
• Use a GitHub personal access token to increase rate limits from 60 to 5,000 requests per hour
• The actor works without proxies since GitHub API is publicly accessible

FAQ

Q: Does this actor require login credentials? A: No. The GitHub REST API is public. Optionally provide a GitHub token for higher rate limits.

Q: How fast is the scraping? A: Approximately 50-100 repositories per minute without a token, 200-500 with a token.

Q: What should I do if I get rate limited? A: Add a GitHub personal access token in the Authentication section to get 5,000 requests/hour.

Is it legal to scrape GitHub?

This actor uses the official GitHub REST API which is publicly available and intended for programmatic access. It only accesses publicly available data. Always review and respect GitHub's Terms of Service and API usage policies. For more information, see Apify's blog on web scraping legality.

Limitations

• Without a GitHub token, rate limited to 60 API requests per hour
• Only public repositories are accessible without authentication
• GitHub search API returns a maximum of 1,000 results per query

Changelog

• v0.1 (2026-04-23) -- Initial release