🚀 Pornhub Video & Analytics Scraper (Fast, Cheap & Zero-Browser)

A state-of-the-art, high-throughput web scraper for Pornhub built for data analysts, market researchers, and AI model creators.

Unlike legacy or abandoned scrapers that rely on heavy, resource-intensive headless browsers (Playwright/Selenium), this Actor uses asynchronous protocol-level HTTP requests with Chrome TLS fingerprint emulation (curl_cffi) to extract rich video intelligence at a fraction of the compute unit (CU) cost.

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⚡ Why This Scraper Beats Other Alternatives

Feature	Legacy Scrapers (Playwright / Selenium)	This Actor (curl_cffi + TLS Emulation)
Compute Unit Cost	🔴 Expensive (0.5 - 2 GB RAM per worker)	🟢 Ultra-low (~128 MB RAM, 10x cheaper)
Speed	🔴 5 - 12 seconds per page	🟢 0.3 - 0.8 seconds per video
Anti-Bot Resistance	🟡 Easily flagged by Cloudflare canvas checks	🟢 Chrome 120 TLS fingerprint spoofing
Pricing	🔴 $10 - $25 per 1,000 results	🟢 $1.50 per 1,000 results
Data Integrity	🟡 Often fails on dynamic DOM hydration	🟢 Multi-tier parsing (JSON-LD, DOM, embedded variables)

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📊 Extracted Data Fields

Each scraped video item produces clean, structured JSON ready for CSV, Excel, or database ingestion:

Field Name	Type	Description
video_id	String	Unique video key identifier (e.g., "ph60c7a8b9e1")
title	String	Complete video title
url	String	Direct canonical video URL
duration	String	Human-readable duration (e.g., "14:32")
duration_seconds	Integer	Total duration in seconds (e.g., 872)
views	Integer	Normalized numerical view count (e.g., 1245000)
rating_percent	Integer	Like / approval rating percentage (e.g., 96)
upload_date	String	ISO 8601 upload timestamp (e.g., "2023-08-14T09:12:00Z")
author	String	Channel, model, or production studio name
pornstars	Array[String]	Verified model/performer names
categories	Array[String]	Editorial category tags
tags	Array[String]	Community & algorithmic search tags
comments_count	Integer	Total comments count
top_comments	Array[Object]	Top user comments with upvotes, author, and timestamp (if enabled)

Sample Output JSON

{
  "video_id": "ph60c7a8b9e1",
  "title": "Lex Fridman Podcast Episode - AI & Consciousness Discussion",
  "url": "https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph60c7a8b9e1",
  "duration": "45:10",
  "duration_seconds": 2710,
  "views": 842100,
  "rating_percent": 95,
  "upload_date": "2023-10-05T14:20:00Z",
  "author": "LexClipsOfficial",
  "pornstars": [],
  "categories": ["Interviews", "Entertainment", "Education"],
  "tags": ["podcast", "discussion", "technology", "ai"],
  "comments_count": 134,
  "top_comments": [
    {
      "author": "TechEnthusiast",
      "comment_text": "Incredible sound engineering on this studio recording.",
      "date": "2 months ago",
      "upvotes": 42
    }
  ]
}

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🛠️ Input Parameters

Configure the scraper via the Apify Console or API:

{
  "search_keywords": ["podcast", "interview"],
  "start_urls": [
    "https://www.pornhub.com/view_video.php?viewkey=ph5f89..."
  ],
  "max_items": 100,
  "sort_by": "mostviewed",
  "category": "interviews",
  "include_comments": true,
  "proxy_configuration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}

Parameter Details

• search_keywords (Array of Strings): Search terms to query across Pornhub's global catalog.
• start_urls (Array of URLs): Direct video links, channel links, or category URLs.
• max_items (Integer, default: 50): Maximum number of video records to scrape.
• sort_by (String, default: "mostviewed"): Choose between "mostviewed", "toprated", or "newest".
• category (String, optional): Filter search queries by category slug.
• include_comments (Boolean, default: false): Extracts top user comments with author, date, and upvote counts.
• proxy_configuration (Object): Apify Proxy configuration for maximum uptime across geo-restricted regions.

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🎯 High-Value Business Use Cases

1. Market Research & Creator Intelligence: Track audience engagement, view distributions, and trending themes across digital video entertainment.
2. Content Moderation & Brand Safety: Audit digital platforms for unauthorized content, trademark mentions, or DMCA infringements.
3. AI & Machine Learning Datasets: Collect structured metadata for natural language processing (NLP), video recommendation algorithms, and classification pipelines.
4. Competitor & Channel Benchmarking: Analyze top-performing formats, release schedules, and user rating trends.

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🔒 Privacy & Compliance

This tool extracts public metadata solely for legitimate analytics and research purposes. It adheres to Apify's ethical scraping guidelines and does not download or host copyrighted audiovisual streams.